Today is our first full day in Brazil with no traveling. We arrived in Salvador last night by plane and took a cab into the historical/touristy area of town. The city of Salvador has a lot of old buildings and looks very colonial with cobblestone streets and many old churches.
The cab we arrived in had to drive very slowly through the district that we are staying in because the streets are very narrow and the buildings are built so close to the road. This part of town was definitely laid out before the car was even an idea in anybody’s head. As I said, Salvador was the slave trading capital of Brazil so it has a very Caribbean feel with whitewashed buildings and things like that. Also saw some cracky people hanging out on the streets. We would later learn not to cross a certain boundary drawn on our map by a hostel owner into an area called Cracklandia. Sounds nice.
Kevin and I checked into Hostel Galleria 13 at around 8:00PM in the Pelourinho District and then went out to see the town. The main thing to do at night in this area is sit on plastic chairs at street cafes, drink Skol beers and listen to guys playing guitar and singing. It’s pretty relaxing, the main goal here seems to be to relax and just enjoy doing nothing. Can do. The musicians in Salvador are very good and you can tell that music is very important here. We saw a couple guys sitting playing guitar and singing but there is supposed to be all types of other kinds of music and art going on.
The cab we arrived in had to drive very slowly through the district that we are staying in because the streets are very narrow and the buildings are built so close to the road. This part of town was definitely laid out before the car was even an idea in anybody’s head. As I said, Salvador was the slave trading capital of Brazil so it has a very Caribbean feel with whitewashed buildings and things like that. Also saw some cracky people hanging out on the streets. We would later learn not to cross a certain boundary drawn on our map by a hostel owner into an area called Cracklandia. Sounds nice.
After sitting for a while at various cafes we got the urge to migrate and decided to stumble around town. After midnight we came upon a large crowd and a parade with marching bands noisily playing their instruments through the streets. There was a ton of local Brazilians watching… not a lot of tourists here. I ate some pretty sketchy street food at the parade. Had some soggy peanuts in the shell, some stale popcorn, a starchy deep fried biscuit thing with spicy creamy filling inside made by a woman in traditional African clothing and of course some beer. It was a good time. I later learned that the biscuit thing is called acaraje. It’s actually black eyed peas peeled, ground, formed into a ball, deep fried in palm oil and then stuffed with your choice of fillings like dried shrimp.
We woke up in our hostel today and had breakfast that was included with our stay. Ham and cheese sandwiches. The hostel owner, Paulo, gave us some suggestions on what to see so right now we are sitting in a restaurant/café type thing having a Brahma beer, planning our trip to the beach.
We are now actually halfway to our destination already after riding the bus for a while. We are just regrouping, trying to take in Brazil, not get lost, not get killed by speeding cars that don’t stop for you and trying to figure out how to get to the beach from here. Kevin was a little sketched out about riding the bus at first and I have to say I was a little also but from what our guide books say the buses are safe so I wasn’t that worried.
For the rest of the day we’ll make it to the beach, have some dinner, see what happens and then take it from there.
I'd like to name this song, "Takin' it Easy"
ReplyDelete-William Murderface