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Published: October 27th 2008
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Salvador de Bahia, Brazil - 28 Sep - 2 Oct 08
There are two sides to this beautiful old Brazilian city, and if you can stay away from trouble it’s a lovely place to visit. We met with our fair share of turbulence in the Bahia state capital, so we’re not hurrying back there soon, but if your in this part of the world its worth exploring for a few days, especially if it’s your first stop after Europe - it’s definitely one of the cheapest South American gateways.
Leaving Spain on a high, we touched down to the cheers of a planeload of delighted Brazilians on a warm Bahia evening. Salvador is big, and we had plenty of time to settle ourselves and take in the scenery during the long (and costly) taxi ride to our Pousada (guesthouse) in the beachside suburb of Barra. Once there, we received a warm welcome at La Villa Francaise by our expat French hosts, before hunting down a Pizza & super cold beer down the road.
The next morning’s breakfast blew us away! In what we now know as a typical Brazilian ‘Café Manhana’, we were able to pick through a huge
buffet of fresh fruit (including pinapple, paw paw, mango and watermelon), fried banana with cinnamon & sugar, a selection of fresh cakes, break with ham & cheese and of course locally grown coffee. The hardest part is getting hungry again in time for lunch. Every day we forget about lunch until it’s too late and end up going hungry all afternoon while the restaurants have their siesta!
A short walk revealed a picturesque coastline of beaches dotted with rocky headlands and guarded by abandoned forts. The forts give you an insight into life in Bahia when the first Portugese settlers arrived in the 16th & 17th centuries and set up a thriving colony that they needed to protect. Visits to the old town of Pelourinho (known as Pelo) and its various museums gave us a clearer picture of the regions history, ethnicity and culture. The majority of the population is of African decent, due largely to the vast numbers of slaves brought across from Africa to work in the colony. A visit below the warfside souvenir market shows the grim reality of the conditions slaves were once forced to endure.
Being a major city, Salvador is by no
means completely safe. The touristic areas like Barra and Pelo are patrolled by an army of police that gave us a false sense of security. Outside of these areas you venture at your own risk. Following a dud tip to see the marina on our first day, we ended up stepping off a local bus on a crowded shopping street somewhere between Barra and Pelo. Seeing an interesting clothes shop on the footpath, I called to Julie to stop, but she ignored me and I had to run to catch up…luckily. I was 10m from the shop when an air conditioning unit that had been attached to the building above came crashing down on the shop, taking a woman with it! My first thought was that a bomb had gone off, and I stood there shocked for a few seconds while a cloud of dust settled. We chose not to stick around with the rapidly growning crowd of onlookers, and took a side street down hill towards the marina. Bad move. Office buildings gave way to crumbling slums and the stares we were getting from ragged locals began to make us feel very uncomfortable. Shoulder bags and cameras were quickly
Beachfront favelas (slums)
We took this photo right before being picked up by the police. stashed in my backpack and we doubled our pace towards the marina, which turned out to be only marginally friendlier. Passing the Modern Art Museum, we allowed ourselves to relax, thinking we were out of immediate danger. We passed up an offer for a lift from a taxi driver and instead chose to walk along an inviting looking cliffside promenade that overlooked the ocean, in the direction of our hotel. Second bad move. Seconds later we were stepping over piles of human shit and realising that the path was home to those of the city with nothing else. My stomach churned as I then became aware of several unsavoury types closing in on us from both directions, with the cliff on my left and a busy motorway on my right. It was at that exact moment that a police car pulled up next to us and we gratefully accepted a lift back to Barra, squeezed between men in bullet-proof vests holding assault rifles. A luckily escape? Who knows.
We spend the next few days a little more weary of the city and its people, and got to know some really great parts of Bahian culture. We spend a day
cruising the vast harbour to some idyllic island beaches, and another exploring Pelo and its amazing churches and Capoeira demonstrations (a unique local mix of martial arts and dancing), before leaving Salvador thinking we’d avoided becoming victims of crime altogether. Wrong. Unbeknown to us, our credit card details had been stolen as we withdrew money from the ATM outside Barra shopping centre (how this was done I have no idea), and in the days after that a series of cash withdrawals appeared on our bank statement to the sum of around US$2000 until it finally maxed out. Talk about a surprise when we tried to withdraw the next time and received the ‘inufficient funds’ message. Luckily we didn’t have all our eggs in the one basket and it won’t ruin our holiday, but we’ll probably be back home before the investigation is over and we see our money again. From now on we’re only using the ATMs inside the actual banks.
Dreaming of an adventure like ours? Find out how we did it at
JulieAndDariansWorldTourGuide.com
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Mary Cuddler
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Great photo!
Thanks for this photo! I'm using to celebrate Plus-Sized Appreciation Day.