Dodgy Salvador

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Sunburn and backpacks don´t go well together. So it was with a grimace that I pulled on the backpack on Friday afternoon. Our bus wasn't until 7pm on Friday so we requested a later checkout time from the Pousada and spent our last day appreciating the delights of Arraial d'Ajuda. We bought shoes for Sinéad, treated ourselves to a nice fresh fish lunch and then got a final dip in the sea in before running the bus,ferry,bus gauntlet to arrive sweaty and extremely early to the general bus station.

The night bus went better than the previous one. The bus was showing 'War of the Worlds' in Portuguese, so we watched that to hone our language skills. Then, to our delight, they showed the rest of the bonus stuff on the DVD - and it was in English! Despite never watching this part of a DVD back home, we were glued to the screen, enjoying hearing some English television for a change. Eventually we nodded off, waking only when the bus pulled up at the bus station in Salvador at 6.30am. We did our usual routine of doing nothing for the first hour while we got our bearings and then opted to have a McBreakfast before crossing the footbridge full of street vendors to find the safe buses to the center of town. They recommend taking these buses with CCTV because the normal city buses have reported instances of people robbing entire bags of luggage in the blink of an eye. The downside of these executivo buses is that they work to their own timetable, only leaving when they think they are full enough. So 30 minutes after boarding the bus, it set off on its trip around the coast of Salvador. About an hour later it deposited us on Praca da Sé, the central plaza of the touristy Pelourinho area.

We had decided not to stay at the beach area, because I needed to hide from the sun as my sunburn had come up an attractive deep red colour. As we walked towards our hostel we passed a large stage and figured out that we had stumbled upon yet another festival. This time it was the Festa da São João. When we got to the hostel they told us that there was another day or two of it left, and that some big (Brazilian) acts had played over the previous two weeks. The next surprise was for Philippe. I had chosen and booked this hostel particularly because it has two puppies running around. After playing with Murph on the beach in Arraial d´Ajuda, we now had a gorgeous boxer puppy called Spartan and a massive black puppy called Zulu to play with. Once we had installed ourselves in the hostel we went in search of lunch and a general feel for the place. You cannot walk down the street in Pelourinho without being approached by guys trying to give you a gift of a ribbon. They do this to engage you in conversation in the hope that you will pay them to be your guide or buy some of their other wares (necklaces, paintings etc). While Philippe adapted to the constant attention quickly, I felt uncomfortable with it right up to when we left. The area though is very pretty. The streets are cobblestoned and lined with some nice old buildings. It borders a favela (a community of shacks housing the poor people of the area) though, which means that you need to be selective about what cobbled street you roam in.

On Saturday afternoon we visited the Igreja e Convento São Francisco. It is an immensely beautiful church built by slaves & artists from a melting pot of different cultures and religious backgrounds. A guide picked us up after we paid our entrance fee and showed us around the beautiful gold carvings and statues in the church. He explained the significance of many pieces and it was a very interesting tour, but unknown to us, it was not part of the entrance fee. At the end he hit us up for 50R$, but after some negotiation didn´t receive all of it.

After dinner in the local pub we attended a cultural dance show at a local theatre. This was 60R$ very well spent. The one hour show went through 6 different types of dance from the history of Brazil. Sadly we couldn´t film or take pictures during the show, but our favourites were the fire dance (no such thing as Health & Safety here!), the example of Samba by some lovely Brazilian ladies, and we saw Capoeira, a martial art that was performed under the guise of dance by the slaves and sometimes used against their masters throughout the years. To give you an idea, part of it involved two guys; one would spin rapidly on one foot with the other leg fully outstretched above their head, the other did the same in opposition to the first guy. It worked like a cog, but it was amazing that they didn didn´t smash legs into each other, or worse.

That night we stood in the central square listening to the performers while drinking ice cold cans. The Brazilians around us would spontaneously burst into dance every so often, but their natural rhythm left Philippe and I feeling more awkward by the second. Our side-to-side swaying was almost embarassing in comparison! After a while we moved on to the next square where there were more performers and more dancing. While we were aware of the strong military police presence, with so many people so close together we were wary of our belongings and had everything all zipped up. When we tired of listening to music that we couldn´t understand we returned to the hostel. It had been a long day, but we managed to stay up to socialise with some french people in the hostel and get some new ideas for places to visit.

The next day was Sunday. Not a lot happens in Brazil on a Sunday, and this suited us fine. We enjoyed sleeping late, had a late breakfast and then took it easy in the hostel. After popping into a deli for lunch we joined some other travellers in the bar to watch the Brazil vs. USA Confederation Cup Final. At half time I began to feel unwell and retired to the room. The unfortunate diagnosis was a bad dose of deli-belly. I began to regret the lovely quiche I had devoured earlier that day. I had planned to update the blog that evening, but instead stayed in bed for most of the afternoon and evening, trying to recover quickly as we had a boat trip planned for the next day.

Rising at 7.30am and still feeling ropey, we were collected at the hostel and walked to the harbour by a guy called Daniel. To get to the boat we had to take the Elevator from the High City to the Low City. They don´t recommend you go near these lifts at night, but it was morning and our guide thought it was safe enough. Little did he know. As we crowded into the lift a man started leaning over from behind me. Philippe was beside him and thought his behaviour was strange. Then out of the corner of his eye he spied the guys hand down by Philippe´s own pocket. He had his hand on Philippe´s wallet! When he realised he had been copped, he removed it an made a joke of it. Philippe said nothing, not wanting to make a scene in the lift, but as we walked away from the lift he told me what had happened. It very nearly spoiled our day, but thankfully the artful dodger was pretty crap at his trade and we still had all our money and cards - although now all moved to zipped up storage!

At the dock we met the guide for the boat trip. When he found out Philippe was from Holland he launched into the Dutch language and it took a while to register with us. He had lived in Holland for 15 years, and spoke the kind of clear, simplified Dutch that I attempt from time to time (with beer!). After each explanation in Portuguese he would come to us and give us the run-down in Dutch. He was delighted to be able to use it again, as Philippe was only the second Dutch person he had on his boat over the years. For the first two hours as the boat chugged out towards the first island, I was keeping in the shade and was grateful to retain the contents of my stomach. As we reached the first island I cheered up. It was like we had arrived in Paradise.

We docked at a pier and walked across a white sandy beach to a shack that served fried fish and drinks. Feeling peckish, we shared a portion of fish (served heads and all) and were surprised by how tasty they were. For two hours we read and Philippe dipped in and out of the clear blue water. We returned to the boat to travel across to Island no. 2. I didn´t think anything could top Island no. 1, but I was wrong. We anchored about 500m out from the shore and then tranferred into a little wooden motor boat. When we were a few feet off the beach we walked (or were queen-chair style carried) in to the beach. More fish for lunch at a posh hotel, followed by Magnum ice cream while lying out on sunbeds under a coconut-coned roof for shade. We had to spend a further two hours like that - oh the torture! The tour wrapped up as the boat made its way back into the bay with the sun setting behind us. It was a good end to a day that began with a shakey start.

Back at the hostel we had to organise ourselves for another early start the following day. We just about managed to squash everything back into the backpacks and booked a taxi to the airport for our 10 o´clock flight to Sao Paolo.

More very soon,

Sinéad & Philippe

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