March 11, 2025
RIO DE JANEIRO - Day 3 - THURSDAY
Today we went to the Royal Portuguese Reading Room or the Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura.
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Next we went to Sao Francisco de Paula Church which was very theatrical on the inside - reminded me of an opera house more than a church with bulb lighting and private balconies overlooking the altar. I asked and it was built as a Catholic Church!
After visiting the church I walked with Callie ( friend of Scott's visiting for 6 weeks) to a public health clinic to see about getting her a yellow fever vaccination. It was pretty easy, no cost, we waited 10-15 minutes and all she had to show was her passport. Now she is all set for adventure into the Amazon! Good to know, and we got to see another part of the city along the way!
Another great day exploring the South Pacific ! Today as soon as our ship docked in Honiara , and we were cleared by customs, I was off with 9 other residents, to get in 2 small speed boats and head out to Simon's Nature Reserve in the Solomon Islands . It was about an hour long ride across the Iron Bottom Sound but so worth it to experience this special place!
Fun fact - Papua New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse country in the World! It is estimated that there are at least 826 Papuan languages. Some are spoken by just a handful of people, while others by 100,000. (Thanks - Basia & Wikipedia for sharing this information).
Tully is a small sugar mill town about 2 hours south of Cairns and we traveled here with a group of about 20 other residents to go white water rafting in the Tully River at the Gorge in the National Park. It is the beginning of the wet season and the river was running at a high level, so the rapids were class 4 out of 5. We had some trepidation, but were excited for the adventure! OMG so much FUN!!