Although I mentioned that my friends and I would be couchsurfing in Salvador, I don't think I adequately explained what this wonderful little invention really is. Basically, it's a website that connects (very) budget-conscious travelers with people in all parts of the world who are willing to let said travelers sleep on their couches for free. It's even cheaper than staying in hostels (which are actually pretty expensive in most parts of Brazil around Carnaval), you get to meet and bond with really friendly and hospitable people, and you can communicate with people from around the world and share stories about traveling. That being said, our couchsurfing experience was somewhat atypical. We planned the trip in a very last-minute fashion, so last-minute that we only heard back from one of the potential hosts we contacted, an extremely enthusiastic high-school student named Fabio who told us in broken English that his step-dad sucks and wouldn't allow us to stay with them, but that his aunt had an empty house that she hadn't lived in for years and that we were welcome to stay there. Our own little vacation home in Salvador - que chic! Well, as it turned out, the house:
a) was completely unfurnished
b) had no lights
c) or running water
and d) was about an hour and a half from the city center by bus.
The first three were actually not really a problem; we were committed to finding free lodging during our travels no matter what, so our standards were naturally not very high, but the latter turned out to be a bit more significant. Getting home at the end of our nights proved to be an adventure that was often expensive and sometimes didn't happen at all. Traveling was further complicated by the fact that none of our phones worked without a series of county codes seemed to vary from one phone number to the next. But despite the chaos, Salvador itself was really an interesting and wonderful place to be, especially in the days before Carnaval.
First thing's first: food. If could trade Rio food for Salvador food, I would do it in a heartbeat. While cariocas eat unseasoned meat, cheese, and bread almost exclusively, Salvador is known for its spicy seafood. While there, I ate shrimp, lobster, oysters, and a few types of fish, and it was all ridiculously cheap. The most common street food in Salvador is acarajé (click the link and drool), which consists of a cake of fried black-eyed-pea dough split in half and filled with various spicy sauces made from cashews, shrimp, tomatoes, and hot peppers and topped with whole shrimp. The most I ever paid for an acarajé was an astoundingly low R$4, about $2 U.S. Of course, Salvador also has much of the same bready/cheesy/meaty street food as Rio, but always cheaper and somehow better.
(Sittin' on the dock of the bay...)
I think that in some ways Salvador is actually considerably more dangerous than Rio. First of all, about 80% of baianas (people from the state of Bahia) are of African descent, so I stood out much more than I do here in Rio (even with my Brazilian tan). Living in Rio's Zona Sul, I don't see nearly as much poverty as exists throughout the rest of the city, and even the favelas I've visited are governed by strict, extremely community-oriented social codes dictating that resident not harm or steal from anyone in the boundaries of the favela. While I'm clearly aware that crime, both violent and not, does happen here all the time and while I know several people from my program who have been held at gunpoint (some more than once), I've just never seen desperation firsthand to the extent that I saw it in Salvador. In and around Pelourinho, Savlador's historic neighborhood where most tourist attractions are located, you can't walk a block without being solicited by a group of adorable children asking R$5 to tie a piece of ribbon around your wrist, or an old man (who probably looks thirty years older than his real age) who nicely offers you directions to a museum and then demands money. A group of Americans we met in Pelourinho had been robbed three times in one day, once before my very eyes. Almost every interaction I had with anyone in the street was about money. This was difficult to see and get used to because the entire time I knew that every person who pleaded for money or eyed my purse for a little longer than was comfortable really needed money, but I just couldn't give it to all of them, especially not in the quantities that they asked.
(Capoeira on the beach, anyone?)
That being said, Pelourinho is really a beautiful and interesting area, despite being increasingly touristy. My friends and I saw a modern art museum, an Afro-Brazilian culture museum, a Candomblé ritual, a pre-Carnaval drumming procession, and a capoeira performance in the street (which we eventually took part in). The Candomblé ritual was by far the most fascinating and confusing; we had been trying to find a Candomblé ritual to attend for a low price all day with little success, but in the early evening we asked one more person who pointed us down the street and told us that a free ritual was starting in five minutes. The ritual consisted of a lot of drumming, followed by some chanting, after which the babalorixá, or "father of saint" fell into trance. After this part of the ritual was over, beer and feijoada were offered to spectators. The entire ritual lasted over three hours. Throughout the experience, all I could do was wonder how authentic the ritual really was; at first, I was convinced that it was a tourist-oriented show that didn't accurately represent Candomblé, but by the time the babalorixá went into trance I wasn't so sure. The drummers, who were all teenagers, were laughing and smiling throughout the ritual, and no one involved seemed to be taking it very seriously besides the babalorixá himself. But the intensity that overtook the room when he entered trance was impossible to deny; he acted crazed, shrieking, moving with huge, dance-like motions, drinking cachaça straight out of the bottle and pouring the rest outside as an offering to the Candomblé gods. My friend and I left a little early as they were bringing out the food, but I would have been interested to see if they solicited the viewers for money after the ritual was through.
(Uma rua em Pelourinho)
Our last night in Salvador was the first night of Carnaval, so we ventured out to the biggest opening-night parade in Barra before taking a cab to the airport for our flight at 3 a.m. The first night of Carnaval was everything I expected it to be - everyone dressed up, huge floats full of partiers going down the street, each featuring a live performer, stands set up selling every kind of food and alcoholic beverage you can imagine, the works. After a few hours of sneaking into and dancing in the VIP section of a float parade, it began to rain, a perfect shower for all the bodies drenched in the sweat of a thousand other people. Somehow we made it to the airport on time, and our trip (at least the last night of it) was pronounced a success.
Well, by this time Carnaval has come and gone, so that will obviously be the subject of my next blog post, but just out of curiosity, are there any topics that any of you dear readers would like me to cover? The Rio Deal is an interactive experience, you know...
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