December 03, 2008 – Rio de Janerio, Brazil

It was overcast and looking like rain when we awoke. We had a quick breakfast and went to the bridge where Captain John had invited us to view the sailing into Rio harbor. The fog was fairly heavy making the viewing difficult until we came close to Copacabana Beach, however it then began to rain and it was pouring as we docked at 10:00am. 5 of us had arranged with our friend Gabriel Hazan from Saban jewelers to be taken around the city so we waited for the initial rush to get off the ship and met our driver & guide at 11:30 when the rain had stopped. People usually tour first and finish at the jewelry stores but we opted to begin at the store for an hour and then went to lunch at a local Brazilian restaurant which has waiters coming around constantly with different meats on a skewer and they cut off slices for you to eat. It’s nonstop until you say “no more.” It was much better than the larger restaurants of this type that cater to tourists (and the cost was about 1/3 less as well.) Following a leisurely lunch we visited the City of Samba where the floats for Carnival are made by the various Samba Schools. The schools are from the various shanty towns or Favellas as they are called, and the competition is fierce. Each school builds a series of floats, usually 6 to 8, and has a theme that tells a story with the floats and costumes. They parade through the competition area with the floats and 4000 members over a several hour period. The floats were in early stages of construction but we could determine the general theme on many of them. They are huge, elaborate and use massive amounts of welded steel, plywood and Styrofoam. We had eaten so much at lunch that we returned to the ship feeling like we couldn’t eat any more for 2 days however six of us met Gabriel and his wife Patricia for dinner in the Compass Rose and then had drinks & conversation with friends until after midnight.