Day 4 – 1st Day in Salvador

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At the airport: Salvador is sub-tropical. It was humid and raining when we arrived, but warm. We claimed our luggage and met up with a driver (I didn’t know it then, but his name is Josalino, and I got to know him better as the week went on), he was a welcome surprise at 2am, much better than a taxi. He took us to Barra Flats, and we got our room assignments and went our separate ways. I’m rooming with Ben and Evan, very nice guys. Ben has been in Central America for the last month, and Evan was in NYC a day before I got there (he was in a different part). First thing I did was grab a shower, (my feet smelled terrible, I’d been wearing my TEVA’s since walking around NYC, ew) and then I crashed hard.
I got up around 9am and ate breakfast w/ Richard, his wife, and Rita. It was good. Grabbed a shower and went with Ben and Evan into Salvador. Oh! Barra Flats is right on the beach! The South Atlantic is right outside our window. Salvador is amazing. The people are very friendly and colorful. Some places smell like poo. Here’s a fun lesson: Brazillian plumbing can’t handle the load of tp, so when you wipe you have to through it into the garbage, not the bowl. Takes some getting used to. A direct result of this is that all the trash literally smells like shit.
There is music everywhere! And food. Elections are happening right now here, and one of the major medias for campaigning is having a car drive around blasting a catchy tune that states your message. They play the message at like 150 decibles. Annoying at first, but eventually I just learned to accept it. The cars here do not care about you, they will run you down. Best to cross the street running. We walked along the sidewalk/coast up to this large hill to the left with a statue of Jesus, and got pics. I called Mom from a pay phone.
We went back the other way and bought 1L of bottled water for 1.25R$. Watched the locals play beach soccer, it is amazing! Then we walked to the right and came to a light house and a fort. We stopped at an internet café and I tried my first capirinha, a brazillian drink made with limes, sugar, water and cachaca, which is like sugarcane tequila. Think mojito. It was good. Then I realized it was only 11:30am. Ben got some Acai with granola, they served it cold and it was alright. We continued up the road, going up the hill, but Richard said we shouldn’t go up into the city, so we turned down a side road and had lunch at this great hole in the wall that the locals were swarming to. We had this great cheese/flour/oil paste over carne de sol (~jerky) served with salsa e ensalada (cut tomato, peppers, onion, etc…). It was very tasty. Then we went back to the room and changed and hit the beach! The water is great! Swam for the remainder of the afternoon and met up with the rest of the group.
We have our first group meeting around 5pm. The meeting was good. Everyone seems cool. After the meeting pretty much sucked. I’m going to chalk it up to being tired. Nothing looked good to eat, and we (just the students) went to Pelorihno to see the rhythm groups play. They weren’t there. Instead, we got herded into a tourist trap: a restaurant for gringho’s. Already I see that walking around in a huge group makes us an obvious target. Screw that. Half of us bailed from the restaurant because we didn’t want to pay 40R$ for appetizers, se we walked around the neighborhood. Bad idea. Sunday night that place was crawling with beggars and street urchins. A city is always less brilliant at night. Salvador is no exception. It was very obvious we were tourists, and I do not like that feeling. I feel bad telling the urchins “no” when they ask for money for medication, but in reality I don’t think they will use the money for meds, they’ll use it for drugs. I spent more money today than I budgeted for and I am slightly concerned. Brazil is a little more developed than I expected, and the American dollar has fallen a long way. I plan on buying food at a store tomorrow and surviving off that. I can get by here on 2R$ for lunch.
Ok. All in all I like Brazil so far. Tomorrow is another day.

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