I distinctly remember hearing the following statement over the intercom of the ship the morning we docked in Maceió, “We have been advised by the Brasilian government that you shouldn’t eat any food from the street vendors. Also, please do not swim in the ocean as the water is contaminated.” Hmm, okay. So, that leaves us with taking our chances with the food and admiring the hot Brasilians with very little clothing at the beach from our perch on the shore.
On our way to follow these basic marching orders we were stopped every 30 seconds by locals who wanted to sell us something or anything. They typically approached Chalu first since she obviously looked the most Brasilian of our group, which meant she ‘must’ speak Portuguese. Fairly quickly, she figured out that you simply needed to say, “Fala Ingles??” (speak English?) in order for them to flee the scene. It actually turned into a comical spectacle as we proceeded down the boardwalk discouraging one peddler after another.
We came across an adorable older looking lime green VW van that had been turned into a mobile drink trailer, which I learned at the end of our trip were still produced in Brasil up until two years ago because of limited safety requirements. The biggest draw for us was the mere fact that the lady running the trailer yelled to us in English.....we hadn’t heard English on land for days! She showed us this extensive menu of caipivodka with all fresh fruits and just as we were salivating she mentioned that she only knew how to make 2 of the drinks. We each ordered a muddled tangerine and strawberry caipivodka. After 2 glorious sips, Chalu had a terrified look on her face and burst out, “Oh no! We just drank their ice! Oh well, I guess it’s too late.” And that was that.
Our next stop was a beach cafe to use their free internet, little did we know they would charge us for listening to the DJ they had on site once we tabbed out. Upon our arrival, an adorable 10 year old girl approached me with a priceless smile and gracefully forced one of her many hats on my head. She slyly pulled out a mirror and encouraged me to see how wonderful I looked. Instead of buying the hat I threw her two bucks and asked for a picture with her.
At this point we decided to order food and assumed that the dish we ordered appeared to be beef and cheese empanadas according to our Portuguese translation. To our surprise, we were given fried fish. However, the beach view of half naked bodies from our table took our minds off the little mix-up.
Once we arrived back on the boat we were excited to find out it was Latin dance night up in the Crow’s Nest. We were pleasantly surprised to find more than 1 person in the bar for once and the ‘mystery couple’ had also made an appearance. The woman left shortly after we arrived which left Frederico to fend for himself. He proceeded to take turns dancing with all of the ladies in a variety of dance styles. Let’s just say that he owned the dance floor. Chalu found out that he was originally from Mexico and was living in the south of France teaching dance. So this explained all of his fancy outfits and precise moves.
However, this didn’t answer the other burning questions surrounding the couple.......stay tuned for more.
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