Travel Stories with Me: Settled and ready to take on the Real Brazil

This post is brought to you by

For your Middle Eastern Cuisine needs in Brazil...seriously...wtf?

Day Four - Tuesday

Our legs. Brian on the left. Angel on the right. Together, we walk.

After 3 days of plane transfers, clock adjustments, and confusion we were finally here. Well ok, I know...I know we were already here 2 days ago. But what I mean is that we're finally HERE - in a place where we can finally enjoy our trip without random hiccups. It was now OUR vacation. Every trip, even returning home, has that period of unease, where you need to take a little while to just get into the swing of things. And by Tuesday morning 8am, we were there!

We scheduled a city trip to Salvador - Brazil's 3rd largest city. It's a little under 200 KM to Salvador from Costa do Sauipe. As you can imagine a long bus ride - about 2 hrs. Fortunately, we got to see a small part of the real Bahia outside of the resort and Salvador, albeit from a moving bus window. Here are a few pictures.

Not a wealthy area by any means; We mostly saw 1-story stone homes set upon sloped hills of dry plots of dirt that were incapable of any agriculture - I'm guessing that building on hill slopes helps with air circulation for the homes. The walls had holes that served as windows without any separation from the outdoor elements - bugs, run, dust. None of the homes had any air conditioning. I wonder what the inside of it looked like...

2 hours later, we arrive at our first stop - The lighthouse at the San Antonio Fort of the Bahian Nautical Museum. When the Portuguese took over, they expelled many of the former Dutch rulers at this point.

Dramatic Shot of Angel at the Lighthouse (left). Apparently Brazilians like their share of chicken and rice too; they have 260 Habib's in Brazil (right).

Kaiser beer truck (left) and a really big motorcycle with three wheels (right).

The locals call pay phones ears because they kind of look like them. Angel said the booth smelled like urine. Somethings are the same where ever you go...

We also stopped over at Pelhourino Square and the Market Modello. Pelhourino is one of the more traditional parts of Salvador, while the Market Modello is a flee market where buyers can bargain with sellers that sell things ranging from jewelry, table cloths, to general art work. At the Market Medello, definitely bargain for everything. It's expected and you will definitely be a sucker if you pay full price. It's similar to Lady Street in Mongkok, Hong Kong. And besides, bargaining is part of the fun of any flee market...How low can you go?

But what kind of an outing would be complete without a few funny stories and characters along the way? Angel and I met a German couple, a couple from Spain, and a couple from Argentina. The German couple, Marc (left) and Bianca hailed from Cologne, Germany. Marc must have been one of the funniest guys I met on the trip. Just to give you an idea, he's a large round guy at 5'9'' weighing in at 235lbs, with some professional fighting experience. As menacing as this sounds, he reminds you more of Baby Huey than a stone cold killer. When the street merchants kept harassing him to buy stuff, he would make up stories and say that he was from Moscow, Russia. He would come up to me after in excitement, "Did you know that street merchants are afraid of Russians?" He may be coming to New York next year to visit. I will be looking forward to that.

The other couples, Cristian and Dolors (Dolores), and Omar and Vanessa were great. Here is our dynamic: The Germans and us only spoke English. Dolors spoke English and Spanish. Cristian only spoke Spanish. Omar and Vanessa spoke Spanish and Portuguese. Soooo...when the Tour Guide spoke, it would be in Portuguese. And so the chain of communications would go on as follows: Tour Guide to Omar and Vanessa in Portuguese, to Dolors and Cristian in Spanish, to Marc, Bianca, Angel, and I in broken English. But take 4 duos and 4 different languages, and you get one funny day. Later at night after dinner, we met up at the resorts in Costa do Sauipe and went to a tropical party. Lots of fun. Marc was preparing to get smashed! So earlier in Salvador, Marc purchased some voodoo magic hangover liquid drug in yellow vials. He took one dose of the yellow stuff and followed it up with this

Marc raided the mini-bar and took a little bottle of vodka.

After a few rounds, the conversation started flowing. The Argentinians would tell a funny story in Spanish, and Marc would point to Dolors and yell in German form, "Translation!" But on the flip side, Mac would be telling a funny story in English and the Argentinians would point to Dolors and say, "Como?" hahaha...I believe the Pilgrams had this problem once. Eventually they settled it with some turkey and corn. Us? We settled it with a couple shots of Vodka, a few White Russians (the drink), and some dancing.