February 21 – Fortaleza, Brazil

February 21, 2017 – Fortaleza, Brazil
As we sailed in we saw another large city with many high rise buildings. It was raining when they announced that passengers could start getting off the ship.
Linda and I decided to wait until 9:45am. We took a shuttle to the port terminal (2 minutes) and then a 2nd shuttle to the prison/handicraft market (30 minutes). The bus passed many tall buildings that appeared to be either apartment buildings or condos. We also passed the favelas (slums).
The shuttle took us to the Casa de Detencas – a former prison now a handicrafts market. It mostly had the same things we had seen in the market in Recife. We were told that it was unsafe to leave the market so after 15 minutes we boarded a shuttle to head back to the ship.
After having lunch and a shower, I noticed that a large semi was about to unload. Since the ship had run out of blueberries, raspberries, mangoes, and bananas over the last week or so, I was curious to see what was in the truck. The first pallet had strawberries. I am not sure what was wrong but they were rejected by the ship personnel. Some lettuce and spinach was also rejected. But 10 or 12 pallets filled with vegetables and fruit were loaded. The chef and other food personnel checked the quality of everything before allowing it on the ship. Unfortunately we did not see any blueberries or raspberries. I did see pumpkins and some huge squash being loaded (see picture below).
Tomorrow is another sea day and on the 23rd we will be in Belem.