We are presently sailing between two cities around the easternmost hump of Brazil, Salvador da Bahia and Fortaleza. After Fortaleza we'll recross the equator. We'll be back in Florida in less than two weeks, on March 12. We have stopped in Argentina (# 92), Uruguay (# 93), and Brazil (#94). After dinner every evening we go dancing for a bit, then see the evening show. A friend saves us two seats at the edge of the dance floor. As usual, people always come up and comment, such as saying they think Bev must have enjoyed the show.

Certificates   This ship is certificate-happy. We got a certificate for having crossed the Panama Canal. We got a certificate for having crossed the equator. LAN Chile airlines gave us a certificate for having flown over Antartica. Since some new people got on board in Rio for the third segment of the trip, I suppose they'll issue another set of equator certificates.

Laundrette   There is a free laundromat (British: laundrette) for passengers, and I've used it a couple of times. There are only seven washer-dryers (they supply the powder), so it's usually pretty busy, and in a smallish room at that. You always have a cozy chat.

One of the comedians during the evening entertainment had this routine. A man was carrying a magic lamp down the road, with his dog walking beside him. All of a sudden, the dog was run over. The man rubbed his lamp, the genie appeared, and was prepared to grant him one single wish.

When I was doing wash one day, the comedian appeared to do his own wash, so we joked about it.

Computer Room   I've said the computer room is usually filled, with many of the ten computers busy. During the day, or on a casual evening, things look normal. On an informal (= semiformal) evening, it's curious to see all the jackets and ties sitting at the computers. But it is an absolute hoot--I really love it--when on formal evenings, before dinner, before the show, after the show, you step into the computer room and you see all the ladies in evening gowns going click, click, click and all the gentlemen in tuxedos and black tie going click, click, click. It's the same people you saw earlier, but it's such an incongruous sight, traditional formal dress mixed with modern technology.

Ward Room   You may recall that the Officer's Club is called the Ward Room, and on the QE2, we usually get invited to a cocktail party in the Ward Room one evening before dinner. On the QE2 the Ward Room is rather large, impressively located on a high deck, up front, with windows looking out over the front of the ship. I wasn't even sure if the Caronia had a Ward Room.

I have never been one to network. It's always someone else who "knows someone", never me. But maybe that's changing, just a bit. At that party I think I mentioned given by the Captain for a select few in the Picadilly Club, I spotted an officer with a prominent beard across the room. I went up to him and said "Don't I know you?", but I wasn't really sure. It turned out to be Luke Sheldon, who had hosted a couple of times at the Engineer's Table on the QE2. He had now transferred to the Caronia and had moved up to Staff (= Assistant) Chief Engineer. We had a nice chat. Some time later, he stopped me in the hall and said we'd be getting an invitation to the Ward Room party, and he'd made arrangements to get the wheelchair through a difficult doorway to get there. We had a lovely time. The Ward Room, however, is down on A deck, where we live, the lowest passenger deck. You walk to the back, and into the area of the officer's living quarters. The Ward Room is a windowless medium-sized bar, but we had a great time.

Mainz   The University of Mainz is where we studied in 1961-2, right after which we got married. Mainz is on the Rhine opposite Wiesbaden, and not far from Frankfurt. There is another American couple who were apparently in the same program, but a number of years later. But what really surprised and pleased me was this. I was chatting with another German lady, and when I mentioned Mainz, she said she was from there originally, and now lives not too far away. It may sound odd, but I've never met anyone from Mainz before while travelling. What was particularly pleasing, though, was that she said she had gone to the university, and not only that, she had studied medicine there from 1958 to I think 1963, which means she was there when the two of us and Rita were there. It was like old home week, as I'd never experienced it before.

Southern Cross   I've never been big on astronomy, but when you're in the southern hemisphere for the first time, even I know you have to look for the Southern Cross. I asked Martyn the Cruise Director about it, and he said we'd do it one evening. One clear night after a show, a ship's officer pointed out a number of constellations on one of the open decks. Even I could recognize Orion's belt, but then he pointed out the Southern Cross. It's much smaller than I imagined. At that time of the evening it was lying on it's left side, and as the evening went by, it would apparently stand up, then move to its other side, and so on. It is much easier to find if, instead of mentally connecting the four stars internally to form a cross, you connect them externally to form a kite. Then it becomes much easier to spot. A German couple had followed much of the talk in English, but still was having trouble spotting it, so I suddenly turned astronomer and pointed it out. They, too, really wanted to see das Kreuz des Südens. We also got an excellent view of the Milky Way.

The officer pointed out that although you either can see the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) in the northern hemisphere and the Southern Cross in the southern hemisphere, there is a narrow belt of about ten miles along the equator where it is possible to see both of them.

Three High Points   This trip isn't over, but there's not too much more of interest coming up. I think I can say now that, aside from the very pleasant days at sea, there were three high points:

I've obviously not talked about the last item yet.

Buenos Aires   The ship sailed up the huge estuary of the Rio de la Plata to Buenos Aires on the south shore. We could see the lights of Montevideo, Uruguay on the north shore, where we stopped after Argentina, and then on to Brazil.

We were in Buenos Aires for two days. Since it is difficult (but not impossible) to take a bus tour with the wheelchair, we arranged the first day to have a private car, since the charge was only a bit more than two bus tour tickets. The young man drove us around for several hours. He started out in English, I asked a question in Spanish, and he spoke Spanish the rest of the time (with my permission). I don't do Spanish as well as German, but I probably understood 90% of what he said, and it was well worth it. I'd known that in Argentina Y (spelled y or ll) is pronounced ZH as in Zhivago, however, from what I heard, it had moved beyond that to SH. At the famous Plaza de Mayo, he pronounced Mayo as MAH-sho. Fun to hear, although you have to adjust your ear to recognize otherwise familiar words.

The Plaza de Mayo is where the mothers have paraded for years to memorialize the people who disappeared during the dictatorship. At the end is the Casa Rosada (Pink House), the presidential palace. Eva Perón spoke from its balcony. Avenida 9 de julio is the widest street in the world. We went through San Telmo, where the tango originated, and which has many places you can go to hear it. He showed us the polo stadium, and explained that polo is Argentina's national sport, even more popular than soccer. The Teatro Colón is one of the world's most famous opera houses. Buenos Aires is a very attractive city. It is very European, even Parisian in look and style.

The second day we went in to look at the shopping street Calle Florida (calle is not CA-yay, not even Ca-zhay, it's CA-shay). It's an older street now just for pedestrians. We stopped in a CD store that was playing a recording of tangos, and listened for a half hour. Afterwards, we went to Recoleta Cemetery. It's highly unusual, since it's one above-ground tomb attached to another, like so many town houses. However, one goes to see Eva Perón's tomb, which is no larger than the others, but still has plenty of flowers in front of it.

In the evening on the ship there was a fantastic local show. They did some folk dances, but then they did two tangos, and the first was the perennial favorite, La Cumparsita. The tango is the most theatrical of dances: step, stare, step, pause; then it looks like there about four pairs of legs spinning round and round. In this tango, the couple did the most spectacular ballroom dance step I've ever seen.

She turns to the left away from him; remaining stiff as a board, she falls backward; at about 45 degrees, he catches her, BUT, not with two hands, not with one hand on her back--he catches her under her neck with the crook of his right arm, then pushes her upright. And all this happens in just a few beats: turn, fall, neck in crook, up, turn back, dance. Spectacular.

Afterwards, Bev and I did a little tango to "I Get Ideas".

Rio de Janeiro   Rio is spectacular, but for different reasons. I don't think the built-up area is anything special, certainly not likeBuenos Aires. It's geography that makes Rio look so special. There are tall mountains behind it, and within it. Built-up areas are interspersed between these rock outcroppings. Also, the mountains extend out into the bay, like fingers, with the many beaches like webs between the fingers, most notably Copacabana and Ipanema beaches.

We were told that the entry into Rio was worth seeing, but it was at 5:30, so we got up at 4:30 to see it. As it turns out it was drizzling, but we could still see a lot. It was overcast or drizzling the whole time we were in Rio, but that's typical for summer weather. Remember, the seasons are reversed and February is summer.

We entered Guanabara Bay and could see Copacabana Beach, Sugar Loaf, and the downtown. But what made it worthwhile, was when we got to the wharf where ships line up one behind the other, and saw the Queen Mary 2. We knew it would be there for the first of our two days, since this is the Carnaval time in Rio. It only made it maiden voyage in January.

We approached it at an angle, getting ready to line up behind it (and a ship called the Infinity). As we got closer, the Caronia greeted its sister Cunard ship with three long, deep blasts on its foghorn:

after which the Queen Mary 2 did the same to the Caronia:

Absolutely EVERYBODY was smiling. It was a very pleasant and dramatic time. Then, to break the tension, a tugboat nearby gave a short:

and everybody broke up.

You may have been reading about the Brazilian authorities playing tit-for-tat with Americans. Since the US charges $100 for a visa, Brazil is the only country that does the same to US citizens. Also, since the US started requiring pictures and fingerprints of entering visitors, Brazil has declared it's doing the same. We were wondering when they sent officials onboard what would happen, but at the last minute they "kindly waived" the requirement. They just wanted to leave saying so to the last minute.

Our first day in Rio we were driven around, and went to see the beaches. In the afternoon there was something special (see below). We were unfortunately not able to go into the small Carmem Miranda museum, which looks like a concrete bunker in a park, but was closed for the carnaval period. I understand it has all her headdresses and platform shoes. It would have been interesting. No, I did not misspell her first name. She apparently used the Spanish version Carmen as her stage name, since it was more familiar to English speakers, but the authentic Portuguese version is Carmem, and is, perhaps surprisingly, pronounced CAR-mye.

The second day in Rio we went to the two main sights, both mountains. Corcovado mountain is a huge 2330 feet tall and stands in the ridge to the west of the city. In 1931 a huge 120-foot statue of Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer), with arms stretched out sideways, was finally completed on the top. It's the largest Art Deco statue in the world, and it's a style interesting to see. A cog railway brings you to the top. The clouds kept darting around, but as they lifted on one side or the other, you could see downtown, or Ipanema, or Copacabana.

Then we went to Sugar Loaf. I'm surprised that so few people know what a sugar loaf is; maybe it's because we go to so many historic restaurations that we're familiar with it. White, granulated (= made into grains) sugar is a modern invention. Before that, you had brown lumps of sugar (modern white lumps looking like dice are descended from that, but they are just pressed granulated sugar). You had brown lumps of sugar because you broke them off a loaf of sugar, kind of how you have to chip away at a hardened lump of brown sugar even today. So why did sugar come in loaves? The wet, raw sugar was poured into bullet-shaped molds to drain and harden. When the mold was flipped over, you had a bullet-shaped loaf of sugar pointing upward.

That's what Sugar Loaf mountain in Rio looks like. The name is perfect, it's just that since sugar no longer comes in loaves, people don't see the connection. In Portuguese the name is phrased as Loaf-of-Sugar, Pão de Açúcar. It's pronounced roughly pow-day-ahSOOcar.

A cable car goes up to the top of Sugar Loaf (1300 feet, about half of Corcovado), in two stages, first to a lower mountain next to it, then you walk further to the second car. The view is spectacular, since here you're right in town. You look straight down at Copacabana beach. And there's no denying it, the mountain looks like a loaf of sugar, even to the brown color. Most of the time, Corcovado was in the clouds, but every once in a while the statue appeared, and it couldn't be more dramatic, with nothing but clouds below and around it.

The departure on the second night couldn't have been more spectacular. It was 10 PM, and the overcast was not a problem. You could see the black silhouette of the western mountains, including Corcovado, against the navy sky. The statue was illuminated (by General Electric, by the way), and as we went in a semicircle in the bay around the city, the statue first was visible above downtown, then above Sugar Loaf, then above Copacabana beach. This is what I mean about the city having such a spectacular look due to its geography, rather than its buildings.

There are still two Rio stories.

H Stern   I'll start with background. Hans Stern was a German Jew who fled to Brazil just before WW2, and by the end of the war, had gone into the jewelry business, taking advantage of the large number of semi-precious stones that Brazil produces. Keep in mind that one of the main states in Brazil is named Minas Gerais, which means General Mines. These mines still produce. I know nothing about jewelry stores, but apparently the H. Stern name appears everywhere in Brazil, and in all the major cities of the world, including New York, London, Paris, Frankfurt, and so on. The world headquarters are in the Ipanema section of Rio. A local joke is that apparently building plans for new hotels aren't approved until room for an H. Stern store is allowed for.

Between Buenos Aires and Rio there were four days. I said that the first day in Buenos Aires we hired a private car. I did not say how we saw everything the second day there and both days in Rio.

H Stern ran a free shuttle bus service in Buenos Aires between the ship and its store at the head of Calle Florida. Fair enough. They also emphasized that you were under no obligation to buy jewelry, or even enter their store once they dropped you off. OK. The second day we took their shuttle bus. We had some difficulty getting Bev into and out of the van, but it worked. However, when we were ready to leave, their rep came up to me and asked if we'd like to be driven back by one of their private cars, because of the wheelchair. I accepted. I should also mention that I had been infomed by the tour manager on the ship that Stern gives sightseeing rides in Rio, so keeping that in mind, when we got the return car in Buenos Aires I mentioned that we hadn't seen Eva Perón's tomb, so they said they'd be glad to drive us there first, before bringing us back to the ship, which was very nice of them.

Speaking to their representative at the ship, he said he would be back in Rio when we got there, and would be glad to have us driven around. And that's what happened. In Rio, there he was. He had a car with a driver and Marilena, a guide. She took us around town the first day, then up to Corcovado and Sugar Loaf the second. She helped with the wheelchair, and stayed with Bev while I walked around. It was extremely pleasant. The rep continued to emphasize that there would be no obligation when we stopped finally at the H. Stern headquarters. I agree. I felt no obligation. But I did feel gratitude. Other people were there from the ship, but they had simply taken the shuttle. You first are given a workshop tour, then drinks with nibbles, then taken to the showroom, where you speak with someone in private cubicles.

I said that after the globe we wouldn't buy anything else. But considering that the day we get off the ship is Bev's birthday, a gift was appropriate. So I got two. They are both pendants.

One pendant consists of three vertical, articulated flowers, large, medium, small. Each flower has five petals, a garnet (red), an amythest (purple), a blue topaz (blue), a peridot (green), a citrine (yellow). In the center of each flower is a tiny diamond. Stern's points out that they don't use chips. As tiny as the diamond might be, it's a cut stone. (When explaining this on the ship, I found out that the German word for chips is Splitter. Learn something new every day.) The fifteen small colored stones come to 6.56 carats.

I liked the multicolors, but I also wanted a single "rock". It seems the reddish-gold Imperial Topaz is produced only in Brazil, and that the mine that produces it is becoming depleted. Bev now has a teardrop-shaped Imperial Topaz of 7.07 carats. Happy Birthday. She's worn both on the ship to great admiration.

It is of interest, and Stern's made a big point of it, that since a treaty between the US and Brazil was signed in the 1970's, there is absolutely no duty on Brazilian stones and jewelry imported into the US.

Queen Mary 2   Everyone on the Caronia wanted to visit the QM2, but the whole thing was very hush-hush. Apparently the fact that I now "knew someone" got us on the list. The Chief Cashier, Tanja, hosted our table one evening. We chatted, and when I found she was from Bremen, we chatted extensively in German. I must have mentioned I was interested in seeing the QM2, I honestly don't remember. But the next day she called and asked if I was interested. Of course, I had to keep my mouth shut until afterwards. Of some 660 passengers on the Caronia, only 75 were allowed to visit. And as it turned out, Betty, who I know from the QE2, since we bought next-year tickets from her, was now working on the QM2. This networking is getting to be fun.

We had about two hours on the ship. It's big. We went to see the room we'll have next summer both ways, 5153. We couldn't see inside, but the corridor looks so much more like a hotel corridor than a ship. We saw the Queen's Grill and Princess Grill and the Veuve Clicquot champagne bar. It has a Grand Lobby, but it's not glitzy, just elegant. It has a planetarium and a full theater. The hallways are in bird's-eye maple (possibly synthetic), as are the elevators and the library. The library is huge, and has illuminated closed-glass bookcases. It also has windows looking out the front of the ship. There are plenty of banks of elevators, and each one is the size of a walk-in closet. I would have liked to have seen the computer rooms, but we didn't. There is no cutesy names of decks (Verandah, Upper, Main). The lowest is Deck 1 and it goes up to something like Deck 14. You know exactly what deck is above you and below you, just like floors in a hotel. It was big, and very nice. We're looking forward to this summer.

Why was I not surprised when we went to the shop and boutique area and there was an H Stern, big as life, but closed, since the ship was in port.