January 18, 2020

We ended up in Santos, Brazil because it was the embarkation port for our MSC Poesia Cruise Ship. Santos is the largest port in South America and we were very impressed with what we saw in Santos and pleased that our cruise ship allowed us the opportunity to go to this otherwise unfamiliar town. Santos is almost 2 hours from GRU – São Paulo’s international airport. We took a taxi directly from the airport which cost just over $100 USD (there is a cheaper hourly bus available which drops people at the bus station in Santos). It was a very scenic drive as we drove through the rain forest as we descended to the beach town of Santos.

We stayed at the very nice Sheraton Santos. We had a spacious room with two queen beds and we only paid about $125 USD for the night. The weather was overcast and upper 70s F when we arrived from the airport around 1pm. We asked the hotel porter for a recommendation for lunch and he suggested we go to Vista Ao Mar – A Valencian restaurant by the ocean. We headed down there by foot and we had the friendliest waiter, Paulo. Although Paulo spoke almost no English, he seemed very excited that we were American and he just started bringing us things to eat. He brought us cod with olives in a pastry and then a large plate of mussels with onions and olive oil (which was very tasty!). We then ordered the seafood paella. The paella arrived with the largest prawns we had ever seen! It also came with lobster tail. Then Paulo brought us an extra lobster tail on the house! Meanwhile we ordered caipirinhas and they were delicious, best we’d ever had (of course post-trip, I now am an expert at drinking and making delicious caipirinhas!).

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The food and drinks kept coming, Connor ordered a small ice cream with chocolate sauce and Paulo brought him a special and giant sundae! The table next to us had ordered papaya cream and they recommended we try it, they said it is very common here (they had a sole English speaker who had spent some time working in Allentown, Pennsylvania!). To make our papaya cream extra special, Paulo added liquor to it! And then Paulo brought out the homemade liquors. He kept pouring an anise one for Craig and a creamy coffee one for me. It would then come as no surprise that we left our credit card behind at this restaurant (we had been served quite a bit of free liquor and been on an overnight flight the night prior!). But no worries, the restaurant had our credit card when we returned several hours later and Paulo greeted us and told us to stay for a coffee (which we politely declined). While this restaurant was rather pricey (it does serve seafood and is situated right across from the ocean), it was an authentic Brazilian experience and we felt so welcomed by Paulo. An experience we won’t soon forget!

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After lunch we walked on the beach. The sand in Santos was firm and reminded us a lot of the beach in Hilton Head, South Carolina. The scenery also reminded us of our time in Nha Trang, Vietnam with a similar size beach town and main street, as well as, grassy area before the beach. Connor and I had a great time jumping the waves. The ocean water was warm and the water was shallow.

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A sad part of the day was while I was jumping waves with Connor my glasses fell off and due to my poor vision in both eyes, we couldn’t find them. We called Craig in to help us and Connor and Craig looked for me, but no luck. Later that day we went to the local mall and found a glasses shop that made eye glasses in 1 hour (hello, Lens Crafters equivalent of Brazil!) but the employee said the prescription in my right eye is so high (and that is NOT my Ocular Melanoma eye!) that it would take them 10 days to get a lense of that prescription! So I had to wear my contacts all week and then wear my sunglasses in our room at night. Let me tell you I looked like a celebrity wearing my sunglasses on our overnight plane ride home on the last day!

For dinner we went to a Churrascaria called Tertulia. We really weren’t that hungry but we felt obligated to go for steak while in Brazil. The concept was almost identical to Fogo de Chao or Texas de Brazil in the United States, although the cost was less than half the cost you’d pay in the US. I think Fogo de Chao now charges almost $60 USD for all you can eat beef, sides, and salad as well as cocktails cost $10-$15 USD and its impossible to find a bottle of wine under $40. Our bill for 3 dinners, a bottle of wine, a cocktail, and many bottles of sparkling water cost us $107 USD at Tertulia. There is supposed to be a red and green card on the table to signal your wishes for more meat or to take a break, however, the servers were anxious to serve us and it seemed we were always “on green” no matter the color of our card. Our favorite cuts of beef were the rump steak and the ribeye steak – both were deliciously seasoned with salt.

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The next morning we decided to walk along the beach and have a quick look for my lost glasses. We were hoping we could find some coffee too. Unfortunately, we found neither. The beach did have many vendors and we bought ourselves a coconut to drink and later in the day found some caipirinhas, but we had to move inland to find a cafe. The beach has many playgrounds for the kids as well as exercise stations for the adults along the beachfront.

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Despite the weather being poor, we had a great couple hours sitting on the beach, taking in the locals, and the heat. Craig bought some much needed sunglasses from a beach vendor and we tried a beach caipirinha. About mid-day we had to head back to our hotel to pack up and head for our cruise boat.

At the cruise terminal we faced a terrible immigration line (close to 2 hours), but one funny highlight of the immigration line is that we were allowed to go buy snacks and beer while we waited in line. I wasn’t even in the mood for beer, but felt I needed to have a Heineken so I could take of picture of myself in an immigration line with a Heineken!

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We were only in Santos for 24 hours but if we are ever back in the area, we’d be happy to return! From Santos we boarded our Cruise Ship, the MSC Poesia, and began our journey to Punta Del Este, Uruguay.