Salvador de Bahia

All you hear about Salvador is that it is very beautiful and full of culture but also very dangerous. And really, we arrived at the Hostel and were told exactly were we could walk and which streets we should never enter. And the first day we followed exactly these instructions. We walked around in the historical centre with loads of tourists and policemen. It is very beautiful with all the colonial buildings, many restaurants and souvenir shops.

The Igreja do Bonfim is a very famous church due to the colourful ribbons that have their origin there. The idea behind these ribbons is that you tie them around your wrist or another object like the fence of the church with three knots. For every knot you make one wish and when the ribbon goes off by itself the wishes come true. Normally that takes at least 2-4 years!

Another tradition in the Igreja do Bonfim is to leave the wax print of an injured limb, so that it will be cured by God.

To bring the catholic religion closer to the indigenous people some black saints were introduced. On the next photo even Jesus is black.

These blue-white tiles are called azuleijos and are typical for Portuguese colonial architecture.

Another typically detail of religious art here in Brazil is that they often dress the saints in real clothes and sometimes even with wigs on the head. The suffering of Jesus is often shown very pictorial like in the next photo with streams of blood running out of his wounds.

Salvador is separated in cidade alta (upper town) and cidade baixa (lower town) with one part up on the hill and the other one down at the beach. The two parts are connected through the elevator on the next photo.

In the touristic part of the historical centre you see women in the typical dresses from the Bahia with very wide skirts. Often they sell acarajé. That is a typical Baianan food. It's a fried ball made out of beans and then cut open and filled with a special sauce and shrimps. Very tasty!

On Friday we participated in the free walking tour. Unlike other city tours this tour had the intention to show us the non-tourist side of Salvador. And that is exactly what we did for three hours. We walked through all the side streets behind the police barriers that normally stop tourists from leaving the restored part of the historical centre. Once in these streets you see the effect of the city council's decision to only invest all the money in one part of the city to make it "tourism safe".

The two houses on the next photo are exactly the same, only that the one on the left has been restored and that one on the right not.

This beautiful street is one that that connects the lower city with the upper city. All guide books will tell you that walking up here instead of taking the elevator is one of the most dangerous things you can do in Salvador. Of course we only walked there in a big group but it was a nice street with houses built underneath the aqueduct and a fantastic view.

Carne do sol com aipim