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South America Cruise
By Janet Go | April 12, 2009
CONGRATULATIONS to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for garnering the votes to host the 2016 Olympic Games. This is the first time in Oympic history that a country in South America has been selected. Rio plans to build an Olympic Park on the waterfront. The beach volley ball competition will be held on famed Copacabana Beach, across from the equally famous Copacabana Palace Hotel. What an exciting time 2016 will be in this passionate country of beaches, mountains, samba, Carnaval, and prosperity. Rio does have its down side, such as high crime and murder rates and people living in poverty on the hillsides in favelas, but I’m sure Rio will cope and show the world warm Brazilian hospitality.
I returned from a 2-1/2-month cruise around South America on March 11, 2009. I was aboard Holland America’s ship ms Prinsendam. We left Fort Lauderdale, Florida, January 2 and, after a day’s visit to the company’s island of Half Moon Cay and a day at Barbados, we headed south to the Amazon River. We spent a week sailing up and down the Amazon–an amazing trip. From there we headed south again, stopping at many ports in Brazil, including Rio de Janeiro, of course. Then on to Montevideo, Uruguay; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Falkland Islands; South Georgia–we were the last ship of this size to be allowed to visit this island; through the ice fields of Antarctica, up the fjords and coast of Chile, Peru, Ecuador, through the Panama Canal, Colombia, and back to Florida.
I’ll write more later. Here is a photo of me in my Panama Hat and tagua nut necklace I bought from master artisans in Manta and Montecristi, Ecuador. If you’re under the impression that Panama hats are made in Panama, think again. Panama hats are hand-made by master weavers in Ecuador and have never been made anywhere else.
This misunderstanding dates back to Teddy Roosevelt. According to legend, when former President Roosevelt attended the inauguration of the Panama Canal in 1913, he was given an Ecuadorian straw het. Not knowing the hat’s origin, Roosevelt thanked the donor for the Panama hat, and the rest is history.
I welcome your comments.
Topics: South America |
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