Today was a day of forts. Kevin and I first walked to a fort that is situated about 200 or 300 feet offshore so that it makes up its own island in the water. It was near the “famous” Elevador Lacerda. We took a three minute boat ride out to the fort and walked around and checked it out even though all of the plaques were in Portuguese and we couldn’t understand them. Out of thousands of signatures in the forts guest book only about two were American. The view on the boat back to town was very nice.
Back on the mainland we tried to catch a bus to another bigger fort called Forte Sao Antonio that has a lighthouse within its walls. This fort is in an area called Barra which is apparently and area that the younger hipper crowd lives and hangs out in. The Barra neighborhood is very unique because it sits on a peninsula and you can see both the sunrise and the sunset over the ocean. Supposedly it’s the only place in Brazil that you can catch the sunset over the water. Kevin won’ t stop talking to me right now so this might be a crappy journal entry. I will not tell you what he is talking about as it is very inappropriate. Anyways, we couldn’t find a bus so we started to walk toward the fort and the Barra area down a road that goes along the beach.
The views as we traveled up the side of the cliffs was beautiful. Houses along a blue ocean, rocky beaches, red tile roofs. After traveling for a mile or so we interestingly started to smell the heavy stench of human feces. We then started to see several bummy looking people with crack rocks in their hands and then a nine year old kid smoking said crack. At this point we were walking pretty quickly, both because we didn’t want to have a run in with the crackies and also because the smell was so horrible. It stuck in my nose for an hour or so after this experience. Next, a very cracked out woman came up to us and yelled “my friends, my friends!” in our faces. Kevin’s spidy sense was off the charts at this point and I was ready to either punch or run. Our guide book told us to practice common sense and you will not get robbed. This was definitely far from common sense. Fortunately we made it to a less sketchy area by a nice looking residential high rise with a security guard out front and took a breather. Ahead of us was a tunnel filled with garbage and a running liquid that we suspected from experience was most likely human urine. Common sense... we gave up on seeing a bus at this point and hailed a cab.
We made it to Barra Beach and walked along it toward the fort which is known to locals as Barra Lighthouse. Here are some interesting facts about Barra Lighthouse that we learned from the nautical museum inside Fort San Antonio under the lighthouse: The original Barra Lighthouse was the first lighthouse in South America. The Dutch East India Company successfully took the fort from the Portuguese in a 14 day siege. They lost it again, however, later that year. Unfortunately we can’t remember what year the siege was. Forte Sao Antonio was the first fort built in Salvador and is part of a 15 or 16 fort system or chain built by the Portuguese to protect the coast of Salvador. It was first used as a fort in 1582 and has taken on several forms since then. That’s about it for facts.
We left the fort, ate some beef and cornmeal flower at a higher end open air restaurant overlooking the beach, stood waiting for a bus, gave up, tried again in a different location after walking a ways and then gave up again after a half hour because we did not see the bus that we were looking for, one going to Terminal da Franca. We caught a cab to the terminal and then saw all of the same buses that had been passing us by all day once we arrived at the terminal. We are going to get buses down before we leave. That’s it for now. Pretty good entry. Later tonight two-for-one caipirinha happy hour at Zulu Lounge.
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