Salvador

When hearing the name of the city of Salvador, most people take a sharp intake of breath as they know it as one of the most violent and crime-riddled places in South America. This however, is doing a huge disservice to this fascinating and amazing city. Salvador was one of the first places in Brazil to be settled by the Portuguese, in fact it used to be the capital. It was the first slave port in the Americas and because of this, it has a massive African culture. It is one of the liveliest, vibrant and most beautiful cities I have been to.
To get to Salvador, we had to take the ferry. The ferry only took 1 hour or so but we were queuing in the midday sun for hours. The truck was too big for the regular ferry and we had to wait for the biggest in the fleet to return to port. Salvador is massive – 3 million people live there. Strangely enough, it is built on two levels. The administration and richer people are on the top level and the poorer people on the lower levels. These levels are connected by a number of elevators. This is not a new idea. The first elevator was built in 1873. It did seem strange though, after leaving the truck in a on-street car park, having to get into a lift and going upwards to get to the ground level where our hostel was. There are many elevators in town but the main one is the large concrete tower on the left hand side of the photo below.

Alot of time and money has gone into trying to clean Salvador up especially before the football world cup of 2014. There is also a huge visible presence of tourist police in the tourist hotspots. I must admit I felt extremely safe. There was one member of the group who had their phone stolen but as they were very drunk at the time and staggering about alone at 1am, I am not going to take it as a reflection of a massive crime problem.

The beautiful historical centre of Pelourinho is full of brightly coloured buildings and cobbled streets. It has a dark history however, as it is named after the whipping post that was at its center. This is where the slaves were brought to be publically whipped. The whipping post is now back in Lisbon but a second whipping post still exists. It was originally inside a convent but that convent is now a 5 star hotel, so we were able to go inside to look at it. Pelourinho has another most recent claim to fame. It is where Michael Jackson filmed the video for “They don’t care about us.” The Brazilian authorities tried to stop the video as they thought it would show Salvador in a bad light. It did the opposite. It created a lot of interest in the city and in a drumming group he featured in the video. Olodum – the drumming group have gone on to international success and founded schools around the city. Drumming is an integral part of the city now.

Music is everywhere; blaring out of radios -people performing on the streets. We were sat at a street cafe having a drink when the chaps at the next table got out a guitar and started singing. They did the best rendition of Strawberry Fields I have heard. They were joined later by an elderly man who turned out to be a master of the tambourine. I never considered it a real instrument before but he did the most amazing things with it. At one point he was using the point of his elbow to play it. I was sat open-mouthed watching him! Then we were joined by Christina, a local lady who was in traditional dress. She had been drinking heavily by this point and thought we were the funniest people ever. Although we spoke no Portuguese and she spoke no English, we were still able to jabber away together for an hour or so. She also showed us the Paul Simon music video that was filmed in Salvador and pointed herself out in the video. It was a great afternoon spent in her company.

Our last night in town was on a Tuesday. This was lucky because every Tuesday Olodum perform on the streets along with other drumming groups. The atmosphere was electric, the streets were literally throbbing with the bass vibrations. I have never heard anything like it – it was truly spectacular. The crowds followed the groups through the streets – partying as they went. If you have to leave a city – leave it on an incredible high!