Salvador - the musical

Salvador welcomed us with love and said goodbye with love, and we loved it back. After two months of mostly cold weather, the hot and humid air felt like home. The driver that was sent by our hostel stood in the waiting hall with a sign with our names on it. Not only that Salvador was greeting us, it treated us as celebrities. But the falling in love started, as it is often does, with the music. We were just coming out from the cab when a wave of African-Brazilian drumming attacked us from all sides. The old city of Salvador, where we spent most of our time, is a dense maze of small colorful streets, so the music coming from one roof bounces back from all the houses, placing you at the center, no matter where you are. The most famous band of Salvador, Olodum, was performing on the roof of the house right in front of our hostel. This band, and the city itself, where the stars of the Michael Jackson clip "They don't really care about us" and the city is full of reminders for this glorious past.

We were escorted into the hostel by two amazing dogs, one big and a bit stupid great Dane and the other a smaller and an adorable Boxer. The hostel itself had a large part in the great time that we had. It is owned by an South-Africa born, Mozambique raised and Brazilian resident guy who also had a pub with the greatest fruit Caipirinha. The pub was named Zulu, after the huge Dane dog, which you can also see as part of the African soul of this city.

During the days we mostly walked around Pelourinho, the old city of Salvador. The historical part is full with single colored churches, multi colored houses and colorful people . In the north of Brazil, the people comes in all colors. Most of them are black but you can see people with the full range of human skin color wearing clothes in the full range of the visible colors. A United Colors of Benetton catalog comes to life.

We didn't leave Pelo (Pelourinho) except for a quick visit at the market near the sea, Mercado Modelo. Since Pelo is built on a hill there is an elevator that takes you down. The market itself looks like a Turkish market with a lot of booths that sell clothes and souvenirs.

One of the main annoyances of Pelo is all the people that want your money. Some of them want to sell you something (food, hammocks, stupid bracelets) while the others, the beggars, will sell you some moments of silence for your money. The happy carnival atmosphere can sometimes make you forget that bellow the colors there is a lot of poverty in Salvador. The begging kids are there to remind you that. On the other hand, whenever you walk, there will always be a person that will be happy to offer you free Caipirinha if you just enter the restaurant behind him. We had a long relationship with one of them. He made us keep promising that we'll come later, and was always so disappointed when we didn't.

Salvador is all about the music. We when you walk through the streets you can hear it from everywhere. From drumming clubs, from Capuera schools or coming from the bars and restaurants. If there is a quiet corner, someone will fill it with music somehow. We were sitting in the Zulu pub and on the next street, without a particular reason, there were some boys and girls dancing. They were dancing not for the tourists but for the soul. A boy meets a girl and asks her to dance. The girl is hard to get at first. She doesn't trust this boy. But at the end he conquers her heart and they dance together to the applause of their friends, and to our wondering eyes .

It was the music that kept us there for another day. Every Tuesday Salvador celebrates life. The celebration starts with Capurera shows at the main square, followed by live Samba music party. The people of Salvador dance in the streets to the rythem of the Samba. Their dance was so minor but so passionate. Among the dancers we saw some crippled people that seemed to forget their disability. When one of them tried to convince Lilya to join her on the dance floor, she didn't know how to tell her that at this moment, Lilya is the disabled one, not able to dance like that.

But these are only the appetizers. The main event starts later, when the drummers from the drumming schools in Salvador goes out to the streets and start marching, followed by a long tale of tourists and locals dancing in lines. Every few minutes the rhythm is changed and so does the dance. We booked a late night bus to Itacare that night but it turned out that we had to leave as the fun was just starting. Like being the kid that has to come back home early from the party and misses all the fun. With great sadness we left this city when the drumming escorts us on our way. The city waved us goodbye and went back to party.

Tip 1: The hostel we were in, Galleria 13, is great.

Tip 2: Eat at the Cubana hamburger joint. They have great hamburgers and really great shakes for a very small price.

Tip 3: Don't miss Tuesday night, it is really special.