Salvador, Bahia

We’d planned to skip Salvador, wishing to avoid big cities, but something drew us in. We arrived at sunset and headed straight for the beach, as we read the historic old town was no place for a car. It was a great choice, complete with historic fort and the oldest lighthouse in the Americas (well, the original was anyway). It was sweltering hot while we were here, so it was also time to try the famous moqueca com camarões. Amazing. We should be eating like this every day while in Bahia.

Although we never really planned to stay, we ended up loving the place. It’s an old slave trading town which celebrates the African heritage through food, art, dancing and caipera. The town is unique to almost everything we’ve seen in Brazil, reminding me a bit of the way New Orleans is just so different than any other town in the U.S. (or even in Louisiana.)

We spent a day just walking around absorbing all of the colors and life.  We visited a colonial church decorated with 800 pounds of gold and Portuguese tiles. Slaves mined the gold and built the church, and being inside I felt a mixture of awe and sadness. How much human toil were these walls worth?

The marks of the past here can be a bit heavy – especially when it requires explaining the history of human cruelty to a kid. There’s a model of slave ship (complete with human cargo) in the lighthouse museum that illustrates the point quite sadly, along with maps of the African trade routes.

And, great beaches with crystal clear water… right in the middle of town.

Although we’d been warned that Salvador was a bit dangerous, Red Beard was successfully parked on the street for three days without incident.