8:15 the phone rings this morning, I’m thinking it’s Michel calling to tell me that they are heading into the city but no its Maja, the Guest Relations manager calling to tell me that there is a problem with our overland excursion which is leaving tomorrow in Ilhabela, a small island just off the coast. What? what happened? - then I tell her to contact our tour organizer, Marianne to sort out. Well moments later I am in Maja’s office, the problem which has now know come to light is that in the small port of Ilhabela they do not have the agent facility to disembark any guests or crew - yes, to make a long story short, everything was fine until they submitted our documents to the port agent. Again, long story short, we only had a few hours to explore Santos because we or actually I, needed to get back to the ship to see what our new plans were going to be. I am reserving my final judgment on this tour organizer (the company that Marianne used, not Marianne) because the communication has not been the best but in the end, so far, we are getting this sorted. We, seven of us in total, are now in Sao Paulo in a hotel waiting for our flight out tomorrow to the Iguazu Falls. Sao Paulo is a crazy city metropolis of some 22 million people with traffic of 50 million cars - pretty crazy here, but for us a mere layover. Jan did not join this excursion due to a potential problem with the Yellow Fever carrying mosquitos.
So for our quick few hours in Santos, Jan wandered around the mall looking for a few new items while I headed to the beach side with Michel and Silvie to take a few pics of this beach side community. Very nice until it started to rain and then the thunder and lightening arrived to put on a big show, the rain came down in sheets, crazy. We were back to the ship by four, quick lunch before getting the word at 4:30 that our transfer to Sao Paulo was arriving at 5:30, oh my, I needed shower, pack and get a few administrative things sorted out in a hurry. So, we were all ready by 5:30 but because of the traffic on a Friday night, our transfer did not arrive until 6:45 - could have taken a bit more time to get ready but it looks like one of those, hurry up and wait tours. Anyway like I said, I will reserve any comments until the end of the tour. The hotel is nice and they did have our, tour company paid for, reservations.
A few pics of our day today, hope you enjoy…
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