My journey began in Portugal, the country I was born in. It all began last year in July 1497. Because they knew how great of a warrior I was, the great Vasco da Gama, they appointed me to lead their voyage to India. About four months into the trip, we reached a bay.
November 7th 1497
It was a very nice place with nice weather and great temperature, which made the crops and food the best quality. We decided to name it the bay of Santa Helena. As we spent the next eight days here, we observed many unique things about the mysterious country. They relied on animals from the sea for their foods and many animals we encountered were closely related to the ones from Portugal.
Days later people from the country came to our ship. We exchanged our goods with them; they gave us shells from the ocean and we made good use out of them. Copper was of high value to those people also. After having these interactions with the people, we were even more curious. The captain decided to find out more about their lives and what they liked. They were very peaceful people, especially the men.
It wasn’t until mid November when we set sail to go to Cape of Good Hope. We were confused about the location for a while. The monsoon winds were not cooperating so we were sailed back and forth. Probably about a week later we got there.
May 20th 1498
Today was the day! O ur ship landed in the good old city of Calicut and another city close by Pandarani. Finally we arrived! The city was full of Christians. They questioned us on why we came to their place and we said to look for Christians and spices. We were amazed and grateful that we would be able to find people that spoke our language of Portuguese!
As we departed, we received the message from the great king of our country arrived at the city and suggested us to move to greater anchor land in Pandarani. We were taken to one of their Christian churches. Of course, we weren’t allowed to step in. Now we were getting closer to the king’s palace. The city was amazing!
The king was very great to us and we appreciated everything. By June, we started returning to our great home of Portugal. What a long journey that was! It was certainly worth it!