We spent a couple of days exploring the historic centre of Salvador, the Pelourinho, which was the centre of the slave trade where slaves were brought from Africa and sold and possibly also punished on a steeply sloping cobbled square. The city was the capital of Brazil for 200 yrs til the bottom fell out of the sugar market in the mid 17 century when the British started to grow it in the west indies. The British also scuppered the later rubber industry when a Brit stole lots of seeds to plant in their far eastern colonies.
There is an elevator to take u up and down to the lower town for 6p each way as the climb would be impossible in the heat. We ate an enormous lunch at a buffet which is part of the traditional cooking school and museum, cooked by the students. 40 different dishes with a lot of palm oil and coconut used in the dishes and the ubiquitous beans, rice and manioc flour and of course we did our best to try as many as possible. Desserts were laden with sugar, condensed milk and coconut with a particularly spectacular caramalised pineapple i still dream about.
There is a strong African influence and the city has the largest population of African origin in Brazil. The slaves mixed their Candomble religion with Christian saints and festivals to hide it from the church and developed capoeira as a form of dance to hide its real role of fighting and defense and Bahian Aunts, women in white or colourful dresses with large hooped skirts, tour the street for photo ops or stand outside shops and restaurants to lure tourists in.
We went to a spellbinding show of traditional dances which were very African. The portuguese were outnumbered by slaves by 10 to 1 in those days and they tried to mix slaves of differing tribes and different languages to prevent revolt. One guide told us that slavery started with warring African tribes selling the defeated enemy as slaves.
It is a really lively place with live music in many restaurants every night and
every Tuesday night there is a big celebration following a Mass when food was traditionally given to the poor which grew into a big street party in the centre with bands in streets and squares, large crowds eating traditional shrimp and bean patties and drinking beer from stalls and groups of drummers roaming and adding to the noise. We stayed for a bit, but sadly had to be up at 4.40 to catch a bus inland and luckily our inn was far enough away for us to get a few quiet hours sleep.