SALVADOR (not El Salvador)

Welcome to Salvador!

After Praia do Forte, we went into the city of Salvador to stay with Bruno and to go to Sandro and Milena's wedding. Bruno has been living in Salvador for 3 months now, but was a tourist with us when Douglas took us around, because he knew nothing! On our first full day in the city, Douglas took us all around to see the forts and the old town which were all built when Salvador was the capital of Brasil in the 16th (??) century. This fort is the first of a line of 14 forts built around the bay to protect it from invading Dutch and French people. The bay is the second largest in the world, after Hudson Bay, and is the reason why the state is called Bahia, which means Bay.


This is the Old Town, with Douglas and some homeless guy we found.



The buildings are all different colours here, too, just like in Olinda.


This is the view from the upper half on the city. You get to the lower half in a big elevator. I thought the elevator would be all glass, but it wasn't, so it was pretty cool, but not SOOO cool.


See, that's the elevator. Notice how it's kinda cool. The yellow building at the bottom is a huge tourist trap. I mean market. We bought stuff there, because we're tourists.


Capoeira (sp?). Gregi had to take this picture covertly, because if they saw him doing it, we would have to give them money. Because we're gingos. Capoeira was born out of Salvador, where it was developed by slaves as a form of self-defense. They had to disguise it as dancing, though, because they weren't allowed to know self-defense. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any real Capoeira demonstrations; only these guys practising.



The sun setting really early! It goes down at 6pm all year round, which is strange for us when it's so hot out!



Mouquequa, the traditional Bahian seafood dish. We ate this at a restaurant that looks like a jungle. The sunset picture was taken from the restaurant.



Us with Douglas, Bruno and Gabriel at the pub!


Here's some more churches made from gold. On our last full day there, Sandro and Milena's friend Carlos took us on a tour of the city. He's an actual tour guide, so he knew a lot about the history, and had a story about almost every building that we passed. It was very cool. This is one of two churches he took us to.


That's the other one. Surrounding this one square in the old town, there are five churches. The Portuguese were a little obsessed.


This is us and that homeless guy at a street bar. The band and everything was out on the street, and caused traffic jams. But no one seemed to care.



We heart beer.



Tequila!



On our last day, before we went to the airport, Gabriel took us to the beach. It was so busy, but we had a great time. I think Salvador has been my favourite city here in Brasil. It has a very distinct culture, lots of history, beautiful beaches and the people are fun, friendly and easy-going. We really enjoyed Salvador and I can't wait to go back!!