Salvador de Bahia

Salvador de Bahia is the 3rd largest city of Brasil. It consists of a historic centre (Pelourinho) and several suburbs where the majority of its 2,5 million people live.

Salvador lies in the middle of a peninsula, therefore most of the city is by the beach. There you get extremelly nice views of the ocean, colorful sunsets, relaxing swimming and beach bars with refreshing juices (sucos de maracuja, abacaxi, manga, caju, cacau, coco, morango, laranja etc.).

In Pelourinho, from Friday to Saturday we were lucky to follow "As festas de Sao Joao", which is -next to the carnival- the most important celebration throughout the year.

Dancing groups (quadrilhas) performing all around the city. Music scenes with open air concerts of all kinds of music (forro, axe, arrocha, pagode, samba, afro-bloco) were everywhere. Special performances for children and older people were also planned. We also tried traditional food and pastries, typical cachaca from the Bahian region, watched capoeira and danced in the rythms of African drums.

Above that, Saturday night we followed, outside Salvador, a Candomble ritual.
Candomble is a ceremony part of the Afro-Brasilian culture of Bahia.
The celebration starts with an animal sacrifice to attract the attention of the "orixas" the African gods. The drummers play throughout the ceremony, only women are dancing in African rythms until they enter a trance, the goal of the ceremony. When a dancer enters a trance, means that has received the spirit of the "orixa", she retreats and the next one comes on stage.

It could take hundreds of lines to describe the experience and the feelings during this ceremony, but probably this is not the space to express everything.

However, the point is that Salvadoris not only, sea, sun, capoeira, music, dances, nice food and cultures.

Salvador is a very extensive city and if you don´t have a car you can hardly visit a small part of it. And of course most of the people here don´t own a car, therefore they have to spent long days in the packed buses to go to work or do their shopping.

Salvador is a city where street children are abundant. You see them everywhere, they beg for some centavos in Pelourinho, they polish shoes outside commercial centres, the sell sleeping chairs at the beach, they sell some corn to make their living, they steal, they form street-gangs, they kill, they get killed...

Salvador is a dangerous city, people have bars at their windows even at the 10th floor of buildings, they have big walls around their houses, armed guards at the entrance of the "condominios", they never stop at traffic lights after the sun is set, they never open their car-windows, they never go to isolated places alone, when they go to the beach they cannot enter the sea because their staff will be stolen, they never feel secure any time of the day, at any place they are....

Salavdor is a city that develops. A new metro is being built here deslocating people from their places, enormous commercial centres are inaugurated every year, taking customers from street markets to big-brands and empoverishing even more the small retailers.

The route is the same for all people here. From the countryside, to the city and there in the favelas.

Tomorrow morning is the World Cup game between Brasil and Ghana. Most of Brasilians will watch the game at the television even at the most far away places of the country. The goals of well-paid Ronaldo and Ronaldinho will bring them for 90 min in a magic world. When the game is over they will have to go back to the misery of everyday life.

Good luck...