The following day, Monday, we were in Paranaguá. This city reverted more to our Brazilian expectations. This is a industrial city that has a large port where more than 30% of the people (125,000) of the city are employed. Apparently much of the world’s grains, beef and chicken are grown in Brazil and much of it comes through this port. Looking from one side of the ship you have a nice view of the bay and hills, but on the other side it was very industrial and unattractive.
The city clearly tries to do its best for its citizens, but it is crumbling and many buildings in the centre look like they are about to collapse.
We visited a couple of pleasant churches, but they lack air conditioning and it was hot!
We also went to a sad market where they kindly put on a local dance performance. There was a young boy dancer (maybe 7 or 8 years old) and he put a lot of effort in getting some of the older women to dance with him. The music seemed to repeat itself, but the dance was pleasant. Interestingly the adult male dancers wore wooden clogs and made a tapping sound to the beat while dancing. They did offer us some Brazilian liquor, Cachaça, which is a vibrant spirit distilled from fresh sugarcane juice, like rum but distinct, known as Brazil's national drink and the key ingredient in the famous Caipirinha cocktail. I let one sip of the liquor burn down by throat. On both previous days we had a Caipirinha, but its lime based on bitter so wasn’t a winner for us.
We did enjoy seeing a real Brazilian working city, but it wasn’t our most enjoyable port to visit.
That night we had dinner with the guest entertainer, Marco, the ship had another great chocolate buffet by the pool and the ship’s singers did a Rock the Boat performance which had many people, including the captain and staff dancing. It was joyful to watch the staff having so much fun.
We had a lovely surprise when we returned with a mini-Christmas tree installed in the room (our butler had already decorated our door with a tree and put in Santa caps on our walls). So sweet.