In Morro de Sao Paulo

Hoi,

First big blog update and lots to add, so here goes:

• We arrived in Salvador on Tuesday a bit weary from our 22 hours of traveling and realizing that Portuguese is very, very different than Spanish and nobody really understands a word we say. So, earlier in the day we purchased a phrase book to be able to order some food and drinks and survive. Now we can say ´thank you´(obrigado), hello, and ´where is the bathroom´which is very helpful.
• After resting a bit we asked the owner of our pousada about live music and he pointed us in the right direction. We went to the Pelourinho area of Salvador and saw a 23-piece afro-latin jazz orchestra. They were phenomenal! Although the music had touches of Tito Puente and Dizzy Gillespie, the percussion was the big thing. In Brazilian bands the drums are out front, not in the back, so the african drums combined with the jazz made it truly unique for us. The group is at http://www.rumpilezz.com
• The next day we saw the sights in our neighborhood called Barra. There is the first light house in South America and you get a good view of naval history coming to the Brazilian coast. We made our way out from the light house and got hassled a bit by a lot of the street vendors but our favorite was the one who kept on calling us ´Obama´ because of the pins we had on our backpack. Farther up the road are the big city beaches and we learned that the brazilians know how to hang out in the beach. If you can get past the speedos and thongs, they are also constantly partying and having a good time. Eventually, we stopped in a small shop that served sweet and savory pastries and, although we thought we ordered something completely different, we had a great meal.
• That night we ventured out again in search of great music and went to see Choro. This is another typical brazilian style with acoustic guitars and hand drums and occasionally has a bluegrass feel. The show we saw had a bunch of rotating musicians (that seemed to just appear from within the crowd) and they played the sax, the flute, the violin, the acoustic bass, the mandolin, and many different hand drums. Apparently, the band leader described all of this in portugese, but of course, it was completely lost on us.
• The next morning we explored the major tourist sites in Pelourinho and saw 3 old churches from the 17th century. Each one had its own style. The main one, Terrioro de Jesus, was grand and featured intricate murals on the ceilings. The second one, Sainto Francisco, had gold leaf throughout the inside that made the building feel like it was glowing. Strangely enough it reminded us of large Hindu or Buddhist temples. The third church was built by black slaves and was beautiful but much more simple. It was very interesting to see some black saints on the walls. We concluded the evening listening to a Brazilian musician play outside of a bar while we sat in tables on the street sipping beer.....music was everywhere

For the past two days we have been in Morro de Sao Paulo, which is a small island that was a 3 hour catamaran ride from Salvador (although advertised as 2 hour). This place is truly a tropical island with white sand beaches, palm trees, sparkling blue and green waters, and bassanova coming from the bars. We met an English couple on the boat (who were just married as well) and made arrangements to meet them for dinner that night as Giovanni, our pousada manager, greeted us at the dock where the ´taxis´are. Now, it is important to state what a ´taxi´is on the island. It is actually a wheelbarrow in which you put your bags and then the taxi driver pushes the wheelbarrow to your pousada. As there are no cars on the island, they improvise.

Anyway, we spent yesterday afternoon on the beach, swam a bit, napped a bit, and learned that island time moves very slowly. We had a fantastic meal with our new English friends and followed it with a capeirnha (brazilian margarita) and lots of ice cold beer. This was our third night of having moquequa, which is the Bahaian speciality that is remarkably similar to a mix of jambalaya and shrimp curry. We are now moquequa conosseiurs.

This all brings us to today. After a lazy morning (Gina did manage to get up and see the sunrise, though) we walked the length of the coast to the 4th beach. The tide was out so we were able to traverse our way to a small tide pool and paddled around for well over an hour while watching some of the locals fish. Just as we were ready to go, they struck gold with a 4-foot eel and we watched the catch and the kill.....not sure we are ready to eat eel.

Until next time.

ajay and gina