Salvador

Salvador

A whole day on a bus is an experience you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, but unfortunately for us this was the only alternative to reach Salvador. We reached the destination in the late afternoon when it was already starting to get dark, and as soon as we got off the bus we headed to the information center hoping it could help us find accommodations. The tourist desk was run by a friendly, big girl, very helpful and patient, who managed, after a long string of phone calls, to arrange accommodations for us in a posada. She also gave us the number of a Peruvian who managed some properties in the city center and offered the possibility of renting entire apartments at a modest price. With this idea spinning in our heads, we temporarily set aside the posada option and set up a meeting with the Peruvian intermediary.

At the meeting, besides him, the actual owners of the apartment also showed up: Conça and Max, an Italian-Brazilian couple who ran a real estate agency and had plenty of apartments available. After viewing two, we decided to make a small exception to the rule and definitively abandon the idea of going to a posada since the price was practically the same, with the advantage that the apartment gave us total freedom of movement. It was already ten at night when we signed the contract with Conça and, once our luggage was sorted, all we had time for was a shower and going to dinner.

The next day we woke up under a beautiful sun and began exploring the neighborhood: we were in Porto da Barra, one of the safest residential areas in the city, and our apartment was located no more than two hundred meters from the sea. We started with a walk along the seafront heading toward the "Farol" area and surroundings but, after a few steps, we were literally assaulted by an army of street vendors trying to promote their goods, saying they were the best.

No sooner had one left than another immediately arrived, and sometimes they even attacked simultaneously: what a racket! The nicest beach was perhaps the one at Porto da Barra, the closest to our house but also the most crowded with locals, and it was practically impossible to find a little spot at any hour of the day; the other beaches were very narrow and when high tide came in they were promptly flooded, which made them unusable. For this reason too, in desperation, on the first day just to get a bit of sun we went and spread our towels on the flowerbeds by the lighthouse, certainly not at the water's edge. At sunset we returned to our apartment to get ready and prepare for the evening. We went out quite early, gripped by the pangs of hunger which we satisfied at a very cheap "Barra Burger", a fast food place not far from our house.

We then continued the evening walking the streets of our neighborhood, discovering however that it was anything but lively since all the shops and venues were closing down. After gathering some information we found out that to find a bit of nightlife you had to move, and quite a lot; it took about half an hour by taxi and thirty-five reais to reach the "zona viva" that developed around a neighborhood called Pituba. We took the taxi and headed to the destination, chatting along the way with the driver to find out which were the most fashionable places for the evening. The taxi driver, answering with a mischievous little smile, advised us to take a look at Casquinha, a place we had already heard mentioned several times by the many street vendors who had stopped us in the afternoon. This was starting to make us suspicious, but having no other choice we trusted the advice.

The place was very similar to a huge ballroom dominated by a central stage where a band played and danced live. As soon as we entered we were greeted by a waiter in a tie who seated us at a table. The place wasn't as full as the taxi driver had promised, but it was without a doubt full of beautiful girls, which further fueled our suspicions. It took us little time to understand that those sweet girls weren't exactly little saints but all (and truly all!) prostitutes on the hunt for tourists. We were in the wolf's den and the wolf was hungry! Perhaps due to the low season and the lack of mass tourism, we represented the main course for all those ladies who were slowly closing in on our table: tension through the roof! We sipped our drinks listening to some music, after which we left the place to head back home with the usual taxi and the usual thirty-five reais.

Having woken up in the late morning, we were seriously determined to fight to get a spot on the beach: armed with towel and swimsuit we set off on our mission which unfortunately this time too failed miserably. Disheartened by yet another failure, we decided to spend the rest of the day visiting the historic center of Salvador, also known as Pelourinho. We took a bus heading to Praça da Sé and got off at the last stop near the Government Palace, from where it was possible to admire the oldest and most colonial part of the city. Salvador, which still preserves a characteristic and important colonial center, is divided into two parts: the upper city (which is where we arrived by bus) and the lower city (at sea level), connected to each other by a phantasmagorical elevator that for a ridiculous sum allows you to go up and down.

We decided to begin our tour by visiting the lower city, and that's why we squeezed into the aforementioned elevator. It took just a few seconds to reach the lower part of Salvador; in front of us a square with its enormous market welcomed us, while behind us you could admire, stuck to the rock face, the very ancient residences of the first conquistadores, by now turned into a sort of favela. A suggestive image that recalls the colonial style of the city, one of the first ports of the New World where slaves from Africa disembarked. We then headed to the market, an immense building that inside contained billions of stalls decked out with every kind of souvenir: t-shirts, pants, sculptures carved from wood and an countless number of knick-knacks.

On the opposite side from the entrance, a capoeira school was performing to scrape together a few reais, inviting tourists to take photos and join in the ancient local dance. After passing through the market again we went toward the Navy Palace, which with its enormous building strictly in colonial style dominates the entire bay. Then it was time to take the elevator again to head back to the upper part of the city; as soon as we came out we were hooked by a pseudo-guide who, with the motto: "visiting Salvador without a guide is like going to Rome and not seeing the Pope", tried to convince us to use his services in exchange for an unspecified free offering. As usual we declined the invitation but managed to scrounge a map of the city from him with the points of tourist interest carefully marked.

The tourist attraction par excellence is the Pelourinho, an old church located at the end of a very narrow square surrounded by majestic buildings in full colonial style and kept in excellent condition. We set off along the little streets of the center where we were assaulted by an army of "meninos de rua" and desperate people of every kind asking for alms far too insistently. If the street vendors in our neighborhood had stressed us out, the pressure exerted on tourists visiting the historic center is unbearable; we don't want to come across as unpopular since we are aware that throughout northeastern Brazil the level of poverty reaches extremely high peaks, but if we have to side with the tourist, a visit to the center can become anything but pleasant.

Another characteristic of the historic center are the "big mamy", big women, strictly black, who dressed in traditional clothes cook "l'aracaje", a sort of fried bread ball then filled with shrimp, cashew nut paste, tomato and a lot of strange sauces. Having finished visiting the Pelourinho as quickly as possible, we headed back home and, once ready for the evening, went looking for a place to have dinner. We opted to head to the Aeroclub, the largest shopping center in Salvador where it was possible to choose among various types of cuisine: we preferred a classic steak with potatoes and salad, strictly on promotion. We were at the Aeroclub because besides the possibility of eating it also offered a good solution for continuing the evening with live music and some discos. We had decided to sit in one of the bars in the main square where live music was playing.

The atmosphere was very nice but after a while the usual suspicions began to creep in: single, beautiful women were looking at us with winks, something we frankly weren't used to, without wanting to undervalue ourselves too much. This time we wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they weren't what we thought, but after meeting a couple of them our doubts were confirmed: these cheerful young ladies (beautiful girls!!!) very shrewd confirmed to us that almost the totality (99.9% and maybe even more) of the women who frequent tourist venues do the oldest profession in the world. What struck us most is that most of these girls know our language...

can you tell us why? Well, we'll tell you: Salvador de Bahia and more generally all of northeastern Brazil is a renowned destination for sex tourism in which our fellow countrymen are the masters in feeding an already flourishing prostitution market. That evening too had ended like the previous one and with our tails between our legs we headed home.

The following day we managed to earn ourselves a spot on a concrete walkway by the sea, and even though the spot wasn't exactly comfortable we finally managed to spend a day in close contact with the ocean. Here too we were surprised by some beautiful young ladies who, winking, asked us to join them: these women really have a great passion for their work! Sun-kissed just right by a scorching sun, we abandoned our position in the early afternoon to go munch on something and freshen up with a healthy shower. For the evening we preferred to stay in our neighborhood to have dinner at the usual Barra Burger, the fast food place that had welcomed us the evening we arrived, limiting ourselves to a digestive walk and a caipirinha in a small bar along the seafront.

The following day too we spent at the beach in utmost relaxation, and in the evening we began the usual pre-departure routines since the next day it would once again be time to get on a bus.

The next day, having woken up in the late morning, we finished packing our backpacks with the intention of heading back to the center to do some shopping at the market. A student strike that had paralyzed city traffic sent our plans up in smoke, and so, having walked back, we went to Conça (the owner of our apartment) to say goodbye and hand over the keys. We got into a taxi and were back at the bus station to board for Recife.