Brazil - Salvador da Bahia

Tuesday, October 17'th

Salvador da Bahia is the capital of Bahia state and is often abbreviated "Bahia" by Brazilians. The city was second, after Lisbon, in the Portuguese Empire. Many African slaves were brought to the city in the 15'th century and the city is also know as the "African soul of Brazil".

The square belongs to the people as the sky belongs to the condor.

said by Castro Alves, a Bahian poet. We took the trip from Rio to Salvador by bus, a 24 hour ride along the Atlantic

coast. Although the road is not the best we have experienced, the suspension is excellent on the busses. By plane you can reach Salvador in about one hour.

In Salvador we stayed at the hotel "Farol" (Lighthouse), a **** hotel, on the top floor with a great view of the lighthouse at the point, marking the entrance to the bay "Baía de Todos os Santos". The hotel is lying right on the beach and you can watch the people relaxing on the "Praia do Porto da Barra".

The old town

When you are in Salvador, the obvious thing is to enter the old part of town.

Church in Salvador da Bahia

Above, the "Igreja De N. Sra Do Rosario Dos Prestos" church in Salvador da Bahia. Salvador has some reputation for theft and muggins, but we had only one small incident.

The first night in town we took a cap to "Campo Grande", one of the major bus stations in the old part, and walked around enjoying the vivid nightlife. At one of the market squares they were selling all kinds of snacks, and we decided to have a Hot-dog and a beer. Then we sat down at a table and right away streetkids were all over us, asking for money and stuff. One small boy were particular persistent and in a moment were my concentration was elseware, Wush.., my snack was gone, and so was the boy, so all you travellers, be aware of the notorious Hot-dog thief. One minute you may have it, the next minute it is gone (). Well, he probably needed it more than I.

Slightly shocked by the theft we did some more strolling around to hear the admired music of Salvador. The African influence is obvious, and the mix with the Brazillian style is intriguing. The renowned style like Trio Elétrico, tropicalismo, afoxé, caribé, reggae, lambada, jazz and Gilberto Gil.

This day, two of our Danish friends from the wedding flew in to Salvador but unfortunately we missed each other, so we first met the next day. A message was waiting for us at the reception when we returned to the hotel. In Rio we had told them about this Club in Lençóis where a Paul Simon musician played each tuesday, and that our Travel Agent in Denmark had emphasized that this we shouldn't miss. The message from our friends just said "Qué Pasa", Lençóis is seven hour by bus out of Salvador and they weren't prepared for such a trip being unable to reach us, and neither were we.

The ticket back to Rio

Wednesday, October 18'th

Early morning and we finally had a phonecall from our friends and made realtime contact and they told us of this fantastic place they had found up the Atlantic coast from Salvador, near the Airport. We made arrangements to meet at our hotel in the afternoon to explore the northern part of the old town.

We decided to use the morning to pick up our return ticket we had booked in advance from Denmark, or so we thought. This time we were to go on a Leito Bus, a super luxury bus where the seats can be turned into beds, so you are able to sleep comfortably on the 24 hour ride back to Rio. Our travel agent in

denmark ensured us that everything was alright, we should only go to the Tourist office in Salvador and the tickets would be ready in order to be back in Rio on the departure day of Sverre. When we finally got to the Tourist Office, they had no knowledge of such an arrangement and when they finally found two tickets, they were addressed to Sverre and Marianne and were on the wrong day (one day early). Finally we managed to persuade them that we were the ones that the tickets were meant for, so I hope that there wasn't a Sverre/Marianne couple travelling in Salvador late October who are now stuck there without tickets.

Sunset behind the Lighthouse, Farol by night

Afternoon, we were waiting in the bar when Steen and Rasmus entered. Again we exchanged Qué Pasa's laughing a bit about our Travel Agent. We went outside and took a bus into town like the night before and made a long walk from the top of the town and in a big arc down to the harbor. This part of town is build on a steep slope and in order to get up from the harbor a gigantic elevator has been build, the price for using this	lift is not to mention (cheap), so I won't. We had dinner close to our hotel at a restaurant on the beach-highway. Steaks and French-fries. To make some fun at payment time, Steen and Rasmus exchanged credit-cards. Rasmus payed with Steens, big mistake, they immediately saw that the signatures didn't match and it took half an hour to set the record straight. We left a bit embarrassed.
Flamengo beach Thursday, October 19'th
We decided to to find the place were our friends had stayed, so we took the bus saying "Flamengo" on the front, right to the end, and here we found the most beautifull beach ever. We stayed here all	day drinking beer and eating fish for lunch that came right out of the ocean. They were well prepared by our guardian angel who served us beer and chased beach sellers off when they bothered us too much.

Brazilian beauty at Flamingo Beach, Bahia

Aj, Aj, Aj, Maria .. Maria from Bahia .. For a nice day at the ocean, go to Flamengo beach, 30 Km (18 Miles) North of Salvador da Bahia. The sun was beginning to decend towards the horizon and we decided to return to Salvador, but which bus to take? Well, any would do we thought, so we took the first, the best.

This was not a good idea, it didn't return to the city by the ocean-road, instead it drove inland and we tried the hole time to guess where the bus went. When it looked like we were back in Salvador we stepped off the bus and began our walk back to the hotel. We had a general idea of which direction we should walk but after an hour we still couldn't recognize any landmarks so we took a cab the rest of the way, about a mile or so, we were closer than we thought. We had dinner at the hotel that evening, concluding our stay at Salvador.

Friday, October 20'th

Our bus back was to leave at noon but I was anxious that we would miss it so we checked out of the hotel at a very reasonable time, two hours before the bus would leave. But first payment of our hotel bill; The extra day, the fax home, dining in the restaurent, drinks in the lobby Bar, refill of the Bar in our room and telephoning. All in all said 96,23 Real, not so bad and thank god for MasterCard. The cab to the bus-terminal was 15 minutes so we had some waiting-time, but there is a lot of shops at the terminal so we do some souvenir-shopping. I bought a Antactica-beer T-shirt and the knife of the continent; a manchete to my collection of knifes (from Thailand and Africa). The bus left on time and we enjoyed the luxury Leito-bus back to Rio.

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