Ola amiga, trances, churches and beach

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- FOOD: More lovely Bahian dishes (moqueca, cashew jugo, faijoado (smoked meat, black beans and orange), local cake base snack with shrimps - the whole shrimp including shell and tail to be eaten, Brazilian only 'pina' fruit and gorgeous lunch cooked by Regina (my local Salvador contact)

- AREA: Big city. Pelourinho area has small, cobbled streets and a nice feel. The rest of Salvador has miles of quite unspoilt beaches, favelas next to wealthy areas, local market in Bonfim that certainly doesn't pass health and safety regs, very interesting candomblè religious ceremony where people go into trances, beautiful chuches covered in gold, capoeira (a cross between a dance and a martial art),

- PEOPLE: Women wearing traditional huge dresses, tons of very persistant street sellers that insist they are your friend, lovely hospitable families willing to put you up, cook for you and give you a guided tour (thanks to Tim). Didn't see any rough sleepers but lots of very poor small children begging. Poverty seems worse here than Rio.

- WEATHER: Torrential rain that goes as quickly as it comes. Fashion tastes go out of the window with the necessary plastic ponchos.



Thur 28th April: Surprisingly the rodovaria at Porto Seguro was v posh with a waiting room and TV although I felt like Jim Carey in 'The Truman Show' as the cabbie knew I wanted to go to the rodovaria without me asking and there was a man there to greet me who knew I was travelling to Salvador.

The bus hardly stopped which was really uncomfortable and for the first time I had someone in the seat next to me the whole way. Who was in deep sleep the whole way so I didn´t even want to disturb her to stretch my legs going to the loo.

My attempts to be a proper skint backpacker and get the bus to the hostel failed as there were 50 unmarked bus stops with buses to every destination except the one I wanted. When the bus I did want whizzed past and torrential rain began, the taxi man won.
Very lovely taxi man who gave me a mini tour and put a tourist information CD on for me.

The hostel seemed ok and after chatting for a while with my roommate Laura, I ventured downstairs only to bump into Ruth and Kelly I´d stayed with in Rio. Small world... (ok, I did know they´d be in Salvador so it wasn´t that much of a small world).

I felt at home and Salvador seemed lovely with small, cobbled, steep streets. It felt calmer than Rio and smaller and had a nice feel. That is until the "Ola amiga"´s began. SOOOO many sellers and SO much hassle. They put a ´good luck´band around your wrist ´for free´and then try to sell their goods. It´s very hard to walk more than 2 minutes without another person claiming to be your friend. I´ve made lots of new friends in Salvador that´s for sure!!

Another Salvador treat is the rain which comes and go´s very suddenly and when it comes, you certainly know about it! The sellers are very good at swapping sunglasses with ponchos and umbrellas when they need to!

Laura and I were determined to get to a local market in Bonfim so after 2 hours of drinking sucos (I had a cashew one which was a strange choice) we made it to the market. The guide books inform you of all the dangers of everywhere else but not of this market which seemed very dodgy at first. However, it was safe and we didn´t get hassled much at all. An 'interesting' market though - not to be visited if you´re squeamish or vegetarian. I am now more close to being vegetarian than ever before! The market had very narrow aisles and was incredibly smelly but had lots of fruits, food and a few craft places. But the sight of the animals being cramped, diseased and sold for religious ceremony sacrifices was not nice.

In the evening we went to a 'candomblé' which is a religious ceremony originating from Africa. We were taken to a local home which was very hot. The ceremony is chanted in the Yoruba tongue by a guy who seems to be the leader. Men aren´t supposed to be a part of it but there was a teenage lad and a younger boy there. The women all wear white lace and big skirts and dance around slowly to very rhythmic drum playing, chanting and receiving the spirit of the god. Once they receive the spirit, they go into a trance, shaking and making weird noises! Some are all over the place and is was hard to stay out of their way. We´d all been slightly amused in a 'fear of the unknown' way before we saw it as we couldn´t imagine seeing them in trances.

It is the weirdest experience and actually quite scary. Some people don´t go because they are scared of seeing the trance as some people look like they´re having an epileptic fit.
The strangest thing of all about it though is the fear of going into a trance yourself! The guide books say "spectators sometimes go into a trance but this is discouraged". Discouraged??!!! It´s very hard to control it! The music is so rhythmic and the chanting so empowering that I had to concentrate very hard as I could feel myself about to slip into some strange state and didn´t fancy thrusting about the floor, shaking involuntarily and making strange noises (no rude comments please).
A girl in the crowd went into a trance twice which REALLY freaked me out and I spent the rest of the time studying and focusing on their dress in a very clinical way so as not to get involved in the music. I thought Laura had gone into a trance when the leader came round to kiss us all and pulled each person up roughly to him. She was a few people away and out of the corner of my eye I saw her move suddenly and thought she´d gone! It went on for hours with people slipping in and out of trances and it becoming less controlled and more chaotic with people whirling out of the door. I was glad when it was over, even though it was the most fascinating experience I´ve had so far!

Fri 29th: Hung out with the girls and visited São Francisco church after Laura´s recommendation. It was very pretty with lots of small rooms decorated with lots of gold and different styles of decoration.

After taking the elevator that separted the old city from the new, we walked along the coastal road to find the Modern Art Museum which has a nice restaurant nearby (wasn´t too bothered by the museum - just the food!). The road and restaurant are NOT supposed to be gone to by foot because of the risk of mugging but we ignored that and it felt very safe. Unfortunately, the sun was not so safe and when it came out was very strong and burnt us.

I wandered around myself to see more churches, squares and Catedral Basílica which used to be the chapel for the largest Jesuit seminary outside Rome and has an amazing panelled ceiling (got neck ache) and a massive over the top gold altar.

I tried feijoada for dinner which is another typical Bahian dish - a stew of pork, sausage, smoked meat, black beans and orange, sprinkled with the customary manioc (flour).

It didn´t feel at all safe wandering the streets at night by myself even though the atmosphere was buzzing and there were lots of bars with live music and capoeira (an African martial art developed by slaves to enforce their freedom and disguised as a dance). Sadly, I missed it all to have an early night.

Sat 30th: Tim´s partner´s sister and her son, Regina and Rafa, picked me up at 9 and gave me a tour of the rest of Salvador. It was so nice to be shown around by locals and to see places I wouldn´t have gone to otherwise.

The rest of Salvador is different to Pelourinho which is the area I was staying in. Pelourinho is smaller and more quaint (also more touristy). The beaches of Salvador are beautiful with lots of surf but unfortunately it was raining most of the day so we didn´t get to spend more than 5 minutes on them. It´s still amazing to have a big city that used to be a capital right next to the sea with unspoilt beaches.

I tried another local dish from street sellers - a cake type base that they fry on the spot with a paste and filling. The filling in this case was shrimps and after picking it about a bit, I realised Rafa was eating the whole thing including the shells and tails! I attempted to do the same but it didn´t feel right!

Back at their flat in the Barra area, I was given 'pina' which is a lovely Brazilian fruit (my new favourite), pitanga juice and an amazing cooked lunch. It was so nice to be in luxury and to get fed well! They were incredibly hospitable.
I also found out from them what all the little objects sold in the markets are - various good luck charms, things to ward off evil spirits, a strange instrument called a berimbau that looks like a coconut with a big pipe attached to it - played by pushing the coconut bit against your stomach while plucking the one string it has. Not the most tuneful thing in the world but it´s used in the capoeira dance.

I also found out the reason why every Tuesday night in Pelourinho a mini carnaval takes place (typically I´d arrived on the Thursday and missed it all). An important religious ceremony used to take place in the lovely church I´d visited every Tuesday and as so many people travelled in for it, food and drink was had after it. The tradition has continued.

In the evening, they took me out to a lovely pizza place in a nice little street in Barra with a few restaurants and an international bar that had a famous Brazilian band playing live.

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