Salvador de Bahia – The culture capital of Brazil

The state of Bahia is located in NE Brazil & its capital of Salvador is the historical capital of Portuguese Brazil. The city is perched high above the bay & celebrates its predominant African heritage with its colored colonial architecture, narrow cobbled streets, incredibly delicious food, nonstop samba music & drums, & proud fun people. I’m writing this after having visited 4 states in Brazil & 3 different locales within Bahia & I can say without a doubt that the Bahia people certainly seem to be the most proud, banding around its Bahia statehood. It definitely feels like a special unique culture & has an electric fun energy. Nowhere is it better on display than Salvador. I felt it as well in Morro de Sao Paulo & Boipeba, no doubt, but I returned for my second stay in Salvador after my jaunt to the islands, to find the locals setting up for Sao Joao festival. It was still a few days away but the city was already bursting with color, the drum beats were never louder as all day long, small drum corps held impromptu street marches to get everyone on their feet dancing, & the main town square in the Pelourinho neighborhood was littered with tables & an even-larger-than-normal stage had been erected for the bands that play nightly as the crowds gathered for music & dancing. Celebrating Sao Joao in Bahia is definitely high on my list of future trips.

Just 2 blocks from my pousada & on a steep hill was a plaza featuring this stunningly ornate blue church surrounded by multi-colored buildings & buzzing with people. While not the main square, it was my fave as I wandered through several times a day. A bit obsessed.

São Joao decorations. My pousada owners said São Joao was just as big as carnival for locals & maybe more so bc it didn’t attract as many tourists.

[caption width="4032" id="attachment_2793" align="alignnone"] The main square with lots more churches

Caju, or cashew, fruit juice is my fave new addition to the traditional caipirinha

I LOVED this lady. I typically steer clear of folks dressed in costume as they’re preying upon tourists who just want to snap a quick selfie. I was minding my own business taking a photo when this lady did a sneak attack & started talking to me before I realized I was ensnared. She started telling me about her “traditional dress” & I apparently was feeling a bit saucy as I told her, in my embarrassing Spanish-Portuguese mix, that her traditional dress didn’t seem very practical bc it was so big. She paused, as it was clear she wasn’t accustomed to being challenged & especially by a smart-ass gringo, looked me up & down & then burst into laughter. She tried to convince me, I remained skeptical. She refused to take any money from me, gave me tips on Salvador to-do’s & made me send her this cool photo I took of her. She was fabulous.

These guys were practicing capoeira in the main square. It’s a Brazilian martial art that incorporates dance, acrobatics & music. I was watching them, mesmerized, when I made the mistake of creeping a little too close to try to capture it on video. Then they went into “tourist performance” mode posing for pics & trying to get me involved which was a whole lot LESS cool than the actual art form they were practicing before.

The elevator, the most famous of transport options between the upper city (historical center) & lower city (port & market but not much else).

Moqueca, a famous Bahia stew, made with seafood, tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, cilantro, palm oil, coconut milk & served with the traditional hot sauce called piri-piri (it’s actually hot!!!), rice & farofa, a toasted cassava-flour mixture served all over Brazil with many different meals. Delicious!

Boipeba, Bahia, Brazil – The Morro de Sao Paulo of 20 years ago

Getting to Boipeba in Bahia, Brazil is not so easy. It’s made easier if you’re accessing it from Morro de Sao Paulo as I was. It’s an island off the coast of the state of Bahia in Brazil & is just south of Morro’s island of Tinhare. When I was done playing in Morro, I simply hopped aboard a small boat bound with Morro day trippers for Boipeba & abandoned the trip halfway through to stay put there. Many of the folks I met in Salvador Bahia & Morro suggested I skip Boipeba. It felt akin to the relationship between Arraial do Cabo & Buzios. Boipeba gets no mention in either my Lonely Planet or Rough Guide but I came across it searching online for best undiscovered spots in Brazil as well as best beaches… bc I must be honest, I needed Brazil to satisfy my fix at the end of my trip.

Boipeba certainly fit the bill. It was quiet & tiny with very few people around when our little boat cruised up on shore. One guy did run over to meet our boat donning an “Uber Boipeba” homemade tee-shirt as he was the island’s clever wheelbarrow taxi service. I paid him $3 to carry my backpack & lead me on a winding 15-min walk to my pousada in the jungle. After I settled in, I went exploring & ended up on a beach running into the same uber driver, asked him where the center was & he kindly walked me there & gave me a brief 15-min tour.

The locals are lovely & welcoming, always greeting you with a smile & a “bom dia”. The atmosphere is super chill. No shoes needed. The days are spent lazily wandering & hiking (in flip flops) through the jungle & along the shore from one ridiculously perfect deserted crescent-shaped palm-fringed wide white sand beach to another as well as snorkeling in cool offshore shallow pools formed by rocks & coral.

Once again, the tiny, off-the-beaten-path, lesser known locale vs. a still small, off-the-beaten-path locale turns out to be my fave destination.

[caption width="5192" id="attachment_2777" align="alignnone"] The perfect deserted crescent-shaped palm-fringed white sand beach

Yes this is a boat bar equipped with floating tables anchored to the ground right next to a great snorkeling spot

Morro de Sao Paulo in Bahia, Brazil – An Island with beaches, footvolley & dance parties

I left the Rio de Janeiro province & flew north to the Bahia province where I spent 5 days in the amazing capital city of Salvador Bahia on the front & back-end of a week split between 2 of its offshore islands Tinhare & Boipeba. Morro de Sao Paulo is on the island of Tinhare & is a 2.5hr boat ride from Salvador’s port. I booked the boat the day of departure & thankfully so as it turns out only 1 of 4 previously scheduled direct boats left for Morro & they didn’t decide til the morning of. While I had intended to take the 1pm boat, a 9am phone call inquiring about the status revealed the 10:30am speedboat with a 12-person capacity was the only one leaving that day. In order to avoid a boat-bus-boat combo later in the day that takes 5hrs, I quickly packed & made it to the port just in time to buy a ticket & board (again thank goodness for low season). There is a much more expensive 30min flight option in a small prop plane but there must be a minimum of 5 passengers (or I suppose you pay for the whole plane yourself & if you’re doing that, you should probably not be going to Morro).

So the coolest thing about arriving in Morro de Sao Paulo is finding no cars of any kind allowed in the village. I knew this prior to coming, of course, which is why I was a bit shocked after coming off the boat when asked on the dock if I wanted a taxi. The “taxi” driver settled my confusion when he revealed his “taxi” was actually a wheelbarrow. Hell yeah, I want a taxi. Even if I only have a backpack that I’m very comfortable carrying. Of course I’m paying $5 to have a dude wheelbarrow it to my pousada on the second beach up & down steep but short hills all while giving me a bootleg quick overview tour. I freaking loved it.
The Brazilian people continue to be amazing… I find them to be so fun, friendly & laidback. I did have to laugh at them though bc in Morro de Sao Paulo, they kept guessing I was Argentinian. Umm what? I deduced they could tell I was a foreigner & since most of the people who visit Morro de Sao Paulo, outside of domestic Brazilian tourists, are Argentinians, that was their first guess. I’d laugh out loud & correct them & silently feel somewhat pleased bc my mix of broken Spanish interspersed with key Portuguese vocab has somehow fooled them! At first this happened solely with Brazilian men, who I’ve certainly found to be the most forward in South America but also the funniest, so I wondered if it wasn’t some ploy but then it crossed boundaries.
That brings me to the language. After nearly 5mos in Spanish-speaking countries dealing only with varying dialects within the same language, I was getting more & more comfortable. And then I come to Brazil. I’ve found Portuguese to be a mix between Spanish & Italian. I don’t speak Italian but some words seem similar (bela, for example) as does the thick accent. So I studied a few key words & phrases in Portuguese & essentially speak Spanish with the exception of subbing in key Portuguese words when I know they’re different. It works fairly well – I’ve even had people compliment me on my Portuguese (ha!) – until it doesn’t & I trip over a word either I or they don’t recognize & then we find one that works. Those Brazilians may not want to admit they’re speaking a hybrid of Portuguese & Spanish but I sure appreciate it bc I’ve met plenty of people who speak only Portuguese & it’s much more difficult for me to follow. I conversed wonderfully w one local guy I met on Morro until he turned to his friends & spoke rapid fire to them. I didn’t have a clue what he said to them & told him so. He laughed & admitted he spoke more slowly, clearly, lost a bit of his Italian-esque accent, cut out all of the local slang (folks from other Brazilian provinces claimed there’s a lot of local Bahia slang that even they don’t understand) & sometimes substituted easier Spanish words as he acknowledged Portuguese is a much more difficult language than Spanish. I was grateful. But one thing this trip sure has done is make me want to continue learning other languages. When I return, I’m going to try to find a Chicagoan who I can pay to meet me for coffee for a couple hours once a week & they can teach me Spanish, maybe some Portuguese, who knows. In the meantime, I love learning on the fly. And in such a lovely setting.