Advertisement
Published: March 26th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Sal1
Turtle at Pria De Forte Our overnight bus arrived in Salvador at 7am, we had heard the place could be quite dangerous so we took a taxi to our hostel and got our heads down for a couple of hours.
When we awoke we went for a walk, the town hosts many beautifully restored colonial buildings and is known as a cultural city where colonialism and the black culture of the imported work-force of Brazil meet. It also has a disproportionate amout of physically disabled people with terrible deformities, begging on the streets. Some of the disabilities are so severe it is a wonder the individuals manage to feed themselves let alone get to their 'pitch´each day. I am not sure if the deformities are due to some local environmental problem or if all the deformed people of Brazil head to Salvador. Either way it is impossible not to look at these individuals even though it seems very rude to do so. I would like to hope that the people of Brazil are aware of the number of disabled people in this area and provide support accordingly. We carried on walking in pursuit of the English bookstore, we had only walked a few blocks and
Sal2
A dubious selection in the bookshop were descending a residential street when a woman on her doorstep shouted 'No Gringo´and shooed us away. We were not sure what was going on about at first then a young boy approached and said 'Turn back Amigos´ and while pointing in the direction we were heading stating 'problemas´. We heeded the advice and turned back after thanking both advisors. It turned out we were walking towards the 'wrong side of town´ and error which would have cost us our camera and wallets at least and who knows at most, all in the pursuit of literature! It may be a cultural centre but I am only willing to do so much for art.
We made it to the bookstore by a much longer but more rewarding route, we saw Capoeira (which is a form of martial arts/dancing originally performed by black slaves in Colonial times), dancing fountains, more atractive buildings and churches, and lots of street entertainment.
The book shop was not all it was cracked up to be and had some very strange books in the meagre English section. We traded our read books (Terry Wait´s Biography, Death in Lisbon amongst others) for a book on Famous
sal3
Goodbye beach Poets, European History 1648-1688, Passionate Kisses and Caine and Able, as you can see the selection was not that great!
Salvador has many restaurants, being a coastal town most of the restaurants specialise in fish but me and Tas avoided these as there was a Lebanese place in town. As you will know by now me and Tas are lovers of Hummous, falafel and the like. We ate marvelously and plentifully then topped it all off with a bottle of wine - a surprisingly expensive commodity in Brazil bearing in mind it is a producer of wine and also borders Argentina. We went to bed quite merry and fuller than we have been in a long time, it had been a good night. We fell alsleep with the sound of music all around us. Street players play until early in the morning entertaining the many people who have come to Salvador for this very reason.
The next day was spent at Pria De Forte, a beach town with a turtle reserve just outside of Salvador. We caught the bus (just) at 10am and arrived in glorious sunshine and 35 degree c temperatures at 11am. The town was very pretty with cobbled streets and lots of boutiques selling designer surfwear, lots of tat and turtle memorabilia. Turtles are the main draw of the town, once for fishing them and now for preserving them.
We vistited the turtle reserve and I learned all about turtles, Tas already knew most of it from her time in Costa Rica. I was amazed to learn that some of the turtles from Brazil have been tracked to Australia only to return to the exact same beach in Brazil to lay their eggs three years later.
We saw some turtle eggs, poorly turtles recooperating and ate turtle eggs on toast - only kidding. We vistited the beach and had a quick dip and a beer to toast the last beach we will see for a while. It was a good beach to see - fluffy sand, palm lined and clear warm water. Goodbye beaches. The next time we see the Atlantic it will be in Southern Argentinian Winter - not far from Antartica so I doubt we will be swimming.
We got the bus back to Salvador and headed straight to the Lebanese restaurant. Yummy Yummy. Street entertainers were playing until late which was not ideal for us as we had to be up at 4.30 for an early flight to Manaus via Brasilia. Manaus is in the centre of the Brazilian Amazonian area and for us the place to organise a tour deep into the jungle and the departure point of our boat into Peru.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.166s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 62; dbt: 0.0592s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.2mb