Salvador, Brazil

We arrived in Salvador on Feb. 25th at 5am. After de-planing, we accidently passed the baggage claim terminal on the way out. In order to get our bags, we needed someone to go back through security, but we couldn't find anyone at the airport who spoke english or spanish, even a little. We were really suprised and worried by this since normally airports are equipped to communicate with foreigners. After 40 minutes we finally managed to communicate our problem, and our bags were brought to us. 

stole this off google... but this is Barra (pronounced "baja")

Tired from the overnight flight, we took a cab to our Airbnb booking, which was in Itapua (an area north of the city center, near the ocean). The cab driver had trouble finding the condo and after searching for about 20 minutes we finally located the correct address. However, we couldn't get through the gate because our host Lumar was unresponsive... We had problems dialing, but our cab driver got ahold of Lumar, who quickly showed up and let us in the condo. It turned out that she didn´t live at the complex, and that Marcela had accidenatlly told her that we were arriving at 830am instead of 5am (she confused our Rio arrival time with Salvadors's).  

The condo was a nice two story, 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom place that we shared with one other person, Eli. He was in town for business, and worked for one of the beer companies that had a major presence in the Carnival festivities... we became good friends. That morning we napped until 3pm and then went to a grocery store to buy our week's worth of food. We took it easy the rest of the evening, and walked two blocks to a nearby beach to check out the local lighthouse and watch the sun go down. 

The following day Eli offered to show us around Salvador since he had a car and knew the city well. We first went to the Pelourinho area, where we parked and walked through some Carnival preparations to get to La Cidade Alta. On our walk through, I was approached by a guy doing capoeira who tried to get me to dance fight with him. Marcela started taking pictures, and it was only clear afterward when he asked for money what his true intentions were... well played capoeira man. Either way Marcela got some good photos and I only have him like 50 cents. 

I need to work on my flexability...

The Cidade Alta has great views of the ocean and of the Cidade Baixa which we went to shortly after. Connecting the two is a huge elevator, which we took between the two areas. We visited the Mercado Modelo (an art and crafts market) and walked down to the marina. Marcela accidentally dropped her lense cap over the edge, and luckily for her it landed on a barge. Eli climbed down and retrieved it, and after hitting up the ATM, we returned to the car. All these areas and the Centro are so close to each other it was very easy and fun to take a stroll through.

the elevator is the structure on the left side.

Next we went to the Oceanica avenue (main avenue near beaches) in Barra to check out where one of the main events of Carnival was going to occur. Each venue was constructing massive platforms and stages that overlooked the street so patrons could safely and comfrotably see the floats pass by during the Carnival parade. Tickets are available for purchase to these venues (called Camarotes) which usually come with open bar and food for a steep price. For a little less, you can buy tickets to walk with the floats or get on them, with an army of volunteers controlling a roped in perimeter to hold back the madness.  Imagining what all this would be like as it was set up around us, we walked down the main drag and ended up at the lighthouse on the far point, the first lighthouse ever built in the Americas. We admired the view, took some photos and headed back to car.

Eli and Marcela

also stolen off google

We headed back to the condo to grab our swimsuits and headed to the beach, and decided to stop along the way for lunch at a restaurant. We had mentioned to Eli our interest in trying authentic brazilian food, and we ended up with a delicious dish called Moqueca:

After changing into our swimsuits we went to a beach that Eli really enjoyed when he lived there. It was very clean and the water was so warm, it was perfect. We saw the sunset and headed back to the condo. That evening we made dinner and watched some tv. The only channel available in english was a nature channel that had program after program of the worlds deadliest creatures. Good watch... FYI: the mosquito comes in first by far with over a million deaths per year attributed to them because of malaria. Second was king cobra. Third was crocodile. The next day we didn't do much but read and continued our nature program marathon. Our day off was justified because we knew we needed rest before we let loose for Carnival. 

On the morning of our first day attending Carnival, Eli took us to a place where we can buy tickets for a Camarote. We originally wanted to go on Saturday but after checking prices and asking around, we realized that the least expensive day was that same Friday night, so we bought two passes. We got back to the condo, quickly got ready, drank some beers, caught a bus, and arrived to our venue in time for the party. 

The party in the camarote was well planned, and the waiters didn´t wait to let you finish your beer before offering a re-filling. We drank our fill, and then decided to ventured against the flow of foot traffic to explore the scene before the night progressed into pure chaos. I was targeted sexually by a pack of very drunk cross dressing "sexy nurses", and as the sun was setting we returned to the safety of the camarote. After drinking more unlimited beers and watching semi-pulled wheeled stages blasting extremely loud brazilian music go by for another couple hours, we decided to go across the street to a hillside where we could sit in the grass and watch the parade next to some lower-key locals. Around 3am we decided it was time to head back, and after fighting through an extremely dense crowd for about a mile, we jumped on a bus that we thought would take us straight to Itapua (45minutes away). Eventually we were the last people on the bus, and realized we had passed our stop. We got off and took a cab back to the apt. 

Above&below: Carnival in a nutshell. Both photos stolen off Google.
Miles of this. 

The next day we slept until the early afternoon and took it easy. Again we just made some dinner and went to bed, refueling our bodies for another run at Carnival.

Sunday Marcela planned our travels to northern Brazil (looked up buses, booked place to stay, packed a bit, etc) and then headed back out to Carnival. This time we went to the festivities happening in the Centro, and walked on the sidewalks next to the parade. We didn´t pay, so were not allowed in the roped off areas, but that wasn´t really an issue... we just had to fight our way through the crowd. Honestly this was a bit more enjoyable than the Camarote, as we were able to see more of the city and avoid the absurd cover charge. We walked around until 10pm and took the correct bus back, getting to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Monday we made one last breakfast and packed our bags. Eli also took off back to his current hometown, Recife. We said our goodbyes knowing it wouldn´t be for long because Eli was kind enough to offer his home to us when we ventured to Recife! We were heading to Maceio that evening on a 6pm bus (9 hr. bus ride), so we figured out which local bus took us to the terminal and arrived there early enough to buy our tickets north.