Historic Centre (Salvador)

As are most of the cities we've visited on this journey, Salvador is a city steeped in history, some good, some bad, all interesting. Our first Pousada, (or B and B, to us Canadians),was located in Pelourinho, the oldest part of the city, so we were well placed to get a close look at where things happened 500 years ago.

Salvador was founded by the Portuguese in 1549 and was, in fact, the capital of Brazil until 1763. Like Quebec City, it's divided into a lower town and an upper town that are connected by steep winding roads and two elevators.

Portuguese colonists were heavily dependent on indigenous labor during the initial phases of settlement to maintain the subsistence economy. The importation of African slaves began midway through the 16th century and, as a result, there is a strong African influence in this province of Bahia.

The Pelourinho area is named for the pillories that were located in the central square where disobedient slaves were tied and mercilessly beaten. The Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos (The Church Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks) is also located Pelourinho. It was built by slaves over a period of a hundred years or so beginning in 1704 for their own use (of course, they weren't allowed inside the other churches). Although we did not get inside, we understand that statues of black saints are prominently displayed. Work on the church was always done at night so that the slaves' normal daytime work would carry on uninterrupted.

The food here also reflects the African culture with dishes like Acaraje, a dumpling made from a paste of ground peas, fried in dende (red palm oil) and filled with prawns, chili, coriander and tomato. Acaraje is most frequently sold from street carts by colorfully dressed Bahian women. Then there's the moqueca, which is a coconut and dende stew that usually contains fish and seafood (we opted for the vegetarian version). The aromas of these dishes fills the air in the old city.

On a Saturday we ventured off to the Rio Vermelho market, which is in a much more upscale part of town that had us ventured outside of Salvador's "safe for tourist area". As we bused across town to the Mercado Rio Vermelho, we spotted a bustling street market and knew we had to stop there on the way back. Rio Vermelho was fine, but was another high end market that few of the locals could afford. They did have some great samples for us to try from wines to cashews and we ended up leaving with a pound of semi-smoked cashews for about $9.00 CDN.

Somehow, we managed to find a bus to take us back to the street market and I was able to sample my first Acarajé. We also bought 12 mangoes, 3 papayas, 10 cherimoyas and a huge bunch of bananas for the equivalent of $3.00 CDN!

Sunday we decided to escape the heat at Shopping Salvador, the city's largest and newest shopping mall. The bus to take us there stopped on a busy street that we had already traveled many times. But on this day, it was less crowded as the majority of the shops were closed. As we walked towards the bus stop, with my cell phone in my hand, I sensed someone walking behind me and I slowed to let him pass. He also slowed. I stopped and he stopped. We got into a staring match and suddenly he grabbed for my phone. I tussled with him for a few minutes and held onto my phone when I saw another young man running towards us. He, unfortunately, was not coming to my aid, but was joining the feeding frenzy. In the end, my cell phone and backpack were taken from me and, as I chased after the thieves, they dropped my backpack. I was basically unharmed, except of course for my very bruised ego, and the only thing taken was my phone.

This little adventure, of course, put a bit of a damper on our time in the old city and negatively colored our impression of Brazil. How brazen can they be to steal from someone in broad daylight with lots of other people around? Yes, we had been warned of the dangers here, but we had, until that time, never really felt the least bit threatened.

We regrouped after a couple of days, but after the mugging, we never really felt comfortable in the old city again.

On November 30, we moved to a new Pousada located in the beach area of Barra which is said to be the safest area in Salvador. We did indeed feel much more comfortable here, but never entirely at ease. In fact, I never took my camera out of our room while we were there, so unfortunately, there are no photos of the beach, the lighthouse or the nightly sundown celebrations there. We did, however spend some quality time on the beach although the sun here is so strong that I had to be careful not to burn even while sitting under a beach umbrella.

We left Salvador on December 7th and we were not unhappy to be on our way. Our next stop is Rio and the Copacabana beach where we hope to have a more peaceful stay.Read more