Or, in Portuguese, cidade de Santos.
(Note: all pictures are hot-linked to a full-sized version.)
I spent a couple of days in Santos, Brazil, in early February. (Satellite view)
Getting there was a bit of a hassle. Originally, I was scheduled to go straight (via Atlanta) to São Paulo, but I had to reschedule to go to a meeting in Freeport (Bahamas) "on the way". (Meeting got canceled, but the change fees were more than the hotel in Freeport, so I went anyway.) If I had set up the schedule to include Freeport from the beginning, I would’ve flown via Miami to São Paulo. Instead, to work within the framework of the original trip, I went from Freeport to Atlanta. Only one (Delta) flight a day from Freeport to Atlanta, so I ended up spending 5+ hours in Atlanta while waiting for my 10 hour flight to Brazil. While we crossing the Caribbean (I think we were over Aruba or nearby), the plane had to turn around an make an emergency landing in San Juan (Puerto Rico). (I found out later that a woman, five months pregnant, was having complications. No word on her status, though.) Ended up adding three hours to the flight. Then an hour waiting on the bus at the São Paulo airport, followed by a two hour bus trip to Santos. Very long two days…
When I finally arrived at the hotel, I made dinner arrangements with my friend (and hopefully customer) Marcelo. (I met Marcelo at the conference in Panama just before Thanksgiving - we instantly bonded over beer. He’s a big fan of Belgian beers as well as American micros.)
I stayed at the Parque Balneário Hotel, which is supposed to be the best hotel in Santos. Its price tag was appropriate for that designation, but it’s definitely seen better days - the rooms were quite run down. Disappointing…
Between check-in and dinner, I had about three hours. I knew better than to follow my body’s recommendation to take a nap, so I went for a walk.
Even though it was the peak of summer, the weather was quite cool. (Clouds and strong winds didn’t help in that regard!)
The beach in Santos is quite wide and quite long. Apparently a popular spot when the weather cooperates. The water is not clear at all, so I didn’t even try snorkeling (although I did bring my stuff - no luck in either Freeport or Santos. Sigh).
Apparently the park/garden between between the beach and the road (and then the city) is the largest in the world. (More - in Portuguese)
Note the tiny white dots between the water and the land (Guarujá) on the right side of the photo. Sail boats out for a bit of a race, I guess…
A two-picture panorama of the beach looking toward the west, in the direction of São Vicente (which isn’t visible - the buildings in the distance are the town of Itararé).
A flower cultivated in the beach garden. I can’t find any identification. So sorry…
This palm, also in the beach garden, caught my eye. No ID for this either…
Some baby fronds on a different type of palm. (Also, look at the old-rock-wall texture of the trunk with its variety of other plants hitchin’ a ride.)
Finally, an identification in which I have some confidence. I believe this to be a flower of the Passiflora edulis (AKA Passion fruit) plant. Growing wild among the rocks near the beach on this prominence ("Pier dos Surfistas", which, at a certain angle, with a certain lack of decorum, could be viewed as somewhat suggestive…)
This island (Ilha Urubuqueçaba) had an almost Disney-like quality about it - like a fake version of a what a tropical island should look like…
I obsessed over it and took dozens of pictures. This is the best, which doesn’t say much for my skills, but I still like it…
There wasn’t always a lot of space between the cliffs and the beach, but (by god!) they weren’t going to let any space go to waste!
I believe this is called Pedra da Feiticeira (Rock of the Witch). Huh…
Another view…
An egret looking for some munchies…
I saw this cable car ride (Teleférico do Itararé) to the hill top and thought, how can I pass it up? (This picture didn’t resize well. Click on it if you want a better view…)
This is all that was supporting my fat ass…
If everything looks a bit skewed, it is…
The "cars" really swayed back and forth, so it was difficult to get a level photo. This picture, despite the drunken angle, does show nicely the path through the tree tops…
Yes, the focus on this picture stinks. Motion and lack of light. Sorry.
Anyway, you can still see the rough stairway below the tram line. (The rope you see is the hand rail for the stairs.) I would’ve liked to hike that path…
Another stinky picture, but it does show the brightly blooming trees that were visible throughout the surrounding mountains. Really lovely…
Cranes in the mist…
(This container terminal wouldn’t even let me visit. Sigh…)
A three picture panorama from the hill top (sorry, Itararé Mountain)…
Coming back down, looking at the Itararé beach…
By the time I got to the bottom, it was raining pretty steadily. Of course, I couldn’t get a cab, so I had to walk through the rain for about two miles back to the hotel. I barely made it in time to clean up and change before going out to dinner.
Here is Marcelo holding up a glass of Red Ale Especial (pretty much a barleywine at 9.5% alcohol) from Cervejaria Baden Baden:
We had a wonderful meal - Brazilian-style barbeque (churrascaria) with entirely too much Red Ale Especial…
After we concluded real business the next day, I took another walk. And a third walk on Friday. I probably walked a total of 20 miles over three days… (I did get a lot of real work done as well. Really…)
This time I took special note of the older buildings (as pointed out to me by Marcelo). They were apparently built on insufficient pilings and the sand underfoot has shifted. This doesn’t necessarily show up well in the picture, since all pictures of tall buildings come together at the top due to perspective. But this is REALLY how bad these particular buildings were. (I tried to take the picture from as far away as possible, the waterside, to reduce the effects of the perspective.)
Some of the buildings are so bad, Barley could play with her tennis balls all by herself - drop them on one side of the room and chase them to the other side…
An old (1584) fort called Fortaleza de Santo Amaro da Barra Grande. (I think the small island it is on is called Santo Amaro.) I thought about taking the ferry across the water, but couldn’t get sufficiently motivated. (Apparently it is a museum.)
And to finish it off with a cheesy note…
If you’re going to take on PMS, you’ll need multiple saints…
This post was exhausting. So much research - and it’s difficult to find English language information on Santos. I ended up looking through Portuguese language websites and using AltaVista’s Babel Fish to translate the bits that looked relevent…
(And I still don’t have ID for some of the plants. Sigh…)
Hopefully someone enjoys it…
