Shipboard on MS Veendam

This was a fantastic assignment: The second leg of a Caribbean & South American cruise. We flew to Rio de Janeiro just in time for three days of Carnaval, which was insane. The itinerary from there included stops five stops on a 1000-mile run up the Amazon River. In addition, my presentations were packed. Several times, there was standing room only in the 534-seat Showroom at Sea.

We'd packed 16 books and my book tour poster into our luggage and the ship sold them all. Here is the display in the ship's store.

 
The ship had a nice collection of feathered headdresses.

 
Onboard hitchhikers: a swallow on a chair on the Lido deck and a mole cricket on the promenade deck.

Rio de Janeiro

The extensive mural of indigenous peoples of the world from the ship in Rio. "We Are All One" was painted by
Brazilian graffiti artist Eduardo Kobra for the 2016 Olympic Games held there.

Once we were on the land, we took close-ups of the peoples. This was Ethiopia's Mursi ethnicity.

Karen tribe of Thailand

Tapajos from Brazil

Chukchi from Siberia

Huli ethnicity in New Guinea

Other street art near the dock...

 
Nao foi por mal are lyrics to a song meaning approximately "didn't mean it."

 
We could see the Christ: The Redeemer statue in the fog from the ship.

The windows of this building were turned into sunglasses for the heads of these street art characters.

 
On the second day, we headed out early on a train and bus to get to the rainforest, but since it was Carnaval, some people were just coming back from their parties.

 
People were anxious for us to take their picture, whether they were in costume or not.

 
After we got off the train and were waiting for a bus, we saw these guys hauling an amazing load of aluminum cans.

The national park main gate.