Days 1 and 2
Oh my god. This is going to be the kind of trip that requires me to draw stamina from my deepest nether regions. My regions of nether, Heather.
I mean, I’ve been tired a lot lately (thanks in large part to the beguiling Katie and related carousing), I’ve been dragging ass, but I don’t think I’d been as tired as I was last night in decades. Or maybe not ever, because I was never on the verge of 40 before.
First off, you should know that Dawn has not arrived yet, but I just set up my computer to be able to—for a price, as everything on this ship happens for a price—check my email on the ship, and discovered that she should be arriving any minute. Right now it’s 3:30 p.m. on Monday here. It’s a long story, involving one missed flight and then a cascading nightmare of airline hell that, apparently, ended ok when American somehow booked her on a new flight last night (and for those who know some of the drama, she did not after all have to pay). But I won’t believe she’s here until I see her face. And then I will jump up and down like a madwoman. And then, maybe after a few hours’ sleep, she will head off to the Sambadrome and party like a rockstar with the samba schools all night.
So I’ve been on my own here, playing camp counselor to gay boys, which is quite an adventure. What it meant yesterday was waking up in the morning for an early breakfast, piling on a bus with the rest of the ‘Atlantis team’ (and luxurious fluffy green seats!), driving to the port where the cruise ships are docked, and spending the next 7 hours in mostly pouring rain along one side of the port terminal directing guests where to go to drop off their luggage and check in. 
This was also an ideal people watching position, because I got to see Brazilians and other citizens of the world get to and from their cruise ships, into and out of taxis, and generally get a sense of how things go down down here.
The funny part was how easily I could pick out the Atlantis guests (which from here on you should read as a synonym for gay boys) from the rest of the travelers. Some of them acted shocked when they noticed this, but they shouldn’t have been. The vast majority of these boys are fit, beautiful, well dressed, put together, and have a little extra bounce in their step. They tend to arrive in parties of two and three. The only people I occasionally confused them for were the young Brazilian boys headed to some local booze cruise. Atlantis boys wanted to recruit a few of them, they were so pretty.
I stood in the rain, directed folks, people watched, met an amazing Canadian couple named Rob and Lewis, who’d been together 14 years and seemed to have an endless mountain of cash with which to spend however they pleased. They had just gotten off our boat on a straight cruise from Montevideo and were trying to get back on when they found out about our party. I hope they make it! I also met cranky, over-tired queens, and hyper little nellies, frumpy middle aged couples, and a few—I mean very few—“women of Atlantis,” which means either fag hags, lesbians, or straight wives of guys here with their gay friends.
After I finally got to leave my “greeting” position in the port, I ran to my room (which is quite nice since the ship didn’t fill so staff got upgraded), got overwhelmed with the attempt to unpack everything I own, and had to run off to “greet” (help seat) and “host” (sit, eat, and mingle with dining guests) the dinner shift. After some 20 hours of traveling, jet lag, not enough sleep, and the long rainy day, I was starting to poop out at this point. For a few moments my energy dimmed and I just nodded a smile and hello to the guests wandering into the dining room. Which is exactly when the highest-strung, manic narcissist who owns this whole company showed up and—just as the team members warned me he would—bitched at me and my greeting partner for no good reason. The guy was a wreck; someone aptly described him as Gomer Pile on steroids. He had dealt with nightmare travel situations too for a few days, and his luggage still hadn’t arrived, so he had to borrow his little Filipino boyfriend’s clothes. He met me by getting in my face, but that was probably the perfect introduction. I just smiled and watched the show.
Fast forward an hour an a half: I have to bolt dinner before the South African white fish arrives, to run down to the other end of the ship and 6 floors below, to the Celebrity Theatre. There our team is to be introduced before the crowd assembled to watch Frankie Davis, the bald black diva who nearly won the (2nd?) American Idol, perform. Guess who’s introducing us? The aforementioned high-strung boss of us all. And, seriously, when he looked at me onstage to announce my name, I don’t think he even recognized me from two hours before.
It was not until Frankie was singing “Natural Woman” that I had a vodka tonic in my hand, thanks to the wonderful guy who is producing this shindig and dealing with most of us, and felt like I was on a cruise. But damn if I could make it to any of the parties or out into the rainy city last night. I was so exhausted I plopped into my bed by eleven and then dealt with my head spinning for an hour.
Then I got up this morning, ran to breakfast, and led a group of 45 guys to a bus headed to Cordovado, where the Christ the Redeemer statue graciously presides over the city. Long story short: I am now really good friends with a) tropical rain (it has been much more generous than the sun), b) the Cuba Libre (dark rum and coke) and c) a group of eleven guys from Frankfurt, Germany. I think I’m going to go to the Sambadrome with them tonight. We’re meeting at midnight.
Me and the Christ:
Meeting the Germans: 
Ipanema in the rain: 
Mad float procession: 
The famous Sugar Loaf: 
View from Cordovado in Rio: 
