January 26, 2026 Day-#22

Although I have been working to keep up to date with my journaling, I have gotten a few days behind on blogging. It is tough to get everything done when your have so much to see and do each day. Therefore I will try to get a couple of posts published this afternoon. You might remember that I need to go to the computer center to get access to a hotspot for uploading pictures. Hope to get this done between putting contest and a mixology class.

We had a short over night trip to (using all caps because it is confusing to use a capital I and lower case L  on this keyboard) ILHA Grande, Brazil. The island is a largely undeveloped municipality just off the coast of the State of Rio de Janeiro. We are south of Rio de Janeiro city and moving toward Uruguay. This area was first used as a leper colony then transformed into a prison until it closed in 1994. The penitentiary was destroyed and now the island is used for tourism. The island is only 75 sq miles in size with only a small dock, so we needed to tender from the ship to shore. Joan and I explored the area close to the dock in the 94 degree heat and humidity, walking from shade to shade, through the cultural center (most everything written in Portuguese). However, I did get to read and understand one poster about some of the insects. Joan walked into the water and said it was a little chilly. I should have worn my water shoes, maybe it would have cooled me down a little. Not a lot to see, and due to the heat we headed back to the ship after about one hour. We ate dinner at Toscana, the on ship Italian specialty restaurant, and had a good visit with some folks from Spain. Sorry, Joan did not take a picture of her food!