Nov 29

We docked in the port of Santos, Brazil's largest port and second largest in the world.  It's primarily a container port and not yet convenient for cruise ships.  It's also the port for Sao Paulo, Brazil.  We had to take a bumpy bus ride to the terminal to transfer to an excursion bus.  The port is quite dirty and is in the process of being modernized.  It is 19km long so it's huge.  The first stop was a small zoo and botanical gardens, both of which displayed flora & fauna from the local province.  There were beautiful displays of orchids and we could have easily spent much more time there.  The next stop was the football (read soccer) stadium which was the home stadium for the legendary Pele.  Looking at display cases of trophies the club has accumulated since the late 1800s and viewing a grass field was not the highlight of the day.  We then went to Museu do Cafe, or coffee museum.  The building was originally the coffee exchange where bags of coffee were auctioned to traders who sent them worldwide.  There were displays of  various implements used in coffee production, packaging & weighing as well as early photos of when everything was done by manual labor.  It was an interesting visit and we topped it off by buying a cup of very strong and very tasty espresso.