Pushing Pesos: Salvador

Salvador - more soul and samba on the Brazilian coast...

We had heard a lot about Salvador, many good and many bad, excellent beaches, great culture and food but on the downside that Salvador could be very edgy and dangerous, so bad that our guide quoted that if you were going to get robbed in South America, Salvador would be the place!

Salvador was one of the major ports where slaves from Africa were brought to Brazil, to be sold off to the rest of South America, and because of this it now has a real mix of African and Brazilian culture and ways of life.

After our first successful couch surf we decided to do the same in Salvador, our host this time was Axl, a huge fan of English culture and good old rock and roll. He met us at the airport and took us to his neighbourhood and we spent the evening talking about rock bands and the English royal family. Pretty exhausted from our travels we decided to hit the sack and have an early night.

With us now located on the coast in the north, the temperature was perfect for a day on the beach, so we headed to Bahia to go and catch some sun. As soon as we get out of the taxi it starts to piss it down relentlessly, so our only option was to find a bar and have a couple of beers to kill time and wait for the sun to come out. Around 6 beers later, slightly merry, the sun comes out and we head to the beach located right off the main strip of the town.

The sea was glorious, crystal clear water with many locals taking a dip in the afternoon. Conveniently for us we had a chap selling beer and another selling chicken kebabs nearby, perfect for our merry selves! Once we've had enough beer and kebab we head off to have a walk around. This part of Salvador definitely had an edgy feeling about with some dodgy characters hanging about, but hey the sea, sand and sun far outweighed this.

On the beach called Porto de Barra

Michael diving into the sea

Fish caught

Traditional martial arts practised in Salvador called Capoeira

Main attraction Forte de San Antonio de Barra

Sweaty Samba in the old town Lively Pelourinhos

We head back to Axl's house and watch a few British comedies and then Axl's friend Angelo invited us to head into Pelourinhos, the old town of Salvador, literally meaning whipping post, for a couple of drinks and to dance to samba, which happens every Tuesday. We head into the area and immediately hear wild beats and many people drinking in the streets, similar to Lapa in Rio, and this is on a Tuesday night.

We head to one of the main squares and hundreds of people are dancing in the street to a live gig going on with Latino and samba music blaring from the speakers. Tuesday night apparently is as crazy as Friday and Saturday nights, only the Brazilians would add an extra night in the week to party!!! We also saw the dark side of Salvador here, a tourist was happily filming the gig on his smartphone, holding it loosely with one hand, sure enough someone decided to grab it out of his hand and do a runner with it!

The gig finishes and we wander the streets, head to a local bar that brews different spirits with different flavours, so we order a couple as a takeaway. Angelo then took us to a huge samba party going on in one of the buildings. We climb a flight of stairs, the band playing gets louder and as we reach the dance floor we see a hundred or so people dancing the samba all completely sweating! They sure know how to have a good time. We join in and by the end of the night we are completely soaked with sweat but with huge smiles on our faces. Jo even got chatted up around 4 times!

For the remaining days of our stay in Salvador we decided to stay in the heart of it Pelourinhos, so we booked ourselves into a hostel smack bang in the centre. Our hostel is a complete hippy retreat, with hammocks spread across the huge vast building. Located on a dodgy street of Pelourinhos, we had to stay safe and make haste when entering the hostel as we were always getting hassled by street kids and piss heads!! Nonetheless the area was still stunning, with colonial buildings, huge churches adorning the streets.

At night we head out and eat some great local food, similar to tapas, with shrimps, fried potatoes and a meat stew with African flavours. Lovely stuff. We spend the rest of the days taking in the area, which we loved and preparing for our next adventure, our 6 day boat trip up the Amazon river from Manaus to Leticia in Colombia.