Day 50 - 11/25/23 - Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
We arrived on time just before 8am in Salvador which was a former capitol city of Brazil. It is Brazil's city with the highest number of people of African descent from the slaves that were brought over here by the Portuguese. We were alerted to be on high awareness of pickpockets and the like and to avoid the African Emphasis parade being held in the city starting at 2pm. With a 9am excursion, I had my group meet in the Ocean Bar at 8:45 and most were there at 8:30 and they pressured me to be able to leave early which I did and it was a mistake. 4-5 others arrived at 8:45 and were put in a panic as I wasn't there. I was properly chastised and I'll not leave early again.
We met our guid, Fabio, with DoBrazilRight.com and I alerted him to what we had been told about the parade. He indicated that the parade route would not impact us. We'd later see that wasn't totally correct. Because of the heat, the excursion was split into two parts: the morning part was a fair amount of walking and the second half was a van tour of some strategic locations. There'd be a lunch fit in between the two parts.
So, off we went in the van to first visit the lighthouse in the Barra district. It was quite scenic and we took a group picture before reboarding the van which took us to the top square at the Lacerda elevator. From there we began a couple hour walking tour through the colorful streets and monuments and churches of the old city including the Praça Terreiro Jesus and the Salvador Cathedral. It was on this section that one of our participants, Rick, lost his cellphone to a thief who snatched it while he was taking a picture away from the group. Fabio had alerted us to stay together to help prevent such an unfortunate event. We eventually found a police station and Rick filed a police report and learned that he wasn't the first to have something stolen that day. And he wouldn't be the last that we heard of.
We visited a Franciscan church (Church of San Francisco & Convent) with very ornate tile portico which Fabio was very knowledgeable about and the inside of the church was very overwhelming with the amount of figures and figurines, and paintings and guided gold items. To my mind it was distracting from the central message of Jesus and his redemption message.
Lunch was at the Uauá Restaurant and the fish soup was one of the best this trip. The Brahma beer was the best beer this trip.
After lunch we strolled down the hill through an area where Michael Jackson filmed ones of his videos about the poor. There we encountered an India Indian group of parade participants with their white turbans and a few large puppets mounted on the shoulders of a person. They were all quite colorful and the drum music was very loud. It was pretty cool!
Honoring Michael Jackson
Back in the van we were driven out to a Catholic Church ( Church of Nosso Sehor do Bonfim) run by lay people and then to the viewpoint at Monserrat. We wrapped up our tour at the craft market (Mercado Modelo) near the ship where Angela bought a few things.
At the port we said our goodbyes to Fabio and re-boarded the ship even though we e weren't scheduled to depart until 11pm (tides I'm presuming). I had a really light dinner of 4 jumbo shrimp and some soup as the lunch meal was so filling. We tried to watch the Apple Cup (Washington vs. Washington State in football), but the reception was so bad due to the ship's location, that we gave up and watched the movie Barbie which was the entertainment on the World Stage. The movie ended as we were leaving the pier so we went out on the lower Promenade deck and watched the lights of Salvador slip away. We could also hear the sounds of the festivities on this last day of their celebration of African heritage.
We have a couple of sea days ahead of us before we reach Fortalesa which is our next port of call.
Comments
Post a Comment