Salvador

After spending five days living it lazy, we caught a flight to nearby Salvador for our next dose of urban sprawl.  After we grabbed lunch from a nearby café, I took it upon myself to figure out how to get some of our clothes laundered.  It's a cheap time to be a Brit in Brazil, but hotel laundry service still costs the indentured servitude of future offspring.  I found a laundry not too far away that was notionally self-service, but you had to buy tokens. After my exceptional impression of a babbling moron, the lady there did most of it for me.  I've taken to brandishing the 'thumbs up' gesture at every social interaction that results with a vaguely positive outcome or successful communication.  I look like a demented Paul McCartney. This trip will probably result in me being hanged when I inevitably stumble upon a people to whom that is a profane insult to their ancestors.  But on this occasion: clean clothes. Yay.

Felipe, the chef at The Butterfly House, trained with a Spanish guy who owns a restaurant in Salvador. It's a small place (but well renowned, it turns out) but he phoned ahead and greased the skids for us to pop in when we were in town.  It's run by the Spanish chap's Brazilian wife, who we WhatsApp'ed (is that verb? Bollocks to this decade) when we were in town and arranged to drop in later in the evening.  It was exceptional. I'm not one to Instagram or blog my food -unless it's funny or weird- but we have been taking pictures as we go along so we remember where we were and what we had. Have a gander.

The following day we had a tour guide drive us around town, giving us the history of the city and the country in general.  Apparently the Spanish and the Dutch ran the place on occasion, but it didn't stick.  They were eventually a republic, had the occasional coup and military dictatorship, and then they grew out of it.  The various town squares are haunted by the big black ladies in the traditional garb and flexible youths putting on mediocre capoeira displays. I have no photographs of any of that because they all want paying for posing, and I seldom had a note smaller than 50 groats on me - which no one ever had change for, what with it being a whole £9 and all.

The church and monastery of St Francis is the single most elaborately decorated house of God I have ever seen, and we've seen a few.  Historically, the tithes paid to the church took the form of gold rather than cash (as the locally mined gold was exported by way of Salvador) so they used it to gild everything that was nailed down.  It was ridiculous.  The black slave artisans of the time (whose African religion was suppressed by the Portuguese) took the opportunity to make the various cherubs and Portuguese representations overly stupid-looking and mocking.   The Portuguese just thought they weren't very good at representing white people.

Herp derp 

Salvador, like the other major cities in Brazil, has favelas dotted about its hillsides, housing its least affluent.  We had a chat about the favelas on the way back to the hotel.  Evidently there are strata of favela ranging from wriggly tin lean-tos in the first generation of houses, to crudely built brick homes with running water, power and satellite TV in the later generations.  None of the houses in the favelas exist on any deeds or land registry, but as the population of the city grows (along with its demand for middle-class housing), the ancillary space on hillsides next to the city in which the favelas were established starts to look more like viable real estate. The owners of the houses frequently get bought out by developers - at a government regulated fair price, which is about double what the 'market' value is- and often set themselves up in a legitimate home in the suburbs.  The government is very keen to turn people who exist off the radar into legitimate taxpayers and grateful voters.  Choose your squat wisely.  

I can't remember what the dancing water bints are bringing to the party

 There are always the stalwarts who won't budge, though. To be fair, they often have a nice view.

It's the typhoid that makes it so homey

We rounded off with another ridiculously good meal at a place the guide suggested. I'll save you the food-shots save for the dessert.

Brigadeiro doesn't judge you; Brigadeiro likes you just as you are.

I tried the brigadeiro, which Jamie Oliver made the terminal error of insulting on national television, the fat-tongued twathorse.   It's an early grave in a cup but it's also a beloved comfort food and broadly as moreish as meth.

So that was the last city visit in Brazil.  Contrary to expectations we remain un-mugged and keen to return.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Ich denke, dass ich die letzte zusammenfass vergessen. Wir haben diese Mal in Salvador verbrachten. Wir haben die Altstadt besucht und wir haben die verschiedenen Fototermine mit den Einheimischen vermieden, weil sie wollen immer gezahlt werden, und ich habe nie klein genug Geld gehabt.
Das Essen war immer sehr lecker. Brasilien hat uns gut behandelt.

One week in Bahia

Our first days in Brazil were quite intense. We had never been to the country before and we were trying to make sure that we were making the most of it. Although everyone was very friendly, it is still exhausting to be in a country where pretty much everything is in a language you don’t understand. Our sightseeing in Rio and especially the Pantanal had required some early morning starts and so we had planned some “down time” on the Atlantic Coast. We headed from Rio to Ilheus which is in the state of Bahia.  This area of the Bahia Coast is covered by the Atlantic Rainforest so we thought we would spend a couple of days exploring the area, which was a complete contrast to Rio.

We had booked 2 nights in a small pousada on the beach and for the first time ever on holiday we did absolutely nothing. This is the view from our room.

We moved to the swimming pool, the loungers and then the little tables on the left for a late lunch whilst imbibing caipirinhas and that was it for the entire day. It was absolutely glorious.

 

We did of course go in the sea. It was quite warm and being a bit of a simpleton, I whiled away the time standing in the water, getting pushed forward by the waves and running back to do it all again.

 

After a night there a car from the next place came to pick us up and drove us up the coast for a few hours. The first hour was on roads and the remainder on a dirt track until we arrived at a little gem called The Butterfly House. 

 

The Butterfly House is a small eco resort. We were upgraded to a bungalow and, sitting on the bed, I could see hummingbirds, butterflies and other colourful foreign beasties.

 

The staff were very friendly and helpful. The caipirinhas and caipiroskas were superb as was the food.

 
 

We decided to go quad biking for the day, which we had never done before.

We headed past some lakes then onto the main road where we only saw about 10 cars and most of our fellow road users were other quad bikes or motor bikes,seeing as how the road wasn’t fit for donkeys. They’ve still put down speed bumps though, because they like to keep the locals on their toes.

    

We headed to the biggest place locally, Barra Grande.

  

Before returning home along the beach. For most of the journey it was just the two of us zooming along the sand.

   

The next day we had requested “seeing some nature stuff” so we were taken by two of the lovely staff (including the excellent Chef, Felipe, as his English was excellent) to walk some trails.

  

Although it was a bit too hot and sticky for us so we didn’t do as many trails as we had anticipated. The destination was worth the effort though…

  

We also got to eat hot cheese on sticks.

Our trip out with the team gave us another opportunity to find out more about Brazil. Passing some young children I inquired about schooling and was told that free education was available but lots of people in the area did not think it was important, so a proportion of children don’t bother going after 8 years old. Rates of literacy were therefore not as high as in other areas.

There is a widening gulf between the haves and have-nots in Brazil but contrary to our pre-conceptions it isn’t because “there is nothing there for the poor”. In another city we were reminded that the poor are the biggest voting group and therefore politicians try to woo them. We saw a wealth of social programs in Brazil including pretty decent social housing. I was however really bothered by children not being in school as the biggest chance a child will have to get out of poverty will be to be literate. This was also combined by my learning that in this area there was another thing – poverty of ambition. The brilliant cocktail wizard/waiter/ all round good guy serving us drinks and meals in the resort was trying to learn English and wanted to travel. However, we learnt that he was very unusual and that in his peer group most wanted to either be footballers or to be night guards so that they could surf all day.

It is my strong view that we, who like to travel, should be thinking of the impact that we have or could have on the communities we are visiting. I don’t delude myself that I always get it right but I do think about it. A consequence of the increased tourism in Siem Reap, Cambodia for example is that there is more rubbish then they know what to do with. So they have just dumped it outside the city. Every day hundreds of children go to rubbish dump to search through for stuff they can sell.Now, tourists are taking trips out to the rubbish dumps to take photos of the children.  Which is messed up.

In Cartagena we saw a man carrying a sloth who obviously gets paid by tourists for photos. We did not participate and I met with a tourist board rep and fed back that this was the only negative thing of my trip and we as tourists did not want to see it. As long as tourists pay for these photos, sloths will continue to be captured and kept to earn money. Of course, in the medium term if they aren’t “paying their way” the Sloth will also probably be abandoned so there needs to be a plan in place for that outcome as well

In addition to ensuring that they meet their legal obligations to their staff in terms of wages, conditions etc. The Butterfly House runs a programme for it’s staff where each month a certain amount of money will be utilised to give them skills. So one month someone was able to go on a course to be a professional driver, another one is learning how to be an electrician etc.  We had a lovely stay at the Butterfly House but after learning this I was especially pleased that we had chosen to spend our tourist dollars in an ethical way that will benefit the community