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Published: February 1st 2007
After relaxing in Porto Seguro, we were prepared for city life again, and had heard many many good things about Salvador from lots of people but mainly from Mateus and Claire.
Arriving at 6am, after an 11 hour bus ride, we woke up in a big city, with the mission of finding ourselves somewhere to stay. After an hour or so of walking around in the quite shady area of Pelourinho, 2 taxi rides later we found The Nega hostel, which was laid back and hippyish!
Pelourinho is the quaint historic centre of Salvador where most tourists visit, and because of that it is full of dodgy characters and street sellers and beggars, some only kids and on crack. There's tourist police supposedly everywhere but that doesn't seem to make you feel at ease here. Our experience of Pelourinho was beautiful, yet very aggressive and so it wasn't easy to really enjoy it or snap photos for fear of being harrassed or mugged. We heard many stories from people we met in the hostel of being robbed and threatened, so we had our guard up and acted with caution. Taking a break from the centre we visited a near
by Salvador beach 'Jaguaribe' with our friends we met in Rio.
After 3 days in Pelouinho, we were glad to be going to visit our friend Mateus's brother Lucas (now a good friend of ours) in Salvador. Here we saw a nicer side of Salvador, and had a really good time. Lucas showed us real Salvador and the local sites! He took us took us first beach party with live reggae music - in fact a famous brazillian reggae band - Natiruts - it was a great experience.
Staying with Lucas and his family was really fun and we can not show them enough thanks for their kindness. We chilled at the local beaches, ate home made brazillian food and drank beers at the central square. Also we tried the Bahian food speciality - Acaraje - which is of African origins and was quite an experience - fried bean dough with green stuff, salad and shrimps in their shells - which you had to eat whole - legs and all- which was a crunchy surprise for us!! After food, we went to a live samba show, in a tiny back room of a record store which was reallyfun,
everyone kicked their shoes off and shaked their boodies to samba - muto bon!!!!
Another day we went surfing with Lucas and his flatmate Francois, which needless to say was harder than it looked. Christian - trying his luck, in a big massive wave (not a good idea) ended up with a cut and scar and broken board after taking quite a battering - (so sorry Lucas for your board!) Kate had a go, in the smaller waves, but couldn't quite get to grips with it and was much happier watching! We will try again once we've mastered body boarding!
Had a fab time with Lucas and his family and we really enjoyed this part of Salvador, but it was now time to go exploring elsewhere - next stop the island of Morro de Sao Paulo - we will be back to see Lucas soon!
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anonymous
non-member comment
Lovely pics, Lucas and his family look like great people. And Lucas is cute;) Looks really wonderful in Salvador. Wouldnt mind go to Brazil one day;). And not just for the cute men:) Love ya lots and lots XXXX