There's an adage in the travelling world that if you absolutely loved a place when you visited… don't go back. You're risking all those glowing memories. But sometimes it makes sense to go back. There was only one transatlantic cruise and it plopped us down in Buenos Aires which is where we needed to be - albeit 5 weeks sooner than we needed to be there. Financially the cruise and the Airbnb together was still around half the cost of two flights - and we n...

Cruise Day 15, 6 December - Port Day / Rio de Janeiro - My oh my! We never thought we'd visit Rio so were pretty excited - like a bagful of kittens (but in a good way!) So much so we got up a bit early and went to the top deck to witness the ship's arrival in Rio. Beautiful overcast day, calm waters and sliding into port with views of Christ the Redeemer in one direction and Sugarloaf Mountain in the other. Just beautiful. We had breakfast and eventually joined o...

Cruise Day 13, 4 December - Port Day / Salvador de Bahia - Singing Hot, hot, hot! 'Twas the day of hurry up and wait. We ventured off more or less on time (Yes! Wifi! Managed to email our medical forms to a ship's staff member who promised to try and get them printed for us.) First stop was the Church of Sao Boafim, quite moving with the thousands of colourful prayer/wish bracelets/ribbons strung from the railings of the church. There was also a mass in progre...

Cruise Day 12, 3 December Port Day / Maceio - Pron: Mah-Say-O - Having now experienced the joys of the Spanish and Italians on tour, we are fully qualified to say, if you must tour with a foreign language group, zee Germans are zee vay to go. Ja. We weren't expecting much from Maceio and were pleasantly surprised. We left the port only 15 minutes late due to a couple of no shows and great agitation from the excellent timekeepers onboard. We are all here. They ar...

Cruise Day 11, 2 December - Port Day / Recife pron: 'Ra-see-fay' and Olinda, Brazil) - While the five sea days were enjoyable and we certainly kept active, we were both pretty excited to leave the ship and set foot on Brazilian soil. Ten years ago we visited Iguassu Falls (both Brazilian and Argentinian sides). We never thought we'd be back to Brazil as face it, it's not on the way to anywhere and it's quite the long haul from Australia and honestly, aside from ...