Salvador, Bahia

November 6 - 12:

Going to Salvador was something that Nicole and I were both looking forward to. Nicole was told about its vibrant music scene by her chorus members, and I had started exploring bossa nova just before leaving on this trip.

The flight into Salvador was a really long one.  We left Manaus at 3am and the flight made frequent stops in 5 cities on the  northeast coast of Bahia, picking up and dropping off passengers in each one.  By the time we reached Salvador and made it into our hostel, it was almost 4pm the next day.
In Manaus, Nicole and I had tried to book a hostel at the last minute and I had to make the confirmation over a lousy skype connection.  We had no idea of how the hostel Open Barra would be like.

Alex and his wife are artists who run the hostel Open Barra.  When we walked in, we were totally taken by the place.  The hostel was run out of their house. The walls were painted with unique Bahian art and there were paintings everywhere. All the art was done by Alex's wife. We had not seen such a colorful house before. Plus they were playing some great Brazilian music in the lounge!!! This would be great.

Alex was very helpful and gave us a good overview of the place.  Where to go and not to go. We had read that Tuesday evening was music night at the Pelourinho, which is the old city center of Salvador.  We wanted to get there and get in on the action.  We took the public bus that evening to check out the music scene. The buses were fairly crowded and it felt like riding a local bus in India.

When we reached the Elevador (the elevator that you need to take to go up to the square), we saw an empty square and it was raining. We bought an umbrella from a local vendor and walked around onto another square in the area, but saw nothing.  This was a total bummer. We settled down in a corner restaurant and had potato fries and a drink. After a while, we decided that the rain was not going to end, and took a taxi back to the hostel.  The bossa lounge music was still playing and we had to settle in for that.

The next day morning, we were in for a nice surprise.  The breakfast included fruits and guava juice along with the usual suspects (a choice of omelette or pancakes). It was finally nice to be getting something other than just plain bread for breakfast. I had not bought along any swimming trunks and we went out on a quest to buy some swimming shorts at the local mall.  By the time we got the shorts, it was already lunchtime. We decided to get lunch first before heading to the beach. Barra beach was a few minutes walk from where we were.  The beach was nice in that it was clean and the waters were calm.    By the time we got back to the hostel and got ready for the evening, it was already 6pm!!!
It is amazing how fast the days go when you wake up late and move around slowly.  We felt like we had done nothing.....

The evening was a bummer too.  We went to get some food before heading out.  The seaside restaurant we went to, took a long time to serve and the food we ordered was not what we were expecting.  By the time we got finished with dinner it was close to 8pm, and the waitress we spoke with told us unequivocally that it would not be a good time for us to go to Pelourinho.  So, we headed back to the hostel disappointed. Two nights in Salvador and no music yet.

The next morning, we had decided to go check out some beaches and we took a local bus to the nearby neighborhood of Itapua. We got off at the beach which is huge.  The sun was beating down (remember how I said we had a late start, that seemed to be the norm for all our days in Salvador).  I wanted to walk further and find some shade.  We walked into the neighborhood and turned into a side street to get to the beach.  Here we found tables and chairs below small coconut palms on the beach!!!! Perfect!!!  We did not have to rent the tables as in other beaches.  As long as you ordered something to drink or eat, access to the chairs and the shade below the coconut palm was free!!! Also, being a week day, there was just one other couple on the beach....

I really felt at home in this part of the world.  So many familiar things.  Tropical fruits.  Boiled peanuts and tender coconuts!! Having grown up with coconut trees, I was hooked on coconut water.  Plenty of it here in Brazil. And just like in India, after you are done with the water, you give it back and they will chop the coconut in half and make a small slice on the side of the husk, which you use  as a spoon to scoop out the flesh and eat! yummy.......

Nicole went into the water for a few minutes, but was not impressed with the quality of the water. Too many seaweeds and the water was a little rough. We found a couple of guys, catching lobsters in the water with harpoons.  After a few minutes, we were feeling peckish and we ordered potato fries.  It took a long time for this to arrive, but they were very good. made fresh and the oil did not have that weird smell that fries from McDonalds have.

We headed back to the hostel after spending some great time here.  I could have stayed here all day, but we had to take care of things and a performance to attend that evening.  We were so unhappy with not finding any music for the first two evenings.  Alex had told us about a condomble performance that evening in the Pelourinho.  Nicole and I got back and made a quick dinner in the hostel before we ventured out.  Alex was thrilled to have my concoction of rice beans and cumin with lots of lime.

This was our first time going to the square in pelourinho.  We made our way to the San Miguel theater.  We were an hour early and the ticket booth was not yet open. We had an hour to kill. We walked around the neighbourhood and saw the colorful houses.  It was here that I encountered a rather large bahian woman in her food stand.  She was frying this reddish brown looking thing which I mistook for meat, at first.  I asked her what it was and she told me that it was vegetarian and called "Acaraje".  I am a sucker for street food and asked to try it.  It was the best thing I ate.

First of all Acaraje is the same as a south Indian vade (uddina vade), which is fried lentil batter. It does not have the doughnut hole that the Indian vade has.  The fried Acaraje is cut into halves.  The insides smeared with hot sauce and a scoop of okra (bendekai) curry is put in the middle.  The okra curry is sweet and sour (like the south Indian gojju). It was awesome.... I wished that we had come into the area earlier as I could have eaten many more of these.  She also had flat coconut macaroons (grated coconut in sugar) and peanut chikki (peanut in jaggery)....this felt like home.

We went back to the theater 30 minutes before the performance to get our tickets.  The performance was nothing like anything we had seen before.  Alvin Ailey dancers looked like they are too well fed in comparison to the people on the stage.  Every muscle was popping out of their bodies, as if to make a point.  The dances were essentially comprised of various tributes to the different candomble gods and it ended with a performance of the capoeira, which is the traditional Brazilian martial arts.  The performance lasted for an hour.  We walked out and went back to the main square.  There were many posters advertising music performances and people were setting up a stage, but we could not find any performances happening at the time, so we went back to the hostel.

At the hostel, Alex informed us that some people from the hostel were going to a local club to catch a samba performance along with his wife.  We joined Simon (from Canada) and Nicole (from Italy), to go to the club in Rio Vermelho. The club felt like it was full of locals and we were the only tourists around (at least non-portuguese speaking).  There was a live band and they played some fantastic samba music.  They played both cover music and original compositions. The crowd was thoroughly into the whole thing, with plenty of sing-alongs.  We tried to move our hips in the crowded dance floor, but gave up after a while to make way for more accomplished dancers of Brazil. All in all it looked like we were making up for the first two nights.

The next day, we had some business to take care of.  We did not have a flight back to Rio and we had only 2 more days left in Salvador.  We had to find a ticket at the last minute, which cost us a bit.  We had initially thought of getting back to Rio by bus, but after talking to the locals, we decided against it.  After this, we went to a beach nearby.  Unfortunately, the waters were very rough.  We could only stand knee deep in the ocean.  Nicole had her first fresh sugarcane juice with lemon here.

After the beach, we decided to go back to Pelourinho.  We were there on the right day.  There was a stage setup and there were plenty of people. Also, there were many many kids around.  When we arrived, we caught the final session of a drum circle.  We were crestfallen, imagining that we had just missed a show.  About 45 minutes later, we saw the same people from the drum circles, regroup.  This time, they were in costume.  This was looking very promising.  After a while  the crowd grew in size, and a whole bunch of school kids came on stage with plastic clam shells in their hands.  A few minutes later, this man emerged from an SUV.  He was in all white, with white spring shoes and a native-american mane, made with white feathers!!! How strange.  The spring shoes made him look like he was 6.5 feet. He was more like a 5.8. This was none other than Brazil's famous Carlinhos Brown.  Along with Sergio Mendes, the duo were nominated for an Oscar for the score of the animated movie, Rio.  Though, at the time I did not realize this and kept asking locals as to who this man was.  I got a few stares like "you've got to be kidding.......".

Simon from the hostel bumped into us and we all stuck together for what was to come next.  Carlinhos led the school children by playing some beats on the plastic clam shells.  Then the real thing began.  It started with the various drum circles playing a tribute to Carlinhos.  Then the master himself plunged into the drum circles and started leading the drum circles.  We have never seen anything like this before and I am not sure if we will get to see something like this elsewhere. The thing about these drum circles is that you listen with your ear for the first 5 seconds. Then you start feeling them with your entire body.  They are loud, passionate and relentless. Any feeling of indifference is completely driven out of your body and in a minute you are swaying your hips, tapping your feet or moving your shoulders. No way, can you stand still while you are in the midst of these guys playing. After about 40 minutes of drumming in one place, the drum circles made their way to the road and made a loop around the square, followed by the crowds, before ending the whole session. The whole place was electric and it took us a while to come back to reality.

At the end of the show, another drum circle popped out of nowhere, but this drumming was different.  The participants also carried banners, which said something about including the indigenous people in the society and giving them their rightful place.  This was more of a protest drumming.  Brazil is a complex place with indigenous people, immigrants, slave-masters and slaves. And different people have a different sense of entitlement to the land.

After this incredible session, the three of us took a taxi back to the Barra neighourhood to have dinner.  We ended up going to a restaurant which looked rather fancy.

Nicole and I had been trying to find a tropical beach and so far, our exploits in Salvador had brought us to good locations, but the sea was either not so calm, or clean. Alex had suggested that we go north to Arembepe which is north of Salvador to check out the beach there. On Saturday morning, we took the public bus from the Rodaviario (which is the public bus station in Salvador) to Arembepe.  We barely made the bus in time. During our ride, we failed to indicate to the conductor that we did not know where we were going :).  So we missed our stop, got dropped off at another stop and had to get a bus back to Arembepe. Thankfully, the sky was clear (it had been raining earlier in Salvador).  In Arembepe, the first order of business was lunch.  The restaurant that had been recommended was still closed, so we strolled around the central square until it opened up. The restaurant we went to was on the beach and we tried the traditional Moqueca.  It was fantastic. The gravy is usually served with  roasted cream of wheat.  You can add this to any part of your dish to thicken it up.  For me it had the distinct feeling/texture of making a runny upittu (Indian dish with cream of wheat).  The taste and the flavors were uniquely Bahian. It was possibly the best food we had had in Brazil.

After lunch we decided to walk along the beach.  The main beach of Arembepe was crowded and dirty.  Brazil needs to enact laws on littering on the beaches.  Most public access beaches we went to had this problem.  Anyway, we walked further away from the town and the beach here was great! The sands were so clean and it was really nice. The only issue was that the winds were blowing and the sea was very rough that day.  It was maybe ok to surf, but not swim. After sitting on the beach for a bit, Nicole and I ventured into the local hippie town nearby.  It felt like we were intruding into someone's house. Interesting houses built on the beach with a very homey atmosphere. Later Alex told us that you can sometimes get invited by artists into their houses, but we did not stay long enough for this to happen.  On our way back, we stopped at a small turtle conservation farm next to the sea. This was really fun.  We got to see giant sea turtles in tanks at such close range.  I had no idea previously that the turtles were so big. After the turtle farm, we made our way back to the main beach.  At this point, we were tired and disappointed. Our main idea for the day was to plop down at a beach and relax and take it easy.  Instead we had spent the entire afternoon walking.  I was also disappointed that Nicole had still not found the perfect beach with calm waters where she could swim. All these thoughts, plus the littering on the Arembepe beach revved me up into an irritated state. At this time, we just decided to plop down on the beach and let go. Took me a while, but Nicole was supportive.  A little puppy on the beach came over to pull on our bags. Local kids started to jump into the water to practice their surfing and, I was staring at waves trying to stay parallel to the shore in a semicircular beach in front of us. All of this calmed me down.

We headed back to the bus station and to make peace with the day, had another fresh sugarcane juice. Who says sugar doesn't make you happy :)??

The ride back was tiring and very trying on our patience.  We stupidly got off at the wrong spot, which looked like Rodaviario, but was another bus station very far away from the city.  We had to take a local bus to get back to Barra. All that day, we saw close to 4 accidents on the highways near Salvador.  We were glad to have survived the day in one piece!!!!!!!!!

Sunday was our final full day in Salvador. After a late start (as usual), we made our way into Pelourinho for the last time.  We knew that the groups Olodum and Ille Aiye were playing in the evening.  Alex had told us that they are really big groups.  He had also told us that the local art museum had a jazz concert which is usually attended by the locals who wanted to take a break from the traditional music scene.

After we arrived in Pelourinho, we visited the local church which had a funky ceiling (it was painted so that the ceiling appeared to be higher than the actual structure, a "trompe l'oeuille").  It was being prepared for a wedding with beautiful white roses and lillies.  We also visited the local market which was very touristy. We got some sapoche fruit (same as sapota in India) and headed to the jazz concert first.  There was still some time before the concert and we browsed around the art museum for a while.  The jazz group was really really good.  We ran into Alex and Simon at the concert. Alex must be a very well connected local, since many people were greeting him. The jazz concert was another major highlight of the trip to Salvador.  We left the jazz concert after about an hour and half, and went to see the major drum bands in Pelourinho.  This time, the show did not have as much of an impact. I am not sure if it was because we were seeing this music for the second time.  Rather, I suspect that it was more due to the reason that the bands were on stage 100 feet away and we were not immersed in the drum circles.  It was still a great show (but not as impressive as when you get to stand right next to the drummers).  After an evening filled with great music, we went back to the hostel very happy.  We had come to Bahia to listen to music and we had succeeded.

The next day, we packed our bags and took a hair-raising bus ride to the airport, before catching the flight back to Rio.