The warnings you get about Salvador are so bad that you
would be afraid to go into the centre of the city to see the sights. But the old city is a UNESCO world heritage
site so we aren’t going to miss this. But
we need a guide to prevent us from wandering into the dangerous areas. Yesterday we met Carlos, the guy who does the
airport run for the hostel, and he also does city tours, so we booked both, the
tour for today and the airport run for tomorrow. So at 09:00 we get into his jeep (the company
is called Jeep Tours) and we head off.
Our first stop is the Forte de Santo Antonio de Barra, which
is just around the corner from our hostel.
This is an old Portuguese fort which is also the site of the oldest lighthouse
in South America. It is also a unique
place in Brazil, in that as it is west facing over a large bay, it is the only
place in Brazil where the sun sets over the sea. We don’t wait around that long, next we head
up to the old town and go to another old fort, this one now called Forte de
Capoeira, where we see some Capoeira schools.
This is the martial art disguised as a dance that was developed by the
slaves in captivity, and which is now one of the symbols of Salvador. Of course at 10:00 in the morning there was
nobody practicing it.
After this we head into the Pelourinho, the centre of the
old city, which is the UNESCO world heritage site. It is a maze of small cobbled streets, with
lots of churches (there are 365 in Salvador, it feels like we saw about half of
them) and brightly coloured houses. We
wander around, but you do need a guide because a few of the side streets look
less than welcoming. The highlight of
the centre is the church of Sao Francisco.
This church is the most ornately decorated church in Brazil, and this is
an understatement. There can’t be many
churches in the world with more gold than here.
It makes the ones in Ouro Preto look poor. And they let you take photos to prove
it. The tiling around the courtyard was
actually impressive in its own right, but you almost forget about it once you
see the gold.
You almost need a drink to get over the church, so our guide
buys us a shot of cachaca, the local spirit used in caipirinhas. The city of
Salvador is built on a high cliff overlooking the sea, so to get down to the
port area we get a public elevator down which is pretty cool. Then we look around the market and see a
capoeira show. After seeing the centre of
the city we go off to the North end of the city, to see the church of
Bonfim. This is a famous church in
Brazil, associated with many miracles, and where people tie brightly coloured
ribbons on the surrounding fence. It is
a sight. We finish the tour with a trip
to a headland to give us a good view back across the city, and then lunch in a
local restaurant. It is probably the
best value meal we have had in Brazil, which shows the value of coming with a
local. The tour itself was also really
good value, at only 55 Reals (£20) each.
I was concerned that the locals might take advantage of the danger in
the city by upping the prices for tours, but this was really reasonable.
The tour finished at 3pm, but we spend the rest of the
evening hanging out locally. Apparently
Tuesday is the most dangerous night in Salvador. This is the level of advice you get. Carlos is leading a pub crawl in the evening,
but we decline and watch TV and get ready to head back to Europe tomorrow.
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