The African soul of Brazil

Salvador da Bahia is one of Brazil´s brightest gems. Known as the African soul of Brazil, it is the darkest city in terms of skin colour and the hottest in terms of culture. African slave descendants preserved their culture, successfully transforming them into thriving culinary,religious, musical, dance and martial;arts traditions. Salvador is famous for combining all of these sacred elements in wild popular festivals.

Salvador has a lower city and an upper city. The upper city can be reached by road, but also by elevators from the lower city (like in Valparaiso, Chili). We have been to one of the colonial neighbourhoods, called The Pelourinho twice. It is a historic part of the city. Here are a lot of churhes, built by slaves. They are connected by underground tunnels that feeds to the port in the lower city. Supposedly the tunnels were constructed for defensive purposes. In the lower city there is the famous mercado. Underneath are cellars where they say the slaves were kept. In The Pelourinho there is a steep location where the slaves were auctioned and publicly beaten on a pelourinho (whipping post). Pelourinho is on the Unesco World Heritage list.

The first day we did not take our camera´s. Along our trip everybody warned us that Salvador is such a dangerous city. You should not bring anything with you. We decided to check it out first and then decide if we would bring our camera on other days. The Pelourinho is a very photogenic place, so the second time we brought our equipment. I must say it did not feel very nice because you are made so highly aware of possible danger that you read in the books and hear from people. The travelers bible, the lonely planet, mentiones that if you are likely to be robbed it will be in Salvador. But you cannot leave Salvador without taking pictures of this very colourful neighbourhood. Walking around in The Pelourinho is a bit draining because of all the people wanting something from you (mostly money ofcourse). These are moments I feel not at ease being a tourist and find this the downside of traveling. You are the tourist, you do not want to be less nice to pleople, but sometimes you just have to. You politely smile and say ´no thank you´but this often does not work. Then you find yourselve at the point of harshly saying ´no´, or even worse, ignoring people. I do not like that feeling. Also because I cannot blame those people. If I were to be in their situation I would do exactely the same. It makes you even more aware of how this world is spinning and that place of bearth is very, very determined of quality of life. At the same time this is also one of the good sides of traveling, because it makes you even more aware. It makes you more wise and more understanding and just more wordly wise....it makes you more appreciativeof things back home, it makes you even more careful with throwing away food or running tapwater for example.

Tomorrow we will leave this African soul of Brazil and slowely head down to Rio de Janeiro, another jewel of Brazil. And believe me, Brazil has lots of jewels. Anyone who visited Brazil, whether it was north or south or in the centre, knows what I am talking about. It´s the beaches, the people, the nature, the atmosphere, the culture, the colours, etc. I am glad we spent six weeks in this country and even that is way, way too short to experience the lot Brazil has to offer.