Salvador, Brasil Feb 09

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We arrived in Salvador safely, after nearly missing our connecting flight in Miami, but luckily the Captain was at the gate waiting for us. When we arrived in Salvador we met a Norweigan guy named Halvor, who we shared a cab with to our hostel, luckily he was staying in Pelourinho just as we were. He proved to be not only a great drinking companion but also he was very well travelled and taught us alot about other regions in South America, also he spoke some Spanish so that helped a bit.

The first thing we did on our arrival to Pelourinho was to buy our "Abadas", which are tshirt that are your tickets to take part in the Carnaval itself, attending one of the "Blocos" (big trucks with bands playing on top moving at 2km/hr). After a short power snooze we met up with Halvor again, who by this time had a big posse of Brazillians and Argentinians. We went with them to a live Samba party, which is like a huge open air nightclub. Only one act plays, but they have many guest appearances. The band we saw were Olodum, an Afro-Brazillian percussion outfit. They did and album with Paul Simon called The Rythym of the Saints, and also recorded the song "They don't care about us" with Michael Jackson. They were bloody awesome! We had a great night! Trying to get tickets to the show was another story though. We lined up for tickets, being the only ones who didn't pre-purchase them, and just as we got to the front of the line they sold out! We thought this would be our night over, but the Brazilian girls had another idea, and after a few tries of buying scalped tickets from random people, they found someone who could get tickets. After handing our money over, we weren't sure if we would see it again or get tickets, but the girls reassured us by saying they had kept the guys licence until he returned. The guy came back and handed us some tickets and walked off, I looked at the tickets and saw the date on them was 2008!!! We chased after the guy and he was able to let us in anyway...phew! Simon was rather impressed after being frisked for weapons upon entry.

After a big sleep in the next day we got up and walked around Pelourinho, the Historic Centre, which was the first urban settlement in South America and has buildings from the 17th to 20th Centuries. Unfortunately due to Carnaval all the Churches and Museums were shut. We walked the cobblestone streets and checked out the architecture. There are many street vendors and beggers in Pelourinho, but it is also probably the safest suburb of Salvador, just don't walk outside it's "walls". The streets are very lit up and military on every corner.

Carnaval unofficially started on the Tuesday night, with marching bands and groups flooding the streets with music. The bands are small blocos with drummers and brass sections walking around with a following of revellers singing and dancing behind them as they weave in and out of the streets for hours, often until 6 or 7am the next day. They do well for themselves, as the streets are very steep and cobblestoned.

On the Friday night of Carnaval we met up with Hal and Adriano (from Buenos Aires) to head to Barra to be "Pipoca", which means popcorn, the name given to the people in the crowd dancing and jumping along to the music from the streets. It is the free way to attend Carnaval and also the most dangerous. Like the rest of Brazil, Carnaval is very segregated. The super rich watch the Carnaval from temporary nightclubs "Camorotes" built along the course, they are at the same level as the bands and all the blocos stop at each one giving a special personal performance and small chit chat with the spectators. The upper middle class pay to ride on top the "trioelectros", the trucks, where the band plays. The middle class pay to attend the blocos and dance alongside the trioelectros on the street inside a roped off area with security, bars and toilets (which aren't much to be desired!!), which is where we bought our abadas for. The poor then watch from the sidelines on the street where all the street vendors lineup to sell drinks, this is where we were on the Friday night. Being on the street you have the risk of being pickpocketed (which I was but all I had for them to take was a bus timetable and a tissue), or being trampelled in a stampede of people running away from a fight. One of the most dangerous things to happen at Carnaval is to be near someone when a fight breaks out, the crowd just run in all directions in fear of being beaten up by the military. It was still a great night, Halvor had his sunglasses taken and also his gold chain ripped off his neck, but we didn't lose anything. At the end of the night we were standing next to a camerote and looked up and saw Ja Rule (crap rapper from 10 years ago) sitting on the balcony, after some persuasion from the one fan he had yelling out to him he took off his shirt and threw it down, turned around and flexed his muscles....oh Ja Rule, you really do suck!

Saturday night was the night we were dancing in our bloco. Our bloco start at 5pm, and knowing how bad the traffic around Barra gets at Carnaval we caught a bus at 4pm (the trip usually only takes 15mins). We jumped on a bus that said "Barra" on the front, assuming it would take us to Barra, we assumed wrong! The bus took us about 40kms out of a city that only has two safe suburbs for touristas. As we watched out the window as we were taken through slums and then barron land we started to freak out a bit... what do we do, if we get off the bus we would most likely be mugged or worse! We got off at the end of the line, a bleak bus terminal in the middle of nowhere and jumped quickly on another bus to take us back. It was all ok in the end, but after our misadventure and the traffic on the return, we found our bloco at about 7pm, but managed to dance away our fear.

The rest of our stay in Salvador was much the same one day to another, the same music beat drumming from 11am to 7am the next day. We were only able to finally do some sightseeing and visit some Churches when they reopened on our last day, which was a saving grace to our Salvador experience, 9 days is way too long, but you have no choice at Carnaval time, you have to pay for a package.

We jumped on our bus to Rio ready for our 30hr trip!

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Comments

[Jackie]

WOW! sounds like an amazing time guys! im sitting here on saturday morning listening to the sounds of the guy next door mowing the lawn thinking! WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE! have a great time guys! look after each other and I can wait to hear more tales from the south! Love Jackie!xx