Salvador

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Well, today is my last day in Brazil (technically, I guess tomorrow is, but since I will spend the night in the airport we are going to say its today). How can I recap the last week? Honestly, I think today is the first day I dont have much to do - except capoeira, go see Bale Foclorico, and catch the plane.

Well... Salvador is the place to go if you want to find capoeira. There is a kind of neighborhood here called Pelourinho which is a bunch of cobblestone streets, and restored colonial buildings stuffed completely full of tourist souveniers, much of which is capoeira pants, berimbaus (the quintessential capoeira instrument) and various green and yellow Brazil stuff. There are also a good number of capoeira academies, and I have taken classes at a few of them.

On a sidenote, I have to say I have failed miserably in shopping for presents, because no one at home is really that interested in wearing bright green and yellow stuff, except maybe the capoeira peeps, and I cant shop for all of them.

Anyway, the first few days I was here, I did some capoeira during the day, went to the beach, and then I hung out with my friend Pedro pretty much every night. Hes a native Bahian (and he has a car) and so he showed me the city outside the tourist district. His English is excellent and I had a great time hanging out with him. It~s extremely triste to me that it is so difficult for any of my Brazilian friends to come visit me, because the US is denying everyone visas.

On one of the nights he couldnt go out, I was a little tired and thinking about just watching the Bale Focklorico, but as I was walking down there I was distracted by drumming... It was the performance of Olodum (a super-famous samba-reggae group). My friend Annie from Fortaleza happened to be there, so we danced all night. There were some people leading dances, a little like line-dancing in that everyone does it in unison, except way cooler.

The last few days, I spent a little time recovering from going out til 6 am every night. Yesterday I just took the ferry to an island about an hour away, went to the beach there for about 15 minutes, and took the ferry back. I didnt really want to see the island, i just like boats.

Last night was the bi-weekly street party, which I took to mean 'goodbye party for sarah'. There are about 3 main plazas in the Pelourinho, and there were bands set up in each one. What I love about street parties here is no one has any problem with just grabbing a beer and walking down the street with it, or even random vendors selling beer out of coolers. The bands played a lot of samba and samba-reggae, and maybe some Brazilian funk (the names of the types of music are totally unrelated to their US counterparts, so funk is not what you are thinking).

There were some nice Spanish guys in my hostel (They speak just a little english so we spoke a funny mix I will call Portu-nol-ish) so I went with them and we danced in the cobblestone streets all night, then went to a club that was playing salsa and danced some more. What is really funny about this neighborhood is that there are a lot of travelers here, so I am often running into people I know ... which is something I love.

Well, wish me luck on the journey home. If it goes as smoothly as the rest of the trip, Im golden. The plan is to fly to Sao Paulo, wait for my flight to Lima, wait for my flight to El Salvador, and then fly to LA where I will 'rest up'and take some capoeira classes and see some friends and be back by monday (MAJOR LAW REVIEW ASSIGNMENT DUE THAT WEEK... UH OH).
But hey, Live it up.

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Comments

[Buchecha]

Vale, that sounds great!! I'm glad you're having such a great time. You got to see Muito Tempo, OMG...that's all I'll say. Hope your flight back is easy and relax, see you soon.