Notes from Salvador . . .

We’re in Salvador until Tuesday. It’s hot and humid (near 90 every day), but we have a lovely air conditioned room complete with hammock and view overlooking the Bay of All Saints (locals call it the Bay of All Saints and Most Sins). I feel sinfully lazy, swinging in the hammock and reading Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands rich with details of life here in Salvador.

Salvador was the colonial capital of the Portuguese empire in the New World, and we are living just outside the Pelourinho, also called the “high city”. The district is filled with beautiful 17th and 18th Century Baroque buildings and churches, exotic Afro-Bahian music, and great Bahian restaurants -- and the legacy of slavery.

Today, we devoured a special dish called moqueca, a kind of shrimp and codfish stew, cooked right in a clay pot with a savory yellow sauce (trace of coconut, curry and maybe saffron with dende (palm) oil), and served with side dishes of toasted manioc, white rice, and pureed yam. The flavors linger in your mouth.

We also saw a terrific performance of the Bale Folclorico da Bahia, with dances of capoeira (originally a way of training slaves to fight, disguised as a dance with drums, sticks and swords), and dances featuring the gods of candomble (this Afro-Brasil religion), including Yemanje, the mermaid goddess or orixa.

As we walk down these cobblestoned, narrow streets, the culture of Africa mingled with Brazil is around us with many vibrant colors, street musicians, performers and dancers; and the music of drums, reggae, samba blasting from various loud speakers. I would love to bring some of the colorful folk paintings home.



This is not a rich country, and the people work very hard. Tourism is a new industry and much appreciated, but behind the glitter of the new are countless reminders to be careful. Salvador (and this neighborhood) can be dangerous, especially at night and away from the main streets. So we enjoy our daily walks, visit museums and churches, admire the tropical birds and flowers everywhere, grateful that we can see all of this with our own eyes. We hope for a better future for these warm and friendly people, and hope their unique and beautiful culture (recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage treasure) is preserved.

This week’s POP QUESTION: Can you name this yellow bird that is just one of many (including hummingbirds called beja-flor – kiss the flower) that visit the red tile roof near our breakfast verandah each morning? I promise a reward of some kind. Not sure what, but I’ll come up with something.

From Rio to Salvador . . . still in Brazil.

Jan 21. The 27-hour bus ride went very quickly as we traveled north from Rio through the hinterlands of the Brazilian coast to Salvador. We stopped about every three hours to eat, visit the baneiros, change drivers, and stretch our legs. I’ve tasted three different kinds of flan already, but none so good as that made by Vera. I can recommend the grill, and we’ve seen small herds of cattle everywhere. The cattle are very large, with floppy ears that hang down, and some with ferocious horns. We have blankets to cuddle under and a fascinating view of endlessly changing terrain as our driver takes us through mountains, very rich tropical valleys full of banana palms and red flowering trees. We see isolated clusters of houses, capped with red tiles, and rolling hills to the horizon. Finally our bus turns down to the coast and Salvador, a busy port town yet with a sophisticated beach front. Workers set up temporary viewing stands for the Carnival begins in just two weeks.

Our hotel, the Pousada do Boqueirao, hides behind a colonial façade. We enter into sunlit rooms and up the marble stairs, past a large painting of a mermaid (Yemanja), and down a dark hall to the back of the hotel. Our room opens with a verandah and an ocean/bay view. We can watch ships leaving, hear the chip-chip-chip of hummingbirds over the traffic far below. Tomorrow we’ll explore. Tonight we’re just exhausted. We took a shower in our little blue and white tiled bathroom and are relaxing in our room, complete with hammock, view, lovely old table with two chairs, a sofa, an armoir, and elegant high ceilings with a fan. It’s barely cool enough for us to open the shutters. Later, we’ll go out in search of a television to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama.

I begin to understand the preoccupation that Latin American writers have with isolation and decay. Even with the scope of what we saw today, the countryside seems barely tamed. I find myself more comfortable in the cities, as large and busy as they are, for the jungle looms trackless and endless. Everywhere we see little isolated houses that have been abandoned. The heat continues as well, making everyone move slowly, if at all.

While in Rio, we took the bonge (trolley) up to the Santa Teresa district to visit ruins and the Meuse Ceu (lovely art by Concalvo, Portinari and others, and a 18th-19th Century library, with some prints and books dotted with age). And yet, as we walked down through this lovely colonial district, some homes had also been locked up. Their fine colonial bones were covered with graffiti. I could almost see them mouldering away in the tradition of Gabriel Garcia Marca. We saw two old women sitting in a shady garden talking, not moving, entirely white, as if the sun had never touched them, the neighborhood aging around them. One feels enervated, waiting for the sun to fall into the sea, and thirsty for water all the time. Only the vibrant music wakes us up, transforms us, propels us to dance in the streets, even the old ladies tap their feet; magical realism simmers under everything Latin American.

Update: It´s now Friday and I´m down the street from our hotel, fighting a Portuguese keyboard and slow internet access, but all is truly well. We´re back on the bus on Tuesday, another 20-hour ride to Belo Horizonte. It will be hard to say goodbye to vibrant Salvador with its sweeping vistas of the bay, vibrant Bahian culture, and wonderful, wonderful foods. I wish you all just one day of 90 degrees to compensate for the snow that some of you are having. Think hats, suntan lotion and lots of air conditioning. And dinner on a verandah overlooking the bay as the sun fades to starry, starry night.