South America post

We visited two port cities in Brazil - the first was Fortaleza - where we spent the day with an another couple, Ken and Fred from Fort Lauderdale, and their friend, Karen. The five of us rode the ship's shuttle bus to the Old Jail which is now a tourist shopping arcade and we walked into the center of the city. Fortaleza is very large but we didn't find it very appealing and we were warned about pickpockets several times. We had a good time walking about for four hours and then headed back to the ship. The next day following a beautiful sunrise on board our ship, we anchored off shore and tendered to the pier of a small fishing village on the outskirts of Belem, a city near the mouth of the Amazon River that is known as the Metropolis of the Brazilian Amazon region. We rented a van along with the Captain's wife, Karen, and several other friends, Jane, Leslie and Maxine. After an hour ride into the center of Belem we found lots of shopping opportunities at the local markets that line the banks of the Amazon and gave us a feel of life in this tropical region.

And then we sailed to French Guyana and anchored off the coast near the famed Devil's Island.  France used this island for nearly 300 years as part of its penal colony in the New World and Devil's Island became notorious as "a prison from which nobody could escape" because of the strong ocean currents and shark-infested waters that surrounded the island.  The harsh conditions and rampant spread of diseases on the island guaranteed that more than 50,000 prisoners were never seen again.  You may remember the 1973 movie, Papillon, starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, which told the story of two prisoners who became friends while serving their sentence on this dreadful prison island.  Seeing the prison ruins on the island and later that evening watching a special showing of the movie on board the ship as we departed Devil's Island made for a fascinating but grim reminder of this beautiful island's dark past.