Date of Entry: July 28th-30th 2016
Date of Writing: November 5th 2016
After a blissful week at home in Sao paulo after surprising my girlfriend with a flight home to see her I headed back towards the north east of Brazil to a place I’ve been waiting to get to since coming to South America. Salvador in the state of Bahia, a lively beautiful city on the atlantic full of energy, history, and plenty of unique local customs and dances.
I get there and check in to my lovely hostel dorm bed at Acai Hostel which is right in the heart of pelourinho, the city’s histrical old town. The bus from the airport has taken forever as uber is blocked at the airport and the heat is getting to me, but the warm welcome i receive in the hostel makes all that dissapear. I even smile when i find out I’m already known there since my girlfriend has called ahead to check how safe it is, as salvador is quite a notorious crime spot. (I had absolutely no issues during my stay in Salvador and I think if you use common sense you can have the same experience).
Checked in and impressed by the spacious dorm beds and personal fans I head out to explore pelourinho on foot briefly before sunset, stopping at a plaza where michael jackson shot a music video and eventually heading to Zulu bar and restaurant with some friends from the airport bus for a tasty meal. Tonight I made the mistakeof not getting the moceca a delicious curry like dish famous in Bahia, don’t make the same mistake I did, get the moceca, it is delicious.
Pelourinho is a beautiful little neighbourhood though and I find myself very happy with the choice to stay here and not in Barra the more modern and beachfront district a 20 minute ride away. Even the telephone booths come with some local flavour.
Among many unique and interesting dances to come out of brazil is capoeira, half martial art,half street fight, and haf intricate dance. It’s beyond fascinating and much like the regular samba bands playing in the streets of Pelourinho I’m lucky enough to catch some locals practicing in a plaza.
The next morning I head out to explore Barra and go shopping with Annie an awesome and definitely not sarcastic at all girl from norway, and Ryan a californian. We spend the afternoon first wandering a fancy shopping mall which Brazil is full of watching dogs with diapers and looking for frozen yogurt to wait out the downpour outside. Eventually though it ends and we sit down at a beach front restaurant with super cheap and tasty seafood moceca and nice lemonade, before heading to the beach and the famous lighthouse in salvador for some photo ops, the three of us getting along quite well and me busting out a paint me jack or two for good measure.
As we wander along the concrete promenade set just barely back from a long line of beaches I spota new kind of monkey for me, precariously perched up on the electric wires. As I watch these two little critters moving around I can’t help but wonder how safe the electricity lines are for them.
As the sky is consistently clearing we decide to take a wander back to pelourinho rather than the uber that brought us to barra and meander together along the coast talking about everything and anything and eventually stopping at a fancy restaurant on the cliffside overlooking the beautiful atlantic ocean. We just grab some coffee and juice though, as the prices are exorbitant, still it provides a great viewpoint for the beginning of a sunset.
Ryan has his own plans but as we head back to Acai hostel Annie and I decide we’re heading in the same direction and get along well enough to travel together for a few days, though I think we both should have been scared by the sheer level of sarcasm wed get to, either way the next evening after a night of Sampa on the streets of pelourinho with local skin painting (admittedly I have a headache and head home long before everyone else in the hostel though I still enjoy the intense energy of the percussion music and dancing) we’re climbing onto a night bus bound for the small town of Lencois next to Chapada Diamantina national park, and a long awaited return to something approaching mountains for me. Stay tuned as there’s lots more fun adventures to come.
