November/December 2008
For pictures, see my Picasa folder
I suppose I shouldn't have
looked at the Internet on the Friday before our Sunday departure. “Air France
en grève (– on strike)” said the headline - “Zonk”
went my good mood - we had to make two connecting scheduled flights to get to
Nice via Paris Orly, plus a cruise bus from Nice to Savona in Italy, our
embarkation point. Something was bound to go wrong!
I looked up the Air France
scheduled flights and found a number of cancellations – about 40% of flights
were being cancelled due to a dispute over raising the Air France aircrew
retirement age from 60 to 65. So I pondered the possibility of driving the few
hundred kilometres to Nice – then rang the lovely Murielle at Thomas Cook
Villeneuve for advice. She contacted Costa Cruises and told me to stick to the
itinerary and Costa would fix whatever went wrong.
On Saturday we left Tessel Bas
and the pussycats to Kathy, house and cat-sitter and part-time saint, who
kindly drove us to Agen railway station. The TGV whisked us efficiently to
Toulouse, where I discovered that “Gare Routière” means “Bus Station” and was
the departure point of the shuttle bus to the airport. A short walk from the
airport found the “L'Atrium” hotel, which proved to be devoid of any kind of
atrium, consisted of little furnished huts, served a medium-disgusting dinner,
but was cheap and handy for the airport. During the day Costa Cruises phoned us
with a flight change to 08:45 as the 07:45 was cancelled.
We got to the airport at 06:45
and were told after an hour's wait that the 08:45 was also cancelled so we rang
Costa on a mobile number they had given us and re-booked on the 09:45,
convinced that we'd be stranded at Orly with no onward flight, no hotel and no
holiday as the Costa Magica steamed out of Savona without us. Rarely have I
felt so powerless and anxious.
As we landed at Orly there was
an announcement on the aircraft’s PA system asking us to report to the flight
crew – at the plane door was a smart young man with a Costa badge who whisked
us through Orly, scattering tourists in our wake as we picked up our baggage
and joined the queue for the first Nice flight that ran that day – full marks
to Costa for that!
At Nice there was a bus full
of French people who had been bussed down from Nantes, who were remarkably
tolerant of these “Parisiens” who had kept them waiting. We relaxed for the
first time in three days as the coach drove us along the attractive corniche to
Savona and our departure.
The Costa Magica turned out to
be broadly similar to the Costa Mediterranea, in which we toured the Caribbean;
different décor as the Modena glass was replaced by gold and beige fibreglass,
but a similar atmosphere, reinforced by a strong presence of Italians,
Portuguese-speaking Brazilians and French, with only a token presence of
English-speakers.
A day at sea in the
Mediterranean ended in our first “Gala Night”, where I got a chance to wear the
new jacket and trousers that Xine insisted I bought. The show afterwards,
“Magic Moments” was an impressive production for such a venue and the largely
amateur performers.
Our first port of call was
Malaga – we'd been there before, horse riding in the hills, so we kept to a
simple tour of the town. The weather was already pleasantly warm. We had a
search for shaving cream and handkerchiefs that “Someone” had omitted to pack
in the traumatic pre-embarkation phase; however we spotted some shaving cream
in the port shop as we returned.
In Casablanca we had to visit
the Medina – I love souks and Moroccan souks in particular; they are so
friendly and almost everyone speaks French, so communication is no problem. So
I was relieved of many Euros for my “mouchoirs” - but in a very friendly way!
Santa Cruz in Tenerife was
rather wet – we walked round the shopping area during a dry spell, but dashed
for the boat when the rain resumed – we were clearly in the rain shadow of the
local mountain.
Mindelo is a small island in the Cape Verde islands, with a
very laid-back and somewhat neglected feel to it. As usual I was amazed to see
a ship in excess of 100,000 tonnes park gently alongside a jetty that looked
like it would crumble in a strong wind.
By now the weather was both
hot and humid, so the half-hour walk from the jetty to the town demanded a
drink in a local bar – after ship prices I was amazed that a beer and a Coke
was only just over two Euros.
Leaving Mindelo, we set out
for our longest stretch of three days without a port of call as we cross to
Brazil. We filled them with our little routine of morning run, swim, spa pool,
read, lunch and read some more, check on the emails in the internet café, which
leaves us time to visit the evening show in the impressive 1800-seat theatre
and afterwards take dinner.
The ship food is excellent –
obviously Italian-biased, but with international variations. One can eat at
virtually any time of day, in any of several buffets and restaurants. Not good
for the waistline! The restaurants are usually informal, apart from one or two
gala nights per voyage, which give Xine a chance to dress up; I wear a jacket
but I didn't bring a tie!
We took the “Cultural
Fortaleza” tour to see our first city in Brazil. I was ashamed to say that this
large place with some 1.5 million souls was unknown to me, and amazed to find
that Portugal and the most southerly part of Brazil were roughly equidistant at
about 5000 km. We visited a “zone artisanale”, quaintly set in an old prison,
where Xine bought some pantacourts and a blouse for a ridiculously low sum
(they took euros!). Then a tour of some of the beautiful old Portuguese
buildings, such as the theatre, complete with its original cane-bottom chairs,
and some of the newer buildings such as the cultural centre and planetarium. We
stood on the Ponte dos Ingleses, otherwise known as the metallic bridge, which
was strange, as it was largely made out of wood and was a pier, not a bridge.
Recife I had heard of – after
all it has a population of three million – but there were fewer high-rise
buildings and more lush greenery and colourfully painted old buildings. There
was yet another visit to yet another converted prison building, followed by a
boat trip on the Capibaribe river through what was rather optimistically-titled
“the Venice of Brazil” but which was nevertheless quite interesting. Our
departure from Recife was stirring – a big ship leaving port still creates a
buzz, but everyone was on deck partying under the stars of the warm, tropical
night and admiring the lights of Recife on their black velvet background. Three
earth-trembling blasts on the ship's siren and Andrea Bocelli at full volume
singing “Time to Say Goodbye” got us well under way.
Next morning found us anchored
in Maceió; this time we got out of town to a remote island beach, so we drove
through the luxuriant tropical vegetation and exotic fruit plantations to a
traditional boat, which took us to Gunga's Beach. This saw the ceremonial
dunking of Ian's corpulent presence in the warmest bit of the Atlantic Ocean
he's ever experienced. The sun was intense and although not excessively hot
only half an hour's exposure put him in lobster emulation mode.
Waking up to the sight of
Salvador-Bahia outside the cabin window (well, “portholes” are round aren't
they?) was a little disappointing, as the sky was cloudy after overnight rain.
We took a trip through the wide spectrum of Bahian sights; wonderful, restored
colonial buildings, the seedy jumble of the favelas (shanty towns), the
impressive town beach with Sunday trippers, miles of scruffy, grimy streets
blackened with mould and ultra-modern high-rise buildings. The town had
character and an exciting buzz about it (maybe from the Heath Robinson street
wiring). In the afternoon the clouds cleared to show the city and its bays off
to their best advantage, but we were glad to get out of the high humidity and
30 degree temperatures on our return to the ship.
Ilhéus proved to be smaller and generally more attractive
then the other cities we had visited, with fewer high-rise blocks, fewer
favelas and long stretches of beach. A drive of some 40 minutes South took us
to the Hotel Canabrava; a resort hotel with an impressive pool and a
travel-brochure beach; with coconut palms leaning over a long strand of fine
sandy beach, thatched sunshades and brown people sipping pena colada. We stayed
there most of the day, with a very nice lunch of Brazilian specialities – fried
chicken, beans of all kinds, fish, octopus and delicious salads and sweets. It
was a pleasant, relaxing day.
All my life I've wanted to go
to Rio de Janeiro, so it was with some excitement I got up early at 06:00 to
see the ship enter the famous harbour. Oh dear - mist and rain and very poor
visibility spoiled the realisation!
Our tour of the sights started
with the Sugar Loaf Mountain, which was shrouded in mist and drenched with
torrential rain. Fortunately the clouds lifted and the rain stopped as we were
leaving the top, so by the time we got to the top of Corcovado Mountain and the
statue of Christ the Redeemer, the panorama of Rio and its surrounding islands
was revealed in all its splendour. We had a look at the famous but rather
windswept beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana – sadly bereft of “girls from
Ipanema”.
We decided that we liked Rio;
despite the iffy weather it wasn't a disappointment and is definitely a place
of which we'd like to see more. Unlike some of the other cities, it's smart and
sophisticated and is devoid of that “third world” feel, despite the
ever-present favelas on the surrounding hilltops.
Santos was the last port of
call; a fair-sized city in its own right it acts as the port for the enormous
conurbation of Sao Paulo. The logistics of disembarking some 3000 passengers,
bussing them three hours to Sao Paulo airport and distributing them to several
different countries took most of the day and we had a four-hour wait at the
airport before we could get the overnight Air France goat-class red-eye to CdG.
I hate overnight flights, I can never sleep and I watched the seatback TV until
the person in front reclined their seat into my face.
The wait at CdG for the
Toulouse flight gave me the opportunity to type some of this – CdG has good
WiFi coverage, but, as usual, you need to get the credit card out to take
advantage of it. I could also admire the impressive span of the
inverted-boat-hull glass roofs of Terminal 2F.
The flight to Toulouse barely
gets to altitude before the descent starts, so we were soon on the fast train
to Agen where lovely Kathy picked us up, took us home and fed us a nourishing
soup.
A cruise allows you only to briefly
dip a toe into the cultures and customs of the ports visited, as a “taster” for
later visits. We liked Brazil and would like to see more, particularly Rio. The
country is more advanced than I expected, but an indelible impression is that
the majority of the wealth is in the hands of a small and largely corrupt few,
so there is considerable poverty and the associated crime. The ever-present
favelas, shantytowns clinging to the hilltops, many built without permission,
electricity, water or sanitation, are evidence of a big social problem that is
too big to be soluble either in a short time or by the current regime. Perhaps
a cruise is a safe way of seeing at least some of Brazil – it’s reassuring to
return to one’s big, floating hotel to sleep.