It describes experiences such binge drinking with the Chilean writer Pablo Neruda, and visits to a brothel or candomblé yard with the artist Carybé or the musician and painter Dorival Caymmi.

[1] Other recollections include meetings with Pablo Picasso, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, and Jean-Paul Sartre.

[1] His political activism, periods of exile and his work took him around the world many times and places he visited are also recalled, as well as the cities of Brazil.

The Portuguese title, Navegação de cabotagem, is a Brazilian expression referring to navigation between coastal and river ports in Brazil.

The subtitle for the book, Notes for a memoir that I will never write refers to an agreement Amado had with Pablo Neruda and the Russian writer Ilya Ehrenburg to never write a memoir, which all three failed to honour although in the case of Neruda and Ehrenburg theirs were published posthumously.