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Published: March 20th 2023
Good Evening from Cambouri which is pronounced like “El Santo Camburee” or something strange like that. It’s not an island. It looks massive based on the tall thin towers dotting a very long shoreline however, the population is only 138,000. The population of people live behind the tall buildings. The buildings are hotels, restaurants, and banks. A crew member on the pirate boat told us that today and we jokingly didn’t believe him so he Googled it and showed us. He was wanting to practice his English so he spoke to us today. As a side note, all Costa staff are REQUIRED to speak English in order to work for Costa (odd, huh?) and all of the tours/excursion staff are required to speak at least three languages, but most speak four or five. For this boat, most know Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian plus they all know their home country language and English. Many are learning French. Several staff have expressed that they would prefer to work with Americans or serve Americans or work on a boat with Americans. I do not know why as we were not told why this is but I’m assuming because Americans tip. Argentinians and Brazilians do
not tip. Also, Brazilians are rude in my opinion. They definitely don’t seem to like English speakers. Now that we are out of Brazil, I will say that my opinion is based on about 50 people and 3 cities but Brazilians are pushy, arrogant, and they seem to specifically not like us Americans… not on the boat and not in any of the tourist shops or the tourist venues. If you are Caucasian and you are speaking English, they would rather you not be here. Not a really good impression from one of the poorest damn countries in the world. Their people are starving and sleeping on the streets on dirty mattresses and taking baths in lagoons. They need tourism so they should probably learn to smile. I see why there are very few Americans taking vacations to Brazil. They don’t want us here. I’m not sure they want anyone here, they just don’t want to be poor. It’s a mess but I didn’t cause it and it costs zero dollars to be kind.
So, let’s back up. We found the bacon and the sausages at breakfast this morning. Instead of the restaurant, I went to the buffet. It
was terrible. The eggs were cold. The sausage links were like tiny bratwursts but they were English links and they were awful. The “bacon” was like fat/thick cuts of pig with the skin still on and they were twisted. You know what was good? Donuts. That’s right. The breakfast buffet was loaded with donuts.. filled with jams, crème, or Nutella. Go figure. How do these people keep these amazing asses eating this crap food? You would never find a donut on any other cruise I’ve ever taken (which is fine by me).
We started to get off the boat and noticed they were stopping the small tender/muster boats because it was a long way from where the boat had stopped in the port to the actual port and the waves were rocking and rolling… so we sailed across in a big pirate ship! It was nice and the staff were nice too. We had an excursion here today – a cable car ride up to the top of a hill and then a schooner ride. No thanks. We cancelled it yesterday since we had already done both of those items. The funny thing is, the pirate ship is a
schooner. We walked up and down the beautiful flat sand beach and the tiled walkway with the extra lanes for walkers/joggers and bikers. There was a good breeze and it was probably around 80 degrees outside. Kamie found a bench under a tree with a breeze and I began searching the beach for seashells. I would find a good one and rinse it off at the showering stations they have every few feet on the beach. Kamie started helping me. We came back with a small jar of beautiful sea shells. We attempted to buy some items in the shops but no one would take American dollars and they were not friendly. She said it was 80,000 Brazilian reals for a hat. No freaking way folks. Do you know what 80,000 BR is? Around $15,500 US dollars. So I said maybe just 80 BR? That would be $15.47. She said no. They speak Portuguese so she had no idea what I was saying but I wasn’t taking a chance and handing this chic my credit card. Next, we decided to go ahead and take the cable car ride ourselves. It was listed as “ 30,00 BR” so maybe 6 US
dollars or less?? I don’t know because they spoke Portuguese so they wouldn’t take American dollars and they were rude about it and would not allow us to ride. There was nobody in line behind us. Screw’em. I’ll spend my American dollars in Argentina or Uruguay you asshats. If you are going to Brazil, you better speak Portuguese or Spanish and have dark hair. Discrimination at it’s best.
We took our free seashells and our good attitudes and got on a practically empty pirate ship and came back to the boat and read! It was GREAT! We didn’t care a bit that we were only in that town a couple of hours and didn’t spend a dime.
We were a bit concerned about our ship tonight. We were supposed to be all onboard at 4:30pm and the ship was to leave Cambouri at 5pm. At 6:00pm, our ship was stirring up dirt and sand in the waters near the port. The ship kept kicking up sand and dirt and turning sideways. It did a half circle and finally we slowly started to move forward. I told Kamie that I wonder if we got a little bit stuck on
Donuts
We got one. it wasn't good. It was tough.a sand bar? Can you imagine? Getting stuck in Brazil. Eh.
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Stacy
non-member comment
mean people suck
I would compare Brazillians to Puerto Ricans then. We have been to Puerto Rico twice and not enjoyed either time and the people are pushy and rude. One cruise left from Puerto Rico so the ship was full of those pushy, rude, loud people. I don't recommend Puerto Rico and I'll try to avoid Brazil. My husband really wants to go to Peru though.