Santos is the biggest seaport in Latin America and is just 50 miles from the largest city in South America, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Santos has a population of 420,000 and the port's major export until WWII was coffee. Although coffee is still a major export, other products exported here are cars, steel, oil, oranges, bananas, and cotton. The city is also home to the Coffee Museum.
There were only two tours offered today. One was an 8 hour tour to Sao Paulo and the other was a 4 hour-highlights of Santos. We are doing neither. Carnival, the most famous Brazilian holiday, started last Friday and lasts for 6 days. Rio de Janeiro is probably best know for its Carnival parades and celebrations. Last year it drew 5 million people, 400,000 being foreigners. Except for industries, malls, and Carnival related workers, the country comes to a standstill for the week. 80% of the annual beer consumption in Brazil takes place this week and 70% of the country's tourism is this week. Unfortunately, we will be in 5 ports this week and everything is basically shutdown. I think Regent timed our arriving in Rio this coming Friday just after Carnival ends. They did not want to deal with the massive crowds and expense associated with Rio's Carnival celebrations, not to mention security issues. Today's 8 hour tour to Sao Paulo costs $89 each and I think several people cancelled after learning most everything in Sao Paulo is closed. I would love to see these Samba parades with the colorful, scantily clad dancers at least one time. The parades start at 9pm and do not end until past 3am nightly.
This afternoon we took the shuttle bus to a mall in downtown area. It was a nice mall but only lasted 30 minutes and was ready to return. Prices in Brazil are not good like the other SA countries. We are sailing until 8pm this evening. Early show at 6pm is a production show with the ship's singers and dancers. We have seen all their shows, but love them, so will be there on front row again tonight. Then we will meet for cocktails and dinner with Peter & Maureen from Australia. Peter is a funny guy with a very heavy Australian accent.
DID YOU KNOW:
1) Brazil is as large as the contiguous 48 states.
2) It has a population of 203 million people. 80% of them live in cities.
3) Sao Paulo has population of 20 million and is fastest growing city in the world.
4) The largest number of Japanese living outside of Japan live in Sao Paulo.
5) The capital of Brazil is NOT Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, but Brazilia.
6) Brazil has the 6th largest economy in the world.
7) Brazil is largest producer of soybeans in the world.
