After writing the previous entry we walked around Salvador a bit more and staked out a place for the Tuesday night street party. It turns out the in the colonial section of Salvador a street party is celebrated every Tuesday. The origins of this street party can be traced back to a very special mass held at one of the churches in the area (what big party in Brazil doesn´t have roots in the Catholic Church?) but we were unable to find any religious undertones this time. We were able to find, once again, bars set up on the street where we could buy capirinhas and beer and several live music stages scattered around the historic district. We listened to some music and ran into the Professor from University of Indiana (Stephanie) and had a nice chat with her, her husband and her brother-in-law from Evanston.
We woke the following day eager to explore parts of Salvador that were not in the old historic center. Salvador is a very old, colonial city, but its hey-day passed several hundred years ago. So now, while the colonial center is quaint, it is also very poor, and quite run down. IT is the only place on this trip where we have been constantly harassed by people trying to sell us any and everything. It is an interesting place, but a bit seedy, and quite exhausting. So we did what we always do when we´re tired. We went to the beach in a nearby suburb. In Bahia the water is much warmer than we´ve previously experienced and the waves on the bay much smaller. We enjoyed a relaxing lunch on the beach and explored the old fort protecting Salvador.
We had decided to take a night bus from Salvador to Lencois to save time. Early in the evening we went to the bus station and dropped of our bags and walked over the superhighway separating the bus station from the MALL (by the way Brazilian bus stations are like nothing we´ve seen before, as big as airports and just as busy with buses going to all points of Brazil. Quite impressive). Brazilians love their malls, so we went to the food court for some dinner (Mediterranean food, very good) and then went to the multi-plex to watch a movie. We managed to buy tickets to the only Brazilian film, after walking out we convinced the security guard to let us watch Happy Feet (animated about penguins) but that was dubbed in Portuguese. Finally we walked into The Departed, but had to leave early to catch our bus. Despite our adventures, it was nice to sit and watch a movie. We almost never do that in the US and it was a nice break from the travelling.
Our trip to Lencois was uneventful.
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