Backtracking again to Saturday

So Saturday our teacher reserved a spot for all of us on a boat cruise through the bay. It was to be an all day cruise that visited little islands and fortreses in the bay.
Since I didn´t get to bed until around 6ish and we had to be there on the docks at 10, needless to say, many of us didn´t get very much sleep. We taxied it to the docks underneath the Hercilio Luz Bridge and paid our $30 (the cost for the whole day on board) and got on the boat. Saturday the weather was beautiful. And it was cool because aside from us Americans, there were a lot of locals on this boat tour too, so it was cool to sort of hang out with them for the day.
We cruised through the harbor in our sail boat with no sails and enjoyed the weather. The boat moved sooo slow! I felt like we weren´t getting anywhere, but the water was so relaxing and it was so pretty to see the island of Floripa on the right hand side and the mainland on the left hand side. I didn´t realize how green Brasil is. It´s so beautiful.

The crew played a lot of cool samba music for our enternainment and I was tempted to start dancing on the deck, but thought better of it and just stuck to tapping my foot.

We made it to our first little island and visited a Portuguese fort from the 17th century (at least, I think that´s when it was from. The tour was in Portuguese, so I had to really strain to understand what was being said). The fort was pretty cool. The island was tiny however and I don´t really understand why the Portuguese would put a little fort in the middle of a bay. I guess I´ll have to look it up on Google later on.

So back to the boat. We cruise some more, and pass by some more little islands. Then the captain stops the boat completely and we all watched in awe as one very brave Brasilian man took a dive in the water! It was funny, because the whole boat was tipping to one side because everybody on board was all one one side of the boat to watch him. It was like we were all one big family, despite our lanuage barriers.

So after said brave man returned to the boat after his swim, we stopped at one of them for some lunch. There was one restaurant on this island and a couple of houses too. So I´m sure some rich folk are living it up on their private island. How nice! The restaurant was horribly over priced, but what could we do? I think it was all part of a tourist trap. Let´s get these people on a boat all day and make them really hungry, then take them to a restaurant where it´s the only place with food and force them to pay all this money because we can! Ok- so I exaggerate a little bit. It wasn´t too bad, and our waiter was a cute older man that communicated with us mainly through sign language, but we understood him! Unfortunately, my lunch consisted of french fries, water and some white rice and lettuce. Not a very nutritious meal.

So back on the boat, we realized that the island was home to seagulls, some other various birds, and vultures. I´ve never seen a vulture in person before and they really creeped me out. So then we stopped by another island with another fort, only this one was much bigger than the first. There was a big yellow house on top of it and I didn´t explore very much, because I thought we were going to run out of time and I didn´t want to get left behind. So I stayed near the dock and watched the little tiny bay waves lap against the sand. It was really relaxing, even though I kept having to swat off mosquitoes that were trying to eat me alive!

The rest of the voyage was just the trip back, which seemed like it was taking forever because the boat was so slow. I chilled on the deck with the rest of my group and just watched the scenery as we floated by. I should have tried to have conversations with my fellow crew mates, but I was so tired and too delerious to have a decent conversation. So instead I just sat back and watched the Brasilians interact with eachother. It was neat, because there were a lot of families on this boat tour, probably taking a day out, so I got to see how people spent their family life. It´s really not much different than in the states, just a litle bit more lively I think. And they all liked to sort of dance to the samba music that they were playing. Most people were crashed out however. It was an exhausting little trip.

I´m a little bit disapointed that I was too tired to try to talk to anybody, but glad that I got the opportunity to people watch. I feel that people are more real if you watch them without them knowing (Ok, that sounded creepy, but it´s not meant to be).

Anyways, it was a fun trip and I´m glad that I got to spend the day on the bay with very warm Brasilian folks.

Pictures for this day were shot on film, so I probably won´t be posting any of them, as I have not developed them yet nor do I have a scanner with me. Sorry.