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September 20, 1497                   

Dearest Mother and Father ,

We are sorry to make you suffer days without us.  The meaning of this is that we are traveling with one of the incredible explorers, Vasco Da Gama.  We are going around the Cape of Good Hope and right now we are outside on the deck looking at the wonderful night sky.  We are going to tell you what has happened so far on this amazing journey.

 

Vasco Da Gama was born in 1460 in Sines, Portugal. He is now 37 years old. We were traveling with this amazing person, but he does not know we were sailing with him yet. We told him after our terrific first stop. When we told him he reacted wonderfully to us being there because he is a nice person.

              

       Vasco Da Gama had  four amazing  ships and they  were named Berrio, Saint Rafael, Saint Gabriel and the other ship’s name is unknown. In every ship there were five levels and 170 brave sailors.  One of the ships was seized, but luckily we weren't on that ship. We traveled with the wind to get from  Portugal to Asia. Eventually, the goal was to start from Portugal and explore Asia.  He did this because he liked to be an explorer and also because Prince Henry sent him on this amazing journey.  Prince Henry was also from Portugal. He was also was the one who hired people to make important maps for him. That is how he sent Da Gama to explore Asia. We made some important stops in Africa.  There are some maps that we sketched.

 

Our accomplishments are that we took about five voyages. We were the first ones to go around the Cape of Good Hope.  Unfortunately, we did not bring many rich spices from Asia and that is why Prince Henry got acrimonious.  We took the voyage because we wanted Prince Henry to pay us with riches and spices.  Da Gama and us survived all of our voyages, but then Da Gama retired from being an explorer.     

 

              So, we have told you all about the things that we have learned so far. We think this is fantastic. We are very sorry and we hope you can forgive us.  We are also asking you to please let us explore the land with

Da Gama. If you let us stay we will take care of ourselves and defend each other.  The whole point of this is to learn.

    Again, we are sorry to leave home without telling you and for all the worries.  We know that you are scared, but we are having an extraordinary time and we are on our way home.

          

 

                      Yours truly

            The stowaways,

                          Kimberly, Juanita, Oscar and Isamar