Salvador

The cathedral, and the church on the opposite end of the square, looked in need of major restoration work. And I couldn’t help but wonder whether the source of that faint smell of urine coming from the ground was animal or human.

These were my first thoughts after stepping onto the Terreiro de Jesus, just north of the Plaça de Sé, both major squares within the Pelourinho district of Salvador.

According to my guidebook, the historical centre of Salvador, of which Pelourinho forms a major section, is a UNESCO-protected site. It’s supposed to be home to some of the finest examples of colonial architecture in South America. Amérigo Vespucci first sailed into Baía de Todos Os Santos on All Saints Day, 1501 (hence the name), and the Portuguese chose this place to build a fortified city to protect their New World interests. Salvador eventually became the most important city in the Portuguese Empire after Lisbon, remaining capital of the Brazil until 1763. Salvador also provided the first New World port of call for African slaves shipped out to the tobacco and sugar cane plantations of Brazil, slave that gave the city a distinctive African flavour that lasts to this day.

Even with all of this history to sell it, my first impressions of historic Salvador were, if I may say, overwhelmingly underwhelming. I was already cranky because the heat was getting more oppressive the further north I travelled through Brazil, because I’d had to run a gauntlet of five or six aggressive touts and beggars just to get to the square, and because the vast majority of the buildings I’d seen were run down and in desperate need of repair. If this was what old Salvador looked like after some restoration work, what in the Hell did it look like before?

But, for all these initial reservations, Salvador, with its warts and all, did manage to win me over during my five-day stay.

A view from the Largo do Pelourinho. This was the nicer part of town.

For one thing, once I worked my way further into Pelourinho, towards Santo Antonio, I found myself walking downhill along quaint, narrow, cobblestone streets, eventually ending up at the considerably more picturesque square of Largo do Pelourinho. Hearing the syncopated beats of a samba bateria – a samba percussion battery (band) – practising off in one of the buildings helped to lighten my mood further. Adding to the ambiance were capoeira dancers in the street, and Bahianas (black women dressed in traditional 18th-Century African costumes) in most shop doorways.

I stayed in Barra, a quieter district in south-western Salvador, and a five-minute walk from either of two of the better city beaches. Aside from containing some good restaurants and bars, Barra also lays claim to the section of coastline that is home to Forte de Santo Antonio, a fort that also houses the first lighthouse in South America.

Can't complain about this scenery.

The day I spent exploring Barra and Pelourinho, by myself, was also the first time in Brazil I spent any significant time taking pictures with my full dSLR setup, at least without the backup of a tour group. Russell (the owner of the hostel at which I was staying) had given prior (in retrospect, rather paranoid) warnings not to wear a watch, have a backpack or bring a camera around Pelourinho. I didn’t wear a watch, so I only broke two of the three rules. I just exercised caution – only bringing out my camera when I had something to shoot, storing it away in my backpack at all other times, and being as inconspicuous as possible while changing lenses.

I spent most of the Pelourinho street party following the samba drum band around.

Seeing the interesting parts of Salvador can be done in a day or two – though participating in certain events, like the weekly Tuesday street party in Pelourinho, obviously requires one to be there at certain times. The rest of my time in Salvador was spent relaxing on the beaches and at the hostel, and using Salvador as a base to see some of the surrounding area. In particular, I spent a day on a cruise through the Baia de Todos os Santos, to visit a beach on Ilha do Prade, then another beach near Itaparica. It was a relaxing day, but I did get a minor sunburn despite multiple, liberal applications of SPF 45 sunscreen. Another day, I joined a tour to Praia do Forte, about an eighty-minute drive from Salvador and home to the headquarters for Project Tamar, a Brazilian organisation dedicated to the conservation of the sea turtle population. We had about an hour or so to take in the exhibits and gawk at the turtle tanks before heading out for lunch and a two-hour stay at, yep, another beach at Guarajuba. After Ipanema, Barra, and the boat cruise, I was really getting beached out.

As close as I could get to a baby sea turtle.

If there is one thing about Salvador about which I can give absolute, unconditional praise, it is for the regional Bahian cuisine. In particular, I couldn’t get enough of the moqueca and acarajé.

Moqueca is a Bahian specialty: various types of seafood served in a thick, sauce of coconut milk, tomatoes, fresh cilantro, peppers and palm oil. I had this twice, once with just shrimp, then again with a mixture of shrimp, local fish, and shark. Acarajé is typical Bahian street food – served up on street carts, each run by a Bahiana, it’s a kidney-bean paste dumpling fried in palm oil, then cut and filled with tomato and onion salad, hot sauce, and a mixture of dried shrimp and coconut milk.

If I ever do make a return trip to Salvador, it will definitely be primarily for the food.