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Hello Everyone!
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    I'm sorry for all the confusion but what follows is actually the second email you were supposed to receive from me.  I was going to send two from Kenya (because I couldn't send one from South Africa), but things got screwed up.  The woman from Kenya only let me send one email (very long story) and I sent my experiences in South Africa instead of my experiences in Brazil by accident.  Oops, my bad!  If you were in that hot little room with 15 Kenyans staring curiously at you, you probably would have made the same mistake as I!  Here is the long awaited Brazil email, again, sorry for the delay.
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Dear Family and Friends,
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    Sorry this email is late in coming.  I didn't have enough time to finish typing the one I started on my voyage from Brazil to South Africa.  What follows is half of an email, about my Brazilian experiences, that was written before South Africa, and half of an email that was written after South Africa.  Hopefully, my two memories will agree.  Buckle your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride!
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    Salvador, like Havana, was also an amazing city.  A few centuries ago, it was the capital city of Brazil and the capital of sugar production.  Slavery has played an enormous part in Salvador's history and most of the people who live there today are living descendents of the slaves.  This African influence is very evident in Salvador's food, clothing, and culture.  The city of Salvador also consists of an Upper City and a Lower City.  The easiest way to get between them is by elevator or tram.  That in itself is an adventure.  The people pack so close together and most of them have bad B.O. too!  Oops, I just let my ethnocentric views come into play.
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Going up?  The elevator linking the two levels of Salvador

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The first day I got to Salvador, I spent my time, with my friend Lisa, exploring the many churches.  There are so many churches in Salvador that they say there is one for every day of the year! One of the churches I went into was decorated completely in gold.  It was one of the most amazing sites I've ever seen.  I also explored the waterfront area and visited the market where they sold local handicrafts.  In the basement of the market building, I saw where they held the slaves while they were waiting to be sold.  This was right near the water so, when high tide occurred, the water would actually rise up to their necks.  It was a very depressing site. That evening Lisa, Jimmy, and I headed into the interior of Brazil for an exciting trip indeed. . .
 We took an 11:30 PM train to the village of Lencois.  Many people say that Lencois is the most beautiful place in all of Brazil and, after a two day stay there, I'm inclined to agree.  At the bus station in Salvador we met a new friend named Rualdo.  Rualdo is a professor from Porto Alegre, a city in Southern Brazil, who was travelling around the country promoting an atlas which he had been working on for the past four years.  He was in the Salvadorian newspapers on the day we arrived and was going out to Lencois to meet with the mayor for a conference.  Rualdo was an extremely generous person.  We were planning on camping in Lencois but he insisted that we stay with him at the best hotel in town.  The hotel we stayed in was called the "Pousada de Lencois".  It was absolutely beautiful and there were many botanical gardens that I enjoyed after a fantastic local breakfast.  The next morning we all embarked on a two day hike which would take us through a valley with huge cliffs formed by erosion, into a remote town, and then to see the highest waterfall in all of Brazil, Glass Falls.  Our guide was named Perdera and he was one of the happiest people I've ever met. He always had a smile on his face!  We started our trek around noontime and headed into the unknown.  It is a necessity to have a guide on hikes in the Lencois area because all the trails are unmarked and there are no good maps of the area.  As we made our way through the valley we swam in a few waterfalls which were a nice respite of refreshment.  We continued on and saw some wild horses grazing at the base of some of the eroded cliffs.  About three-quarters through our hike, we were caught in a torrential downpour.  We had a blast running through streams and Rualdo and I discussed the water retention techniques of plants.  It was a very educational hike indeed!  We made it to the small village just at sunset and put on some dry clothes.  In an effort to save electricity, this village turned off it's electricity at 7:00 PM!  We boarded a truck that took us a few kilometers away from the hotel to a restaurant in a local's home.  This is where I experienced my best Brazilian food.  All of the food, including the chicken, was locally grown and absolutely delicious.  For dessert, we had some locally grown and ground coffee that was fantastic!  The best drink I've ever had in my entire life, no joke.  After a evening of good conversation with old and new friends, we headed back to the hotel where we slept like babies because of the hard hike which we endured earlier in the day.
 The next morning we woke up and had another fantastic breakfast.  We needed all the energy we could take because we were hiking up to the highest waterfall in Brazil.  The hike up was strenuous, but well worth the effort.  The view from the top was UNBELIEVABLE!  Our guide Perdera, held our feet as we dangled out over the edge of the cliff and pretended to fly.  Yet another, fantastic experience.  We then had a quick swim in the stream, and headed back to the small village where we had to catch a truck to take us to another village where we could catch a bus to take us back to Lencois.  We made back to the village of Lencois, after our bus was stuck in the mud for a half hour and we had to board a different one.  We were greeted with the town marching band.  Rualdo explained that it was amazing how in sync the children were because it was very hard to instill any sense of order to Brazilians.  We then hiked to a large waterfall that had many caves and sink holes, where we bathed for awhile to cool down from our hot day.  It was very refreshing and invigorating!  We made our way back to the Pousada de Lencois, where we ran into some of our other Semester at Sea friends.  They were doing a Semester at Sea trip that cost them $308, I didn't want to tell them that we were doing an even better one, where we got to see a lot more stuff for a grand total of $35!  Anything is possible if you really put your mind to it.  That's my advice for today.  We then had a great dinner at a local restaurant and Rualdo tried to convince us to stay in Lencois.  We told him that we had to get back to Salvador because we didn't have a lot of time to see the city so he decided to come back with us.  We took another overnight bus ride and got back to Salvador early in the morning.
 We slept in a little bit the next morning because we didn't get a lot of sleep on the bus.  Then we met Rualdo and arranged for him to come aboard the ship with us as a "visitor".  He brought a promotional video that he had and some slides of his Atlas and gave Jimmy, Lisa, and I a great slide presentation.  After lunch we decided to take a ferry over to Itaparica Island.  Once there, we took a minivan to a private beach where we relaxed on the sand and had "chicken fights" in the water.  We watched a beautiful sunset and headed back to the mainland for dinner.  Rualdo took us out to a very nice restraunt that served more authentic Brazilian food.  Most of the people had crab (I didn't because I don't like seafood) and we talked the night away.  Before we knew it, it was the end of another exciting day and it was time to head back to the ship for bed. The next morning, I woke up early to use the internet cafÈ to send all of you my first email.  I then met up with Lisa and Rualdo and we toured the upper city together.  We had a great time and went in many historic museums and shops.  We also got caught in the middle of a "Women's Appreciation Day" ralley and parade.  The day wore on and the sun set.  Jimmy, Lisa, Rualdo, and I had our last dinner together and said our tearfull goodbyes as we boarded the ship.  That is the one thing which upsets me the most about Semester at Sea.  We form great friendships with people, in a very short period of time, and are immediately ripped away from them.  People on past voyages of Semester at Sea have said, over the course of the voyage, you're ten times happier than you've ever been in your life, and ten times sadder than you've ever been as well.  I wholeheartedly agree! I'll take some time to tell you about my extra-curricular activities aboard the ship.  I'm very involved with the "Sea Watch News".  This is a TV program that is produced every day and is shown to the local shipboard community.  It is taped live, with a studio audience, and we report World News, International News, Shipboard News, Weather, and Sports.  I'm part of the technical staff and usually run the graphics, sound or camera, however, I would like to try my hand at directing one of these days.  I also contribute a lot to the funny bits that we do as well.  My friend Jimmy is the Sports Anchor and we dress him up in a costume every day.  It's a real hoot and kind of like the news you see on Saturday Night Live, not very serious.  I'm also a member of the mail crew.  Many of  you know that ever since I was little tike, I wanted to be a mailman.  Now I have my moment of glory!  Minutes before we reach port I, along with about 20 other people, sort the mail and put it in our fellow student's mailboxes. It's pretty hectic but a whole lot of fun!  Plus, I get my mail before everyone else (speaking of which, send me lots of it!).  If you've forgotten the places, and when, to send mail to, you can check them out on the official Semester at Sea page at "www.semesteratsea.com".  Another organized group that I'm involved in is the "Adopt a grandparent" program.  This is a program where students adopt one of the senior passengers aboard the ship to be their grandparent.  My grandfather's name is Stuart and he's pretty cool.  He's really into bugs and actually has a species of parasitic wasp, found in Florida, named after him!  I used to do laboratory research on parasitic wasps so we have some pretty intellectual conversations.
 Bali deck, if you remember it's the place where I live (also referred to as the "ghetto"), had a pretty big adventure on our trek across the Atlantic.  I had just finished some studying in the library and was going down to my cabin to put my books away.  Boy was I in for a surprise!  When I got down to my floor all I saw was water.  Lot's and lots of water.  Apparently, one of the girls on my floor had some sort of stomach virus and clogged her toilet.  When she went to flush it, it wouldn't stop flushing.  Needless to say our whole deck got flooded with five inches of toilet water!  Luckily enough for me, my roommate was in the room and was able to get our stuff off the floor and made a blockade of towels before the water came in too much. Making the best out of a bad situation, Jimmy and I took this opportunity, along with our friend Alyce, to film some scenes from Titanic.  The flooded narrow hallways of Bali deck were the perfect backdrop for some of our most dramatic scenes.  I was "Jack Dawson" and Jimmy was "Rose".  We still have a couple of more scenes to film but we plan to put it on the news soon as a "Coming Attraction". I'll keep you posted if it hit's the US anytime soon. To be honest, I'm getting a little nauseous staring at the computer screen because the seas are a little rough.  I have not thrown up yet and don't want to start now! Therefore, I'm going to end it here even though there is still so much to tell.  I'm sorry I can't say more but I'm doing the best I can.  Be well, and be in touch!

      Your friend,

              -Pat

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That's a long ways down...

Rualdo feeling a littly "crabby"

If you can read Portuguese please tell me what these say!

80's Ryan striking an pose as Boy George
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The beautiful and gigantic "Bra of Bahia"
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The inside of this church is lined with gold!
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Lisa believing she can fly...
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Wild Horses on the plains of Lençois
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The Pelherino
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Rock outcroppings
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Shanty houses in Salvador
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Taking a quick shower...
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F L O O D ! ! !
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GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAL!
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    Happy St. Patrick's Day! Today it's March 17th and I can't believe that tomorrow I'll be in Cape Town, South Africa!  Where is the time going?  The 10 day voyage across the Atlantic has been pretty uneventful and the seas have been calm.  We celebrated St. Patrick's day yesterday (because the pub can't be open the day before we reach port) and had an authentic parade.  We dressed our RA's up like St. Patrick's Day floats!  My floor dressed our RA up like a pregnant Irishwoman and put a sign on her tummy which read, "Pregnant by a leprechaun".  The "float" which won was an actual float which could be wheeled around!  The RA was dressed like a leprechaun and she was sitting on a toilet that looked like a pot of gold that had a rainbow coming out of it.  Where they got the toilet, I have no idea!

Last Updated September 28th, 2001

© 2001, Pat Lilja
Semester at Sea is a registered mark of the Institute for Shipboard Education