Rio de Janeiro

We arrived in Rio the afternoon of Tuesday, the 21st with an overnight in port. The last two days were smooth sailing and light winds. As we’ve started south, you can feel the temperature now starting to change from the tropics. It’s still short sleeve shirt weather but not quite so hot and humid. Tuesday night we had dinner at the pool with the hot rocks again. Opted for the tiger prawns instead of veal and again had a great dinner.

Wednesday morning we had to actually set an alarm to get up for our tour! It turned out to be a good thing as we got to Corcovado, Christ the Redeemer, early and were able to catch one of the first trains up. It was starting to get a little cloudy at the top but we were able to get a few photos. We were also lucky heading down and were able to do that without a lot of delays. As a result our tour was ahead of schedule so the tour leader took us to Impanema Beach and then Copacabana Beach. We stopped for a few minutes on Copacabana Beach to walk and take some photos. After that back to the ship with a little local shopping along the way. They have some great menu offerings on the ship but if you happen to like seafood, it can be exceptional. To that point, they were grilling lobster tails by the pool and wanted to make sure you weren’t going away hungry. Read that as they kept piling lobster on your plate until you pulled away and it was great cold water lobster.

We left port around 6:00pm yesterday and it was a little cloudy so luckily we were able to get some good pictures on the way in Tuesday. Seas have been a little rougher today and forecast to continue in to the evening so we may be bouncing around a little.

I had mentioned before about the seafood buffet at lunch and today happened to be the day. When you combine that along with some rainy weather, the restaurant we chose for lunch was a little more crowded than normal. We were seated at the captain/crew table and had great company and stories with the captain, cruise director, HR director and some other staff as they came and went. Net is, lot’s of fun. So enough of the text and get on to the photos.

So, we’re now starting the expedition portion of the trip and the Antarctic expedition guides boarded in Rio. They have started a series of lectures on what to expect in Antarctica, wildlife, etc. We attended our first lecture on the differences between the north and south poles today which included what critters live where and this afternoon, we have a lecture on whale identification. It may not sound real exciting but so far, the speakers are very interesting.

We arrive in Puna del Este, Uruguay Saturday morning at 8:00 am.