Brazil: Salvador de Bahia

Tuesday, March 7, 2023, Salvador Brazil

NOTE:

It took 2 hours to download the 3 photos below. I’m giving up on photos for the moment, but will try to download more later so I can catch up on the blog. It’s currently March 22 and I am behind in posting mainly due to the difficulty adding photos. So we’ll do without photos for the time being.

Salvador de Bahia (or Salvador) Brazil has a metropolitan population of almost 4 million people. As the first capital of Brazil (they are on #3 now), it’s one of the oldest cities in the Americas—founded in 1549. It consists of a lower town, and an upper town due to the escarpment in the historical center—the historical center was all we saw on this trip. There is an elevator and a funicular to get from the lower level to the upper in this part of town. There are many others further down. We were warned to be careful due to crime, especially going up the elevator to the high part of town.

Salvador is a center of Afro-Brazilian culture, and that is obvious as soon as you get off the boat. It’s a straight shot across the Atlantic Ocean to Africa, and Salvador was a part of the slave trade. Black women in giant white skirts greeted us with photo ops and a ribbon.  Once through the tourist center (no maps handed out here since covid started), we walked toward the large market, looking for the music museum. On the way, more women in giant skirts, this time 2 of them accosting us and trying to give us a ribbon, tie it on my wrist, saying some kind of incantation. It became obvious after a bit that they wanted money. I untied the ribbon and gave it back to them, walked away, the incantation starting to sound like a curse. Another woman, this one skinny, yelling, with her hand out, demanding money in Portuguese. 

Our greeters. Some others in this garb were shake-down artists! These ladies were wonderful.

Colorful art in the  History of Music museum 

More colorful art

We walked past a tour bus parked on the street and talked briefly to a man who looked like a tour guide. He spoke English. We asked if he thought we’d be safe going to the upper historical center. He looked us over, and said since we didn’t have jewelry or expensive watches we’d be fine. 

We stopped briefly at the market and bought the best cashews we’ve ever had.

We found the music museum, with it’s sliver of a door and an armed guard cooling off in the A/C streaming out of the building. There are a lot of armed guards in Brazil and one of the perks is cooling off in doorways they are guarding. Salvador is recognized throughout Brazil for it’s music. The young people working at the museum explained the exhibits were in Portuguese. They spoke very little English, but enough to get the point across. We didn’t care. As with most museums in Brazil, the cost for seniors was minimal. There were several rooms on the first floor that each focused on a particular musical style. The acoustics were wonderful. We went straight to the 3rd floor where they had karaoke sound booths, and Charlie asked the young woman to pick out a song (all in Portuguese) for him. It was more of a rap, but they recorded it and emailed it to him. 

After the music museum, we headed for the giant elevator against the side of the cliff. No charge for seniors. At the top of the elevator we went into the visitor center. Still no maps, but advice where to find the two things we were looking for: the colorful Pelourinho neighborhood and Sao Francisco church, it’s interior encased in gold leaf and referred to as The Golden Cathedral.

On the way, we happened upon the Carnival Museum (Salvador has a huge carnival). There was a young man who spoke excellent English and there were headsets with an English option! There were four hours of recorded information and we needed to keep moving so we listened for awhile and then went up to the second floor which had a really fun dance experience.

Moving on, we noting the funicular was right next door to the Carnival Museum, offering another way to get back to the lower town. We stopped to interact with some drummers and have a nostalgic Subway sandwich. A relief after all the French food on the ship.

The Pelourinho neighborhood was full of colorful boutique hotels, restaurants, and expensive shops. The church was a little beyond that, ancient and amazing. More gold leaf than I’ve ever seen. It really deserves the title the Golden Cathedral.

After exploring the church, we headed for the funicular. Free for seniors, and another fun way to get around town.

There is much, much more to Salvador. Again, it’s huge city and had extreme wealth and extreme poverty. We heard about a couple of muggings that happened to people from the ship: one man having a gold necklace pulled off. Another ex-cop getting held up at knifepoint. No one injured, no losses except the necklace.

We sat on our balcony and saw more affluent parts of the city as we sailed away.