Happy Neptune Day!

hola! We are on day 5 of 10 at sea, on our way to CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA!! This is one of the ports that i’m most excited for! i will be going on a 3 day safari, observing a current HIV/AIDS project, taking part in Operation Hunger, hiking Table Mountain, and we’re going to try to catch a ferry to Robben Island to see Mandela’s old prison cell and learn more about south africa’s apartheid history. We get to cape town on Tuesday, February 19th.

Today is by far the most turbulent weather we’ve encountered so far. We’ve hit rough waters and we are really rocking. When i’m laying in bed, i actually shift and slide around. My deodorant that was sitting on a shelf went flying across the room, and i had to stuff breakables into my pajama drawer. All our books and clocks and junk on our dressers slid to the floor in one particular rough patch. Some crew just came into our room to screw/seal shut our porthole window so that we can’t see outside. It’s because if a log or huge wave happens to hit our porthole, it could shatter the glass (and then there'd be flooding. no bueno). this is kinda scary but also exciting in a weird way. As long as it doesn’t become like what happened in the spring ’05 voyage. If you guys are bored, look up semester at sea spring 2005 on YouTube. Insane. Today is nothing though… tomorrow is supposed to be HELL, and it’ll also be rough on the 19th when we get into port—Cape Town is notorious for rough waters. I have yet to skip class, but if it’s really horrible tomorrow, i don’t know how well i can handle sitting in class in the union, which is in the front of the boat, where it rocks the most…

BRAZIL was a blast. Our port city, Salvador, was the 1st capital of brazil (it then changed to Rio de Janeiro, then Brasilia). We were surprised at how destitute this section of Salvador seemed to be. Still, it was awesome to be immersed in Bahia and its culture—Bahia is the “state” that Salvador is in (kind of like how we have counties). walking from our ship to the city was a doozy. We had to walk down a long street that reeked strongly of urine (that had been baking in the hot sun all day) everytime we left or came back to the ship. We started calling it “pee street” and “baked pee street” towards the end. One of the coolest aspects of brazil in my opinion is its crazy elevation changes. Slums and cities are built high up, down low, and all in between. The people of salvador take a giant “lacerda,” or elevator, into old upper city, called Pelhourino. This giant elevator was built in 2002—think of a Disney/six flags “tower of doom” or drop-ride. That’s what this elevator looked like, only obviously not as quick of a drop. We had to learn our basic Portuguese because no English is spoken whatsoever in Salvador. Learning phrases like “bom jia” (good morning ...i definitely didn’t spell that right), “hola” and “oi” (hi), “tudo bom?” (how are you?), “obrigato” (thank you), “quantos e” (how much does this cost?), and “desculpa” (sorry/excuse me) definitely helped us get by. Portuguese is a beautiful language and i’d love to learn more of it someday.

The night of Tuesday, Feb. 5 was the last night of CARNAVAL. I can honestly say that carnaval is truly the biggest shit-show of a party i’ve EVER witnessed. We didn’t get a spot in any roped off areas because it was way too expensive. But i didn’t feel threatened or unsafe at all being on the streets during carnaval as long as i was around at least 1 or 2 guys at all times. it was just a damn good time. We went in a group of 60 or so SASers and experienced the madness together on the streets. Giant trucks drive down the streets with bands playing loud music and groups of dancers and celebrators are parading in front of the trucks. I loved just dancing in the streets with crazy brazilian crowd…awesome experience. It’s pretty hard to describe it in a written way, but i took a whole disposal camera full of carnaval photos…i will just have to develop them when i get back to the states. But to sum up, carnaval = shit show. I know Amy can vouch for that too. (P.S. i’m doing the “try the local beer in every country” thing, so… Update: the local cheap beers in brazil were decent, one is called “Skol” and another is called “Nova Schin". They cost about 1-2 American dollars each.)

We spent the next day at a brazilian beach called Flamingo beach—it was 35 minutes away and trying to hail a cab was an “adventure” when the Portuguese and English languages are completely incomprehensible to one another. We wanted to get away from town since there would be a bunch of hungover, post-Carnaval Brazilians at the local beaches. The beach was fun and Brazilians are crazy passionate…making out everywhere! The ladies wear the skimpiest swimsuits and the guys sport banana hammocks or little tiny swim shorts. Hehehe. but we did almost die in the cab ride back—no exaggeration. I feared for my life.

That night we explored Salvador night life. This wasn’t like Puerto Rico where we could just walk around in standard going-out clothes. Couldn’t show too much skin and had to be around at least one male at all times. We found a bar called Sankofah’s and it’s an African bar. It was a lot of fun, and several regulars spoke English so it was a nice little bonus. In brazil they have a drink called Capriana (totally butchered the spelling) and it’s sugarcane, lime, and rum…very refreshing! we had a fun night dancing to reggae and salsa and some American music. I tried to request “Soulja Boy” but they didn’t have it. Haha i’m an idiot. We left late, so the walk back to the ship was pretty nerve-wracking. Lots of skeezy people out, lots of children begging in the streets. I am honestly able to say that i watched a 5 year old chug a beer (that had already been drunken out of) and crush the can afterwards. It was sad.

Most of the kids on the ship (those who weren’t on trips to Rio or the Amazon) scored tickets to a real live futebol aka SOCCER game on Thursday night! It was the local state we were in, Bahia, versus Pocio. I bought a couple jerseys to bring home :) The intensity of the game itself wasn’t as exhilarating as i had expected brazilian soccer to be, but it was still a damn good time and i’m stoked i can say i’ve witnessed South American “futbol".

On our last full night in Salvador, many of my friends and i went to an event called Bahia by Night. It was an evening of watching traditional dances and martial arts of brazil, followed by an African-influenced dinner. The performances were awesome to watch, especially for me since i recently completed my dance minor and just finished learning about world dance & culture last semester at CU. It was refreshing to be surrounded by dance and performance again…i have been deprived from it for so long already!! i wish there was a ballet class or something on the boat. Anyways, the food was interesting… i made sure to try everything at least… except for the ox tongue. That night we went out on the town again but we weren’t up for staying out too late or anything since we wanted to get last minute shopping done the next day. My friend paul got pick-pocketed in the giant elevator on our way back!! Poor paul, he was so concerned with protecting us girls. When we got in the elevator, a sleazy guy ran in last minute and got behind our group. Paul remembered that the man seemed to have shifty eyes and was looking at us, so paul stood behind us girls. When we got to the bottom of the city, the guy was the first to jet from the elevator. We’re pretty sure he was the guy who pick-pocketed paul because we were relatively safe and alert earlier and throughout the night. Paul was smart and did not make a scene in town when he realized his wallet was missing—he waited until we were back near the ship. He had his debit card, phone cards, and ship ID stolen. Thank goodness it wasn’t a violent attack though. Another kid talked to us when we were getting back on the ship and he told us he had been mugged by a guy who pulled a knife on him (i think it was a switch blade) and he had to give the guy all his money (70 reals – brazilian money). There were a few other incidents that happened during carnaval and stuff, but most of the time i did not feel too scared during my time in salvador. You just had to be smart about things and appear confident.

On our last day in port, we spent the day shopping and picking up last minute items. I picked up some brazilian coffee for my dad and a Brasil soccer jersey for my broha. I also bought lots of jewelry for myself and my friends, as well as a million pairs of Havaianas. They are a brand of flip flops that are becoming trendy in the U.S. (i think they are sold in Urban Outfitters and in surf shops), and they are brazilian… love them. We also stocked up at the local market and we went to a real mall—brazilians are pretty trendy.

Today is Neptune Day on the ship! It’s also valentine’s day…but who cares. I’m definitely not celebrating it (ha). We have the day off from class—our schedule is really random because sometimes we have class on Saturdays and Sundays, other days we are at port for 5 or so days at a time and don’t have class. So these days off are our “weekends.” We have been gaining an hour every other day. So essentially we lose an hour of sleep every other night. By tomorrow, we will be ahead of eastern time by 5 hours, and ahead of CO by 7 hours. right now it’s 7:25pm here, 3:25pm in NYC and 1:25pm in boulder. I am taking a midterm on Sunday morning for my 8am class, and technically i’ll be taking it at 2am eastern time!!!! And cape town is 7 hours ahead of the east coast. Geez, not so healthy for the mind and bod. I’ve been sick and stuffy with a cold that refuses to go away and i’ve been hoarse and coughing since carnaval night… go fig. Okay i’m done talking about all these time-change shenanigans.

So, neptune day. It’s a traditional day of semester at sea. It normally happens when we cross the equator, which happened a while back, so i’m not sure why they delayed it this late. SASers traditionally get awoken at the butt-crack of dawn (well, like 7am) with staff/crew in costume, marching down the halls banging on instruments, blowing whistles, and pounding on our doors to wake us up. Our dean, Kenn, was King Neptune. We can choose to get fish chum/guts poured on us and then jump in the pool, kiss a real fish and bow to the king and queen, and get our heads shaven (huge SAS tradition). I shaved my head. My mom’s going to kill me.

I’ll write again after Africa…

P.S. a few other notes:
-i get to “walk” for graduation on the ship at the end of the voyage! And instead of graduation robes, we wear life vests for the ceremony. :)
-the Sea Olympics are happening after cape town…i’m so excited. For those who are SAS alum, i’m reppin’ the Aegean Sea. Our Olympics seem to be way earlier in the voyage for some reason (i thought Sea Olympics didn’t happen until towards the end). It’s a day o’ fun with events like synchronized swimming, flip cup, twister, musical chairs, basketball, lip synching contests, etc. Every floor (sea) competes with one another.
-people still call me “pham” on the ship…my good friends do at least. I will forever be known as pham. holler.
-i’m traveling china independently! Paul and i bought our flights early this morning! We’re doing a day in hong kong, 3 days in Beijing (Great Wall), and 1 in shanghai.