Belém, Brazil is the capital, and largest city, of the State of Pará in the country's north. Belém, Portuguese for Bethlehem, was initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará (Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará). Brazilians often refer to the city as Belém do Pará (Belém of Pará) to differentiate it from a number of other towns called Belém in Brazil, as well as the city of Bethlehem in the West Bank of Israel. It lies approximately 60 miles upriver from the Atlantic Ocean, on the Pará River, which is part of the greater Amazon River system, and is the gateway to the Amazon River with a busy port, airport, and bus/coach station. With an estimated population of 1,499,641 people, or 2,491,052 in its metropolitan area, it is the 11th most populous city in ... read more

First, on Wednesday, February 22, 2023 (our day at sea), while we made our way from Salvador Da Bahia, Brazil to Recife, Brazil, the Oi Brasil group was busy providing complementary dance and music lessons to anyone with the stamina and/or coordination to participate. The list of “Learn to XXX” sessions on Wednesday included, “Learn to Play Samba,” “Learn to Dance Gafiera” and “Learn to Dance Samba.” Some members of the Oi Brasil group will stay aboard ship for the entire time we are in Brazil offering more “Learn to XXX” lessons. That should be fun. Recife, Brazil, our port of call on Thursday, February 23, 2023, has a population of 1,653,461 but hosts the fourth-largest urban area in Brazil with 4,054,866 inhabitants (both 2020 figures). It is the capital and largest city in the state ... read more

Carnival is an annual six-day Brazilian festival held, technically, only the Tuesday afternoon before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. During Lent, that forty-day period before Easter, many Christians, especially Roman Catholics, abstain from the consumption of meat and poultry. Those perishables would not survive through the end of Lent, so Carnival in Brazil or Mardi Gras in Louisiana or Fat Tuesday to many, began as a means of consuming perishables to prevent such wasteful spoilage, hence the term "carnival" evolved from carnelevare, "to remove meat." The Brazilian version of the festival is a celebration of music, dance and song whose rhythm, participation, and costumes vary from one region of Brazil to another. These rhythms were mainly developed by Afro-Brazlians and Pardos, incorporating and adapting many cultural influences, from the percussion beats of Africa to the ... read more

I have been able to see at least a portion of most of the NFL playoff games on the ship’s TV system. I’m not sure how all that works, but the U.S. broadcast networks are not routinely available on the ship, and, regardless of the network broadcasting the game, all the commercials have been promoting ESPN programming. Regardless, Holland America put on a very nice Super Bowl Party in the World Stage on the theater screen on Sunday evening. It was well attended with a crowd of about 5-4 Kansas City Chiefs fans in attendance. Unfortunately, the game didn’t start until 8:30 PM local time, getting very close to my bedtime. I left at half time to perform my nightly ritual, watched the third quarter from my loveseat (while the sleeping pill took effect) and began ... read more

We arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay bright and early on Saturday, February 11, 2023 for a 10-hour port of call, the second day of our two-day visit to Uruguay. Montevideo, as well as our next port of call, Buenos Aires, Argentina, sits on the banks of Río de la Plata or "river of silver." Where the river empties into the Atlantic Ocean, it forms a funnel-shaped indentation on the coastline. Depending on the geographer, the Río de la Plata may be considered a river, an estuary, a gulf or a marginal sea. If considered a river, it is the widest in the world with a maximum width of 140 miles. “Montevideo” is a word I just like to say. The same holds true for “Uruguay.” I even fleetingly considered Uruguay as a retirement locale. Uruguay is probably ... read more