Jan 10 2008 Salvador Bahia - New Vibes in Pelourinho

Despite a rather messy and sweaty bus adventure with too much luggage, I found my way safely and mostly comfortably (a 5 hour blessedly air conditioned ride) from tiny Capim Grosso (a small bustling town in the blazingly hot semi-arid "Seton" area of Brazil) back to huge Salvador (the famous semi tropical island city). This probably marks the end of my more rural traveling, since I'll be traveling alone and too weary to work out challenging travel logistics of bus travel with often debated schedules in a language and system I don't understand. At this point, I mostly want to destress and keep things simple.

Thankfully, despite the late night arrival, there was a dorm room bed available to me. This was a relief, considering they turned away a large Spanish group just ahead of me... by the way, the Spanish dudes are almost always consistently good looking! I don't remember this from my travels in Spain, but it sure seems that the ones that travel are dashing and bohemian!

The tough part, was getting from Salvador's huge complex main bus terminal to the old rustic cobblestoned neighborhood called Pelourinho (pronounced in English "peh-lohr-REEN-yoh"). I'd never done it before and didn't understand the distances or the correct terminals. Long distance busses are popular and pervasive in Brazil, and Salvador is a major hub. Despite my crappy Portuguese, helpful locals understood my logistical situation and smoothed the way. They pointed or escorted me in the right direction, all the while signaling that I should keep an eye on my luggage & purse. I REALY didn't want to do it, but it took climbing up and down some stairs and crossing some bridges with my heavy luggage... no escalators or ground level crosswalks here! l counted my blessings that my new friends from the community center in Capim Grosso gave me such a nice send off by generously helping carry my heavy backpack and roll-luggage to the bus station there. Considering I'm bringing home rocks as souveniers, this is no small thing! Too bad there wasn't a greeting committee in Salvador to help out.

Many people travel to Salvador to get materials, bank/exchange currency, buy airline tickets, and handle other business transactions impossible in most smaller towns in the state. For the international traveler, it's even hard to find a compatible ATM (bank machine) outside of large cities such as this. It's not unusual for people (locals even) to give their friends who are travelling to Salvador, or other business oriented cities, their bank/ATM cards with which to run errands.


Anyways, despite a somewhat sleepless night with too much heat, a overly hard and round pillow, and frequent noise through thin walls (cell phones, amourous lovers, alarm clocks, excited tourists, nearby clubs & restaurants), the morning started off nicely with meeting many pleasant people from other countries.

Again, Spanish is scrambling my brain as I met people from Spain over a wonderfully fruit filled breakfast at shared tables. There was only one Brasilera at the table, but we all managed to have a nice if sometimes messy conversation in that common hodgepodge combination of Portuguese and Spanish humorously nicknamed by the locals as "Portanol".

Nicely, I'm sharing a room with a couple of gals from Sweden. They are wonderfully interesting, and the one of Finnish decent speaks wonderful Portanol, Spanish, English, Finnish & Swedish. She proves the young generation's increasingly international nature, as I learned that she lived and worked in Barcelona for a year at age 19, and will soo embarking on her Masters in social anthropology and looking for a way to be helpful in the world.

Meeting interesting people, and gathering opinions and advice from other travelors, is one of the wonderful advantages of staying in dorms in a hostel. Not all contacts made, are followed up on, but the world is an increasingly smaller place and I've been surprised just how much I have stayed in contact with people on other parts of the planet.

I am inspired. Life is full of possibilities, and as I relax and get a little more into the rhythm of Salvador, I am also inspired for paintings. Images I've filmed and photographed of Capoiera, and the Bahian Candemble dress (particularly the women's big puffy skirts and voluminous head dresses)will eventually end up in my paintings.

Tonight, I'll meet up with a friend for dinner/drinks & maybe some music, with an American dancer who I shared the Santa Teresa house with in Rio. She's researching dance in Salvador for another few days, and I'm pleased to get back in contact.

I'm not sure what I'll do yet, for the remaining time in Brazil, but I'll spend at least a couple of nights in Rio at the end, so I'm close to the airport from which I fly home on Jan 30. It's best in Brazil, to leave a little padding in one's schedule, to compensate for disfunctional public transportation and misinformation about schedules, and other logistical glitches.

I'll need to come up with a plan in the next couple of days, find a working international ATM, and book any flights with a travel agent (paid with cash).

But for today, I will mainly relax and rejuvinate.

ciao!
Terry