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.

Exploring Sao Paulo . . .

No matter what time of day we walk out on the streets of Sao Paulo, there's always something new to see. Today we took the METRO and made three transfers to take a walking tour in the Sampa neighborhood (see the slideshow below). Allen's gray hair causes people to jump up and offer him a seat for here in Brazil most people are younger. The METRO is easy to use and was very crowded on the way back to our hotel.

But we were able to see the Theatro Municipal with its monumental sculptures in baroque style, including Hercules, and pass by a lovely Parque Anhangabau, where once the Tupi-Guarani people called this valley, Demon's Valley, for they believed bad spirits once lived here. Today the Parque is entirely baroque in style, with a fountain of bronze horses to rival Rome's Trevi Fountain. We visited several churches and a cathedral, stopped for coffee, and then ended the day at Kazan, a highly recommended Japanese restaurant. Sao Paulo has the largest community of Japanese outside of Japan and their sushi is touted to be the best in the world. We agree!

Thanks to craigslist again and the internet, we were able to secure an apartment in Rio just one block from the beach in Copacabana, where temperatures will be in the upper 70s. By Jan 8, we'll be headed south, with fond memories of Sao Paulo to carry us. I think I will remember most the little gated city gardens, the very friendly people despite our fragmentary knowledge of Portuguese, the very fast drivers (including helmeted motorbike drivers), and with a population in the city itself of 12.6 million (29 million including the suburbs), I think we barely scratched the surface!

Enjoy the slideshow or download any picture directly from Webshots (see link to the right).



Sao Paulo, Brazil

Sunday Musings . . . and an update

We have just three weeks now before leaving Vancouver, Washington. We'll be truly on the road, flying from Seattle south to Brazil for a meandering trip through South America, not returning until June 1. Yes, I'm taking my writing with me (laptop and backup), and I'll hope to keep two blogs up and running, this one for trip notes, and Beth and Writing for poetry and occasional thoughts about writing. My website at Google has travel plans if you want to look.

I have loved living near the Columbia River. As we cross the bridge into Portland, Mt. Hood seems to float in varied splendor, sometimes with clouds obscuring her face, sometimes fully revealed with snow covered heights. We've tried to walk daily, and in this warren of modern apartments, we see so many true evergreens, firs and cedars abound. And we've been closer to friends.

So many people ask when we're going to settle down, perhaps like "normal" people. I'm not sure. When Allen and I were first together, some 30 years ago, we learned to be careful about who said "Let's go." Teaching allowed us to visit Canada, Mexico, Guatemala and Ecuador in the summers. And sometimes our friends have joined us, enriching our adventures.

Now, we already have the next two years blocked out, 6 months in South America (Jan 2009), a resting stop of perhaps a month in Spokane (June 2009), then a drive across the US or Canada to Philadelphia. A six-week trip to Scotland (Edinburgh, Inverness and the Orkneys, Sept-Oct 2009), and then, because we're there, a meandering trip down to Spain, to a town I promised myself I'd return one day -- Granada (Nov 2009-Mar 2010). We'll stay in one spot perhaps four to six months, and then return to Philadelphia for the start of Allen's four-month cross-country bicycle trip (April 2010). I'll be driving the sag wagon, once again with laptop, arranging camping sites and motels along the way -- and writing.

So these next few weeks, I'll pack down the house (kitchen and books, primarily). Yes, it is possible to sleep comfortably on cots. Saturday was my birthday. Pam and Kayla took me ice skating; I must have fallen 6 times. Allen charged my Starbucks card (how could I not like Starbucks; their logo has a mermaid?). The writing goes well; revision is rather like peeling an onion, layers and layers. And life is good.



P.S. The quilt is finished. You can click on the image to see details.

The travel bug has bitten. We're just beginning to plan for a six-month trip to South America. Allen's devoured numbers of Lonely Planets and I have started looking for apartments and fretting over how to carry my laptop.

The plan: We leave January 3, 2009, for Brazil (thankful every moment for airline miles). We'll spend Jan and Feb in Brazil (key stops include Salvador, Ouro Preto, Rio, possibly Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, and Iguacu Falls).

We'll spend all of March in a Buenos Aires apartment (Recoleta district), leaving on a 14-day cruise around the Horn on the Norwegian Cruise Lines on March 29. This ship will pass through the Chilean fjords and the Strait of Magellan on its way to Santiago, Chile, calling at Montevideo, Puerto Madryn; Stanley; Ushuaia; Punta Arenas; Puerto Chacabuco; Puerto Montt; and Santiago (Valparaiso).

We'll spend the last two weeks of April traveling through Chile, north to Bolivia. May, we'll travel through Bolivia, and June is reserved for Peru (with a focus on Incan and Moche cultures).

Every museum we've visited, we've found ourselves hovering over the artifacts from pre-Columbian cultures. One example is from the Dallas Art Museum, this foot high sculpture from the Jama-Coaque culture (Ecuador) about the years 200-400 AD. We've seen common motifs everywhere in the Southwest and connections between indigenous peoples in Mexico and the Southwest, so this trip will be a grand opportunity to visit every museum we can and to appreciate the rich diversity of art as well as the grand vistas of nature.