The city of Arrecife owes it name to the rock reef which covers the beach located in the city, Arrecife is Spanish for reef. This island dates back to the beginning of time or when BC became AD. There was a mummified remains found here from about 200AD and is on display at the Castle we visited today. This island and area really came into prominence during the same 15 century Age of Discovery. Portugal had Madeira while the Spanish had these Canary Island, and no nothing to do with the birds. When the Spanish came here during this time they eliminated the native population here, said to be from the North West of Africa, the DNA of this mummy determined this. Arrecife itself is a small town that can easily be reached by foot from the terminal. We strolled off and took the provided shuttle only to find that it may have taken 10 minutes off the walk, nice that HAL provided but really not that necessary here. That said, if we were docked at the other terminal the shuttle would have been needed. There is a nice little natural lagoon area to walk around with some stores and plenty of restaurants, bars and cafes. There is also a nice pedestrian area which goes for about 6 blocks before you reach the water and the Castle. Surprisingly the castle was free to tour today and was very interesting with a great museum section giving the history but sorry only in Spanish, we could see that it was built in the late 1500’s. This is also where the mentioned mummy is located. We spent a good hour here and it was well worth it. From here we just had to check out the beach area before stopping for a snack, beer and great wifi. We were back at the ship by 4:15 and enjoyed another great sail away from this nice relaxing port. Many did excursions out of this city, from camel rides to wine tasting. The real buzz around the ship is about our first stop in Africa tomorrow. So really a bit of a short post today as tomorrow we have an early HAL tour. A few pics of our day, hope you enjoy…
Quote of the day, “A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for”. - J.A. Shedd
We had the full line exit committee this morning, very nice.
Cruise and Port Director, Jeremy Hales
With wonderful Mitch, Events coordinator
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