March 11, 2025

RIO DE JANEIRO - DAY 3 - VILA CANOAS FAVELA TOUR

Before we entered the next Favela, we saw the eeriest of cloud formation around Sugar Loaf Mountain in distance.

Our group on terrace within Vila Canoas Favela in the Sao Conrado neighborhood. Canoas is a much smaller favela and in 2009 was chosen as a municipal pilot project to contain the disorderly growth of favelas, with the height limited to three floors.In 2011 they revised to 5 floors due to high real estate needs. Politicians promise improvements like open shared spaces, but deliver little once elected. Truly just come to favelas looking for large number of voters pre election. One rare small courtyard here.

Favela visit finished at the community center, that our tour dollars help fund. We got to meet some of the school children and got a song and dance presentation from the indigenous tribe members, with an opportunity to see and buy their custom art works.

By Patricia Patrick October 13, 2025
Ternate, Indonesia, which is both the name of the city and island, and is part of the Maluku Islands in eastern Indonesia. It is a port that sees maybe 3 Cruise ships a year. However, they really made an effort to show us the best of what they can offer. It's mainly a Muslim country, and we knew we had to dress discretely, but we knew little else. We didn't have our typical port talk prior, due to a technical issue with the AV equipment. Ben a fellow resident, organized an island tour, with about 8 stops, for 90 of us residents.
By Patricia Patrick October 10, 2025
Cebu greeted our Ship with a big warm welcome, despite having just been rocked by a major Earthquake, days before our arrival. The Minister of Tourism arrived with a motorcade and she proceeded to chat with the residents and thank us, for all our support.
By Patricia Patrick October 2, 2025
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