Salvador

After taking a short plane ride down the coast we were at our next stop on the Brazilian tour, Salvador. Salvador is a city with rich history. This was the first port set-up to bring slaves over to Brazil from Africa and the city is known as the African soul of Brazil. In this beautiful beach town the descendants have worked hard to preserve their culture and history. The way in which they honor their history and culture best is through wild street parties that brings the community together to celebrate various holidays.

I am having a hard time putting into words how much fun and culture rich this town is. Let me start by saying the we were only planning on spending 3 days and 2 nights and loved the town so much that we extended our stay to 5 days and 4 nights. The first day, we took our selves on a tour of the old city called the Pelourinho. The Pelo, as its known around town, is the historical center of the city. Our hostel owner sat us girls down and told us of the drug problem they are having in Salvador and that we will just be asking for trouble if we bring anysort of purse, bag or camera with us. We kept our money close to our bodies and left our cameras in the hostel. Unfortunately this means that we have no pictures of this beautiful and historic area of town. Later that night we went back into the Pelo for a cultural dance show. On the cab ride into the city we crossed the streets that the Hostel owner told us to avoid like the plague, and could see why he gave us such a stern warning about our cameras and purses. It was amazing to me how such a beautiful and history rich cultural area was safe, and full of life on certain streets then one block over you had the complete opposite where the drugs ruled the streets.

The cultural dance show, Bale Folclorico da Bahia was incredible! The dancers did an amazing job of sharing their heritage and showing how the different cultural influences of Europe, Africa and the Indigena people of Brazil that lived together in Bahia fused together to create the culture of today's Salvador and Bahia region. My favorite dances were Capoeira and Samba de Roda.

Our last day in Salvador just happened to be the day that the whole town came together to offer their gifts and party in the streets for the Festa de Yemanja. Yemanja is the goddess of the salt waters. To ensure that the ocean will provide the residents plenty of fish to survive on they all gather and give forth offerings to Yemanja which are collected beach side all day then loaded on boats to be placed 6 miles offshore, those gifts which are not washed ashore are deemed accepted. This then leads into merryment on the streets with capoeria circles and funk and samba bands playing in the streets. This is like their warm up to Carnival, is the best way to explain it.