Brazil: Santos

Sunday, March 2, 2023, Santos, Brazil

We originally booked a bus tour to São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil. It would take 3 hours to get there, and 3 hours to get back. We were notified a couple days earlier that—due to traffic—we would not be getting off the bus at all. We cancelled.

Instead, we stayed in our first port in Brazil. There was a shuttle bus from the port area to the Praia shopping center, a modern mall. Once there, we could download Portuguese onto our phones with Google translate (a simple feat but not possible with our limited internet on the ship), get some Brazilian reals, and go to the beach. Maps were handed out while we were exiting the shuttle bus.

The mall was typical but with a Brazilian twist: over-the-top two-story statues dominated the entry. We could not get the information booth person to understand us at all—she kept handing us menus. So we became Starbucks customers to get wi-fi and downloaded Brazilian Portuguese onto our phones. Not a lot of English is spoken here. It took so long to download the language program we skipped getting the reals.

Photo in front of the mall & Santos sign

The beach was 2 blocks from the mall. Being Sunday, the locals were there. I take my hat off to the Brazilian women—all ages, sizes, and shapes in the teeniest bikinis you can imagine. The water was warm, nice laid back ambiance, a nice breeze off the water—we spent some time people watching and wading in the water. I noticed people having intense conversations. Talking politics. There was a bust of Alberto Santos Dumas. The ship had a lecture about him but unfortunately it was long after we left Santos. He was a fascinating Brazilian man who spent a lot of time in Paris during the Belle Epoch and designed and flew an airplane before the Wright brothers.

Alberto Santos Dumas

She actually is wearing a swimsuit, just a very small one.

The path along the beach had gardens for miles

Mermaid statue

Typical Brazilian sidewalk. We saw this design in other places.

We decided to find the aquarium (Aquario Santos), and walked in the direction indicated on the map. It was small and delightful, and free since we were seniors. Being Sunday, there were families with children, the youngest ones absolutely delighted with the experience. It was a nice way to spend some time. Charlie took a very amusing video of a lobster and a fish sparring. You may have seen his Facebook post.

We headed back down the beach, and stopped at a small outdoor bar to have coconut water. There were piles of young coconuts, and the bartender hacked one open for us, and handed us straws. A great way to revive yourself in the heat.

Charlie matches the umbrellas on this part of the beach

Leaving the port of Santos was a different experience. It’s the largest port in South America. Our little spot at our dock was the tip of the iceberg. We passed many miles of working docks intermixed with shantytowns. There were areas that looked abandoned, there is so much space it’s probably cheaper to just build a new area, rather than clear the old ones. There were more than 50 ships waiting out at sea to get into the port as we left, so they could probably use even more space. 

Shanty towns near the docks