Bahians and Paulistas

Hello!! Much like my blogs, it seems that your messages are thinning out too.. Any coincidence there I wonder?

As always, it has been a busy two weeks. This time, it was spent further north up the Brazilian coast in the state of Bahia and Brazil's 3rd largest city of Salvador. This is known as the "african capital" of Brazil owing to the 4 million + black slaves brought here by the dirty colonialists since the 16th century. The result is a heady mixture of cultures centred in the old town, known as the Pelourinho (where I stayed). It is certainly cool and vibey place, with constant music, noise, people, crumbling houses and bright colourful buildings... But it takes a few days to see it passed all the distractions... the roads are made of incredibly uneven stone paving, up and down steep hills and are filled with just about every Bahian and his dog (probably not his actually, they all live in the street!) trying to sell you some crap you dont remotely need or want. I lost count the number of times I (yes, just me and not the people with me) was offered drugs - and in true Brazilian style, by the kilo :-)

Once you have mastered the tricky surface though, the best thing to do is to simply walk around following one of the many drumming bands. The town is world renowned for its drumming (I was told, Olodum, the most famous of them were in a Michael Jackson video in the 80s) and once you here these guys at night, with the tiny little streets reverberating the noise even louder you will know why. The melody is simple but moving and the combination of no more than 20 drums makes your ears shake and your entire body vibrate. On the best night we followed them with a "dance master" in tow (hey, he was pretty amazing!) as he helped the crowd shake-it in the most agile of drumming dance moves. Needless to say, the tourists were awful - you need to be a double jointed, highly coordinated, slightly high, african to pull it off - but, as in dance clubs all over the world, its nothing a few cold Brahma's wont make you think you are good at!

But the drumming is not the only thing to see. I also spent some time in churches (not a personal preference due to the incredible repetitiveness of it all, but I was convinced otherwise by my lovely touring partners!), including Igreja Sao Francisco which is without doubt the most grotesque and exuberant interior decoration I have ever seen. If you eventually managed to see the sculptures and design behind the mind-numbeningly bright gold facade, you would feel slightly dizzy and nauseus and ask to use the "banheiros", "rapido"! Apparently it is a one of the best examples of this type of Baroque architecture still preserved... Probably a more lingering memory for me will be of the basement in the old market hall (still crowded up stairs and used today). This is where they kept the newly shipped-in slaves in waiting to be auctioned off. It is dark, damp and humid. Even being there completely on my own it felt claustrophobic, so I can only imagine what it was like for a few hundred/thousand sweaty men that had just arrived in an unknown place after weeks/months in a similar space at the bottom of a rocking boat. Very little fresh air, wet floor, no sanitation - literally a vision of hell. After coming back to the surface, it becomes more refreshing to see how the new generations of these people have moved on - they have kept or adapted their religions and beliefs, merged somewhat with the Brazilian culture (i.e. speaking portuguese, lying around in the beach all day and drinking from coconuts!) - and tried to make decent lives for themselves. There was more than one occasion when I thought of Africa and how it might learn a little from the hardships and progress that has been made here - its not perfect, but it something.

Just in case you thought I was over extending myself (!) with all this cultural touristy stuff, fear not. I also spent three blissful days on Island of Tinhare in a small beach town called Morro de Sao Paulo. Another idyllic island getaway on my Brazil leg and I felt a little spoilt. We managed, completely without our knowledge, to stumble across a most perfect beach on the first day. We simply walked along the coast at low tide (sometimes thigh-deep in the sea) to arrive at the crisp white sandy beach of Gamboa. To top it all off, we found a quiet restaurant with a table (and brollie!!) right on the sea-front and managed to eat a wonderful meal right on the beach - was a great day with Vanessa and "not-hot" Karine! The island also offers some other activities and we managed to stay up past midnight (!) to catch the start of the Thursday party on the "second beach". A few caiprinhas later and unfortunately the awful awful folk music (and pseudo trashy european dance tune covers) never got any better - but was still great to hang about on the beach and party. So an early night at 5am and no harm done :-)

On the thought of leaving Salvador, it struck me that I could do with a little more time in Peru, rather than to continue beaching myself into a roasted whiteboy. So, for better or for worse, I decided to come directly to Sao Paulo and fly sooner to Lima. However, some things went and "did not went" quite as planned and I ended up missing flights, buying new ones and simply going back to Rio which is what I had intended to do anyway, but late in the afternoon. Well done there. Anyway, with a bad travel day happening all around me I decided to return to the Bamboo Rio hostel for "one night only". Luckily, the guys there (thanks Thalita, you are great!) made me feel really at home (in fact, I even met an ACTUAL South African there too - and I wasnt looking in the mirror!) and eventually the day ended well. Again, no harm done.

So, as the story goes, I find myself now in Sao Paulo, the world's largest city with one full day to explore it. Not an altogether un-enticing place - it certainly is not as bad as the guide books and previous visitors make out - as is similar to London in many ways. It is a big city where every rat-racer is simply trying to stay ahead of the next. People here dont necessarily like to eat in fancy restaurants here, they like to be seen eating in fancy restaurants. And there are plenty of them! What is different from London is that here there are some beautiful residential neighbourhoods of tall apartment buildings, with snazzy looking lobbies - virtually every street corner has some form of pet shop, be it a shop, kennel, cleaner or surprisingly "pet gyms"! Surprisingly too, I found myself overtaking people while walking on the pavements - I am walking at holiday-pace and still Im too fast. Goes to show, no matter how city-city and "ooh I take a helicopter to work" these guys want to be, they cant help just being Brazilian!

Now lets see if I can make my early morning flight and Ill see you all in Peru :-)