Fortaleza, Brazil

Today, we are in Fortaleza (pronounced “for·ta·le·zuh”) Brazil. With regards to crime, this is the most dangerous city that we will be visiting. Now, I’m not one to judge, but I have to tell you a story. It turns out that Brazil has a long-standing tradition of letting many prisoners out of prison for the week of Christmas. Coincidentally, there is a huge spike in crime between Christmas and New Years. This (coupled with the fact that Fortaleza already has a high crime rate) contributed heavily to our decision to not get off of the ship in this city.

So, here are a few pictures of the city from the ship. Afterwards, I’ll spend the remainder of this post showing a few photos and stories about Christmas and some of the friends we’ve made onboard.

On Christmas morning, we passed The Equator, an imaginary line that divides the earth into two (northern and southern) hemispheres. It is also known as the latitude 0°. Our captain is so cool. Knowing that we would all be excited about it, he did three donuts around the (invisible) line, and announced it each time we crossed… This is a buoy that marked the equator.

We had a great Christmas onboard hanging out with our many new friends.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.