Normal early morning routine, then off the ship before 8am.  I messed up the keys bing bonging out with Preeti – I don’t know what I was thinking, I handed her Ed’s new key thinking she needed it after scanning us out – but she didn’t and, well, she fixed it, then took new pictures which are awful!  But whatever – they’ll only see them another few times now we only have 6 ports left! No harm, no foul.

After yesterday’s nightmare in the port, we figured it would easier to walk away from the pier a bit to grab an Uber to the Botanical Gardens.  But it wasn’t anywhere near as crazy today, just us and Oceania.  The roads were clear and not a bit of congestion.  But just to be sure, we walked over to the Cais do Valongo, the remains of a 19^th Century dock where all the enslaved Africans first arrived in Brazil (Lais had told us about it).  Ordered the Uber and the driver texted us in Portuguese, asking if we could walk (at least I think that is what he said!).   When you looked at the map, you could see that if we could just walk to the end of the block, he could pick us up and save about 10 minutes of driving round about to get to where we sat.  Gambling that this is what he meant, we walked up to the corner, and voila!  We got it right and hopped in for a great ride with a driver who spoke perfect English and chatted about the traffic, the city, etc. 

What should have been a 30-minute ride ended up being almost an hour!  Crazy traffic in this city, and the driver said it is worse because it is a Friday.  Go figure.  But we made it, gave him a big tip, and headed into the garden.  We got at 50% discount because we are old (love how everyone apologizes before when they ask if we are over 60!).  The only downside is that they only accept cash, which leaves us with precious little Reals cash.  We are hopeful we won’t need it.  We only need lunch today and our last day in Brazil we have a private tour which is already paid.  

The gardens are beautiful and huge.  We start our walk up past a waterfall, then onto a the Atlantic Forest path, which runs alongside a little levada – not a scary one like in Madeira.  The path is thought to originate from the farm that occupied the land around the 16^th century.  It leads to an aqueduct that was once the farm’s water supply.  

Back in the garden proper, we stop by the orchiderea – or orchid hot house – with amazing varieties of gorgeous orchids.  There are over 2700 species of orchids founds in Brazil, most in the Atlantic Forest here and as we saw in Ilhabela.

There is a fabulous lily pond with giant water lilies and a cast iron sculpture of the Goddess Thetis, symbolizing the feminine soul of the sea. 

A medicinal garden, the bromelia hot house and more fun paths that lead up to the old Pestles Mill workshop which was built in 1808 as part of the Real Fabrica de Polvora a Gunpowder factory, created by Don Joao.  You can see where the large wheels that were powered by water sat in the stone and the different holes that contained the pestles.  In the late 1800’s it served as a laboratory for the botanist that began the botanical garden.  

We continued to meander through the pretty paths, heading toward the Fountain of the Muses, a very pretty fountain the middle of the park. 

On our way to the rose garden we finally get a view of Christ the Redeemer from his perch high up above Mount Corcovado.  Now we’ve seen him from both sides – the ship and here!

Pretty much done with the gardens, we make our exit, finding the turtles our driver was talking about on the way in.  We walked right by them when we went to buy the tickets and never even saw them.

Next on the agenda, we had really wanted to try to go back and do the Carnaval Experience, which Lais had told us about.  It looked great, seeing the behind the scenes carnaval things, without actually being in the mess, but sadly, the timing didn’t work.  They only have tours at 9, 10:30 and 2.  All aboard is at 4, and the 2 o’clock tour would be pushing it too much.  So, we gave up on that experience and ended up finding this great little city history museum in the middle of a park by a favella. 

We picked up an uber and started off on our 30-minute drive, everything here takes forever!  The sweet driver had never been there before and had to ask directions!  He spoke no English but just talked to us in Portuguese to explain it was his first time here, which we figured out pretty easily.  The museum is located in an old palacete or little palace that was owned by many important people.  First owned by the Portuguese Crown, and then owned by Marquis and counts who made improvements to the property, including adding a second floor to the main house.  The city museum was established here in 1934 and it contains an interesting array of historical items and excellent displays in Portuguese and English.  It is the perfect place to be as a follow up from yesterday and Petropolis.  Everything Lais has taught us is re-affirmed here, in writing, which makes it easier for us (ok, me!) to remember!

The explanation panels begin with the founding of Rio and continue on through the Portuguese Royal Court, the “civilization project” that the Emperor began when he arrived here, injecting European ideals and customs upon the area.  There are disparate displays – riding boxes (where people would sit while be transported on the shoulders of slaves), a portrait of Don Pedro, his crest, huge wooden carved dragons that turn out to be the base of an old circular staircase that was in the Centro Cultural Jose Bonifacio school.

There are panels that talk about the slave revolt and provide background on the religious processions that have turned into the Carnaval celebrations today.  Upstairs are more portraits, paintings, the reproduction of an office and pharmacy from that time period and a wonderful wrap around balcony that has views out and around the park.

There is also a display on how Christo Redemptor was designed and how Mount Corcovado was chosen as the site to build him.

All in all, a very interesting visit!  We walked back down the road, eschewing the paths running through the park as we weren’t sure if they would actually lead us to the exit.  It’s a lovely park with waterfalls and play areas – and tons of school children here.  If we weren’t so pressed for time we probably would have explored more, but since we still needed lunch and knew we had a long ride back to the ship, we chose to head directly out into the favela neighborhood.

Ed had scoped out a restaurant, Refeitorio Dona Raimunda, a few minutes walk from the park, so we headed there.  We were their first customers. But at least they were open.  It was a sweet space, all bright and yellow, the owner very nice and spoke English, so all was well.  They only had the menu de dia with either fish or beef.  What the heck?  We chose one of each, along with an excellent Antarctica beer (I really like that beer and not just for the penguins), and shared everything.  Excellent!  The fish was some of the best we have ever had. The beef dish was a traditional picadinho de carne, a chopped beef dish.  Both came with rice and beans and a fish stock sauce that the owner explained to us.  He also explained the dish of what looked like crushed bread crumbs – it’s farina and Brazilians sprinkle it on top of their rice and beans and mix it all together.  Thank you!  We had a bowl of it in Ilhabela and had no clue what to do with it.  And, btw, it is really good mixed into the beans and rice!

As we sat happily eating, we also had great entertainment watching the bus-cum-produce market across the street (totally innovative idea) and the school buses that got stuck and took 10 minutes to navigate between the produce and a car coming in the opposite direction.

Since the road was so narrow, and almost one-way, we figured our best bet was to walk down the street to get to a major intersection before ordering an Uber.  Which was great because it gave us an opportunity to snap some shots of the really nice houses lining the street and the favela houses right behind. 

Uber was easy and seamless, even though he spoke absolutely no English and finally said to us in halting words “your name?”  But he was a good driver and got us back to the ship in one piece – all we could ask.

It was a little confusing getting back on the ship with all the Oceania people – and they had much better signage!  Turns out we went to the same place, then once inside the terminal just went out the way we came in this morning.  As we walked up to deck 5, we realized that they were doing check-in on board.  Ah, so that’s why it was so weird out there.  We just flashed our in-transit card, and jumped the rope closing off the stairs, then headed up to the cabin to get cool and continue onto our normal evening of gym, drinks and then an amazing Sailaway from the balcony.  It is just gorgeous sailing out of the bay with the sunset behind Sugarloaf mountain and Mount Corcovado.  We can’t stop taking pictures.  Stunning.

Tonight at dinner, Aivee gives us table #2!  Hopefully the table stealer has left (we don’t think she is b2b) and we won’t have the same issues this cruise with table #2.  We’ve seen the welcome so already so many times, we decide to just go see Mark for an after dinner drink, then hit the cabin.  And we are off on our last leg of our cruising journey.