Regarding Salvador, we had had passed through on the way but
not really seen it. I was unsure exactly
what to expect. I had heard mixed things
from dodgy, historic and culturally completely different. The centre is certainly much older than most
of what I had seen in Brazil. It kind of
reminds me a little of Lisbon. There are
plenty of churches, colourful buildings.
But the place is really grotty.
We checked in to our hostel, which was a bit weird as we
were just up the street in another building.
At first we lucked in and ended up at a free concert. The night we arrived was a festival
night. We grabbed some beers and
followed locals from concert to concert all open free and happy.
We continued our walk around eventually
looking for a restaurant. In one of the
squares a guy came up to us- beware of the friendly ones. Then he started saying he sold Marijuana, so
politely tried to move on. I could not
get Maria to move on fast enough. The
guy then started wanting money for no reason at which point I knew we should
leave. He went on some rant, which
fortunately Maria told me the next day translated as ‘I am going to stab you
with a knife so you get my AIDs’… charming.
I may add we were in the centre among people and the guy looked quite
pathetic, but still.
We had a Bahian dinner in a restaurant near the hostel. When I got back I fell straight to sleep and
slept until the next day. Clearly the
ferry took it out of me.
The next morning we explored the town. To be honest it was a bit disappointing. We did not go into any of the Museums and
didn’t really leave the small part of the centre where we saying- due to
safety- which was probably a bit over precautious.
We did the famous elevator. At the bottom there was not much the market
was touristy and here were a lot of abandoned buildings. At the top we also got hassled by this woman
in a Bahian costume. She got photos with
us but then tried to demand a stupid amount of money (10 reals). Fortunately Maria got her to bugger off in
the end, but I’m sure many have fallen to her scam. We wandered around before getting the taxi to
the airport. In general Salvador was
quite grotty and poor. However the worst thing was the rudeness of the people
in general. Compared to Itacare which
was so clean and happy this was a world away.
Even the hostel owner was rude to Maria.
As an English guy had said the night before of Salvador: ‘see the centre
and then get the f*** out’. I have no
idea what the beaches or Barra area are like- they could be quite nice, but I
doubt they would compare to Itacare.
However we lucked in at the airport. My insistence we arrive early, meant seasoned
traveller Maria was able to get us on an earlier flight to Rio. No hanging around, straight onto the plane
and great seats to ourselves at the front.
It was an easy flight and we even got our luggage right away. The wait for an accredited taxi was a bit
long unfortunately. However I made my
moment on Iranian TV. I was interviewed
regarding the World cup and Rio airport infrastructure- I was quite blunt in my
assessment- sorry Brazil, but it is true.
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