Travels in South America

We spent this past week exploring the area outside of Salvador. On Saturday we met up with a friend ...   more »

Carnaval is celebrated differently throughout Brazil. In Salvador, musicians play on top of 18 wheel trucks called trios. The trios ...   more »

This week we moved out of the apartment in Barra and into another apartment in a neighborhood called Iguatemi. The price of our apartment in Barra was about 10 times the usual price for the week of Carnaval. This is why we moved to Iguatemi for Carnaval week. Barra is right in the center of one of the Carnaval routes. Iguatemi is about 30 minutes away by bus.

 

We did some site seeing in Pelhourinho this past weekend and visited a few museums and churches. The Afro-Brazilian museum displayed the African history of the area and the strong influence of Africa in the local culture. For centuries, Salvador was a hub for the slave trade in South America. The culture and traditions of the slaves play a large part in Salvador today. Camdomblés occur frequently, which are some type of religious ceremony which I don’t quite understand. Capoeira dancers can be seen along the beaches and in the festivals. The food has a distinct African influence with the spices used. Orixás (Pagan divinities of African ancenstry) are worshipped here.

 

For example, Febuary 2nd is a day commemorating Yemanjá, the goddess of the sea. This is a festival where locals make contributions to the sea for Yemanjá. Our language school organized a group outing to the festival.  People pay homage to Yemanjá by throwing flowers, soap, mirrors, and items that represent beauty into the sea. Once these items are thrown into the ocean, Yemanjá either accepts them and the items are swept away in the waves, or she rejects them and they are swept up on the shore. We threw some flowers into the ocean that immediately washed ashore. Ahh well.

Here is a very short video clip of the festival on the beach. You can hear the drumming and singing in the clip. You will have to download it onto your computer and open it up. It´s about 3 megabytes.

Also, I added pictures to some of our previous posts. Check them out!

We are approaching the end of our first week here in
Salvador. Although it has been a very relaxing week
for us, we have yet to see much of the city.
Our mornings begin with a suco (juice) at one of the
local snack places. Because of the tropical climate,
there is a variety of delicious fruits including
papayas, mangos, guavas, and many more. A big glass
of fresh fruit juice is the best way to start off the
morning. Chris decided to be adventurous one day and
ordered “suco de betarraba” thinking it would be some
tasty exotic fruit that he’s never had before. Turned
out, “betarraba” is beet, so he got a big glass of
beet juice. And there’s nothing more that he hates
than beets.

After our sucos, we head to our Portuguese class for a
few hours. This has been immensely helpful for us
since we knew no Portuguese before our trip. Our
school is fantastic and we’ve learned so much in a few
days. Of course, I still have a hard time
understanding the locals, but that will come with
time. In the meantime, we’ve been able say complete
sentences once in awhile which is better than where we
were 5 days ago.

After class, we have lunch at one of the local “comida
a kilo” (food by the kilo). It has been a good way to
sample the Brazilian cuisine which includes a variety
of meats, beans, vegetables, and rice. It is
relatively cheap by US standards. A kilo of food is
about 10 reais (3 reais ~ 1 USD). I usually have
about half a kilo of food, while Chris rings in at
just under a kilo.

The sun is very intense around this time, so after
lunch, we usually retreat to our apartment or hide in
the air-conditioned shopping mall. When it’s safe to
come out, we go across the street to the beach and
jump in the ocean…but only after coating ourselves in
30 layers of SPF45 sunblock.

We haven’t had much of a chance to explore Salvador
outside of Barra (our district), but we plan on doing
that soon. A week of relaxation was in order. Not to
mention a week of studying Portuguese.

Carnaval is getting closer and closer now. Musicians
are playing and practicing everywhere. Last night we
went to a open-aired club on the beach and saw
Margareth Menezes. I have never heard of this person
before but a few other students from our school had
mentioned her name and invited us along to the
concert. It turns out that she extremely popular
around here. There were a couple of thousand people in
this club, and most of them were singing every word to
every song. It was hard to hear Margareth sing because
the crowd was singing over her. It was almost too much
for us. After being close to the stage for the first
hour or so, we had to escape and watch the show from
the back of the club where less people are.

At 3am we were woken up by a huge band of about 20
brass players and 20 drummers in the street outside
our apartment. The music woke me up out of my sleep
when they were a few blocks away. By the time the band
was below our window, it was unbelievably loud.
Apparently 40 person bands playing throughout the
streets at 3am is common this time of year.

Today we walked around Pelhourinho for the first time
during the day. Stages are being setup and the
camarotes are being built everywhere we turn.
Camarotes are stages setup along the route of
Carnaval. People can buy tickets to watch the parade
pass by. The street parades are very crowded, so the
carmarote gives people the chance to watch Carnaval
from above the streets. We will spend two days in the
camarotes next week.

You can also pay to be in a bloco. Bands play through
the streets of Salvador during carnival. You can buy
tickets to walk and dance alongside the band in the
streets. This is called a bloco. We are joining the
bloco of a band called Timbalada. This is another
famous band from the city of Salvador.

Carnaval is just a week away now and the city is buzzing. The people of Salvador are busy getting the city ready. This celebration is extremely important to the people of Bahia and Brazil. People here seem to take this festival as serious or perhaps even more serious than Americans take Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years. The whole city will shut down for 7 days of music, dancing and festivals. The schools and businesses close for the week. Everywhere we look, people are preparing for Carnaval. Camarotes are being built all along the streets. Landlords are out on the street trying to rent out extra rooms, and musicians are practicing all of the time. On Tuesday night we finally left the neighborhood of Barra and explored Pelhourinho, the old colonial neighborhood that seems to attract most tourists. Apparently, every Tuesday night from December to the beginning of Carnaval, the city hosts a festival for bands to practice their music. Imagine thousands of people walking the old cobblestone streets and along every corner there is band playing. Some of the music is relaxing and mellow but most of the music is very loud and intense drumming. Most bands we saw were comprised of approximately 25 drummers and one singer. The music was incredible. Lots of people in the streets were dancing. At one intersection, there was a popular all-female band playing. One hundred feet away was an all-male band of just drummers, and 100 feet from that was another band of all children, again only playing drums. We walked another block and stumbled upon Olodum, which is a famous band from Brazil. It was a fantastic evening of music, and this was just a warm-up festival to Carnaval. Our language school organizes one night out a week for the students and teachers. This helps the students to get a feel for the real Brazilian culture and gets us away from the tourist spots in the city. Last night we ate at a restaurant deep in the city. Around 10pm, a group of musicians came into the restaurants, ate some food, and then started playing music at their table. It was really nice mellow music, with guitars, ukulele, and small percussion instruments. The customers and staff were singing and dancing. I get the impression that this type of thing happens all of the time here. One thing we have learned so far is that Brazilians are passionate about their music.   more »

We arrived in at the airport in Rio de Janeiro to welcoming arms. Our friend Alexandra in San Francisco is from Rio. Her uncle Berto met us at the airport during our layover to Salvador. He loaned us Alexandra’s cell phone for our stay in Brazil. We sat and had lunch together while we waited for our flight to Salvador. He made sure that we understood that we could always call him for help if we need anything while we are in Brazil.

 

We landed in Salvador a few hours later and were picked up by our friend Nilton’s brother Aureo and his girlfriend Patricia. They don’t speak English and we don’t speak Portuguese, so we stumbled through some basic conversation. We all know small amounts of Spanish, so each sentence was filled with some form of Portuguese, Spanish and English. 

 

We went from the airport directly to a night club in the old district in town. It was an outdoor bar overlooking the bay. After 24 hours of traveling, the cold beer was exactly what was needed. After meeting more friends of theirs, Aureo and Patricia took us to the apartment they found for us. Two months ago they searched for an apartment for our stay in Salvador and also got us our tickets for Carnaval. We made plans to go to the beach at 9am the next day (Saturday).

 

On Saturday we were picked up by Aureo’s friend Andre and his girlfriend. We met up with Aureo along the way to the beach. We drove about 30 minutes to a beach outside the city. We ended up at a place called Margarita’s. This was an outdoor restaurant/bar with tables all along the beach under umbrellas. For the next 4 or 5 hours we ordered beers, swam in the ocean and ate food like caranguejo’s(crab), some type of small friend fish with hot salsa, and grilled cheese on a stick.

 

After eating and swimming all afternoon at Margarita’s, it was time for lunch. We went to a restaurant that serves up some traditional Bahian food (Salvador is located in the state of Bahia). We had more beer and caranguejo’s  and some tasty clams. After that we moved to another table that was prepared for us. The table was set with beautiful dishes of food. Everything was very colorful. We ate  moqueca which is like a fish stew made with palm oil. There were lots of other dishes that we ate that I do not know the name of.

 

That was the end of day one in Brazil. Our hosts are gracious and extremely patient with us because we do not speak their language. Su and I start Portuguese class on Monday, thankfully.

 

 

 

Twenty four hours to go. We are almost ready. This morning we picked up our Brazilian visas at the Brazilian Embassy downtown. The rest of the day we are packing and finishing up the last minute chores. How do you pack for a trip this long across South America? Lightly. The lighter, the better.