Rainy day in salvador

13.06.2016

I woke up to the sound of Marcelo jumping out of bed muttering somehing in Portuguese about the rain. I asked him if everything was ok but then fell asleep again before I heard the answer. It was about to be a massive rainy day.

When he woke up he kindly made me eggs toast and coffee, then dropped me off downtown on his way to work.

It was still pouring rain but I had my raincoat so I was pretty OK. I went in between museums all day getting wet and then drying again. There were a bunch of churches, a museum about the African heritage of Salvador and my favourite was the museum of sacred art outside of the main historic core. It was overloaded with sculptures of every saint and there were an insane amount of effigies of Jesus and Mary. All packed into a spacious former monastery.

I waked back and took the elevator to the lower part of town because the guards at the museum warned me of robbers if I tried to walk there. At the tourist market there's a couple restaurants and I ordered acaraje. It was supposed to be stuffed with something but it wasn't I had to put the sauce on myself. I guess I'll have to get a real one on the street later.

The bus took a while to get to bom fim church, at least 6 km outside the city. People tie colourful ribbons on the fence and pray to jesus to make them well again. I got there just in time to hear some chants and visit the museum upstairs. It has plastic silver and gold body parts that prove how many people have been healed after they prayed here. The church is somehow also associated with a candomble God named oxala so it's very special for them.

I didn't stay very long because it wasn't as exciting as the guidebook suggested. I took the bus back to the same elevator and then bought a real acaraje from the street vendor. It wasn't that great. I tried another one from the touristy shack once I got back up the elevator but it was also not so great. I guess the verdict is acaraje is not that good no matter where you get it. I dunno what the deal is, the bread part is dry and the shrimp they put on it is smelly and gross.

I went back to the capoeira school that I was at in the morning because they were doing a show at night. It was really fun to watch. I met some people from Miami and they had dinner while I waited for Marcelo and Larissa to show up.

There was a big rainstorm again and then the power went out in the park we were in. I eventually found Marcelo and Larissa in a bar near the park. We said goodbye to the miamians and then a random guy started talking to me and eventually he followed us to the next place.

We went to dance samba there and he came right along. Another woman who no one knew also joined us. Later we realized she was a prostitute. We didn't know if that first guy was her pimp or not.

The samba was awesome, I'm sorry I didn't get a video of it. The whole room was full of sweaty brazilians singing along to the classic tunes.

Anyway we left both of the strangers and got home at 2 am.

Palacio