Sunday February 2nd, 2025 Salvador, Brazil
Updated: Feb 8
Today we are on a ship’s shore excursion, although now I’ve noticed they’ve started to call them “experience” instead of “excursion” – I bet someone in marketing got a sweet promotion for that one. The tour is called “History of Salvador” and following a dockside greeting by a samba band our luxury coach whisked us to the famous Barra lighthouse or Farol da Barra overlooking All Saints Bay. The weather was hot with the occasional threatening cloud, high humidity but with a nice sea breeze.
Farol da Barra was dedicated in 1839 on the site of an earlier version and is built within the Sant Antonio da Barra fort, it’s an impressive building located out on a point at the southern tip of the bay. There is a small naval museum inside the fort, but we did not have time to check it out. A very nice gravel path led up to, and all the way around, the lighthouse – despite the small army of road sweeping staff there was still a bit of litter here and there, I don’t understand how some people can just drop their rubbish in such a pristine location. The views from the back of the fort looking down onto the bathers swimming in the rock pools and south along a stretch of beautiful sandy beach in the next bay were magnificent. I noticed a couple of young guys propositioning tourists in the front of the fort; their pitch seemed to be using a small drone to take photos of tourists – I assume the drone afforded some unique angles for the photos. I’ve not seen this service before, quite enterprising.
Heading for the old historical center of Salvador on the coach we got to see a bit more of the city. Salvador has many neighborhoods, but one distinguishing feature is that part of the city is located low down by the coast while the other is higher up, at the top of cliffs; a funicular and an elevator connect the lower to the upper part of the city – the elevator was out of action today, but it didn’t matter to us as we were on the coach. Salvador, founded in 1549, is the capital of the state of Bahia and is known as the “blackest” city in Brazil with the majority of its population being descended from African slaves. The city is massive, 30 miles across, with a population of 2.5 million people.
Driving through the city we observed the diversity of the neighborhoods; spectacular villas overlooking the bay, large formal mansions, ramshackle tin-roofed hovels and lots of graffiti. A nice lake, a remnant of the brief Dutch occupation and their obsession with dams, was surrounded by tree lined walkways with lots of people out for a Sunday stroll or bike ride. Our guide pointed out a group of large colorful statues standing out in the water, each representing a different god – like the god of happy sailors, the god of green trees etc. (I just made up those names, but you get the idea) – I was bit confused since I thought Brazil was a predominantly catholic country, with only one God, obviously. As I looked at the statues out in the water, I couldn’t help being reminded of the small plastic round-bottomed soccer players from my youthful days playing Subbuteo on the floor of our living room. Speaking of soccer… right beside the lake was the massive Itaipava Arena Fonte Nova soccer stadium built for the 2014 World Cup.
Soon our coach pulled into a small square in front of the old governor’s mansion overlooking the port, and we all piled out. The heat had become oppressive, and it really didn’t help any that our guide said that yesterday was a bit of a heat wave. At this point I became aware that our guide belonged to that annoying sect of overly knowledgeable, and determined to educate, tour escorts. The guy was incredibly well informed about the history of Salvador but completely lacked the ability to read his audience. We heard in-depth stories about all of the buildings in the square, the minor revolution, the statues, the port and on and on while slowly melting away in the blistering heat. It would have been nice to find a shady spot to impart his vast library of knowledge.
Over the next 3 hours we wandered through the old historical section of the city while the guide continued with his speech, completely unaware that several in the group were close to heat stroke. Despite the conditions I should note that this section of the city has a rich history and some beautiful architecture. Entering the large plaza called Terreiro de Jesus we stopped at the Basilica de Salvador, the large cathedral covering an entire side of the plaza. It being Sunday, a service was in progress – which seemed to surprise our guide, so we had to wait around for about 15 minutes before we could get our tour. The interior of the cathedral was richly adorned in the baroque style with lots of gold leaf and constructed in 1654 with stone brought all the way from Portugal. I especially enjoyed the amazing ceiling with its intricate pattern of raised octagons like some kind of heavenly hedged maze with no way out.
The plaza was ringed by a cobbled road with a central area of classic Portuguese black and white paving stones in a mesmerizing wavy pattern; palm trees and a large fountain completed the beautiful scene. Vendors wandered the plaza selling everything from cold drinks and hot snacks to some kind of fresh herb brush-down ritual where the customer stood while the vendor waved a succession of different plant cuttings (I assume herbs) around them. I’m not sure of the origin of this ritual, but it looked either African or perhaps indigenous Indian.
Crossing the plaza and heading down a wide pedestrian street we came to the Monastery and Convent of San Francisco, originally built in 1587 but destroyed during the Dutch invasion and rebuilt, starting in 1686 and completed in the 18th century. An amazing cloister lined square is located adjacent to the church and our guide first led us to this area. The walls of the cloisters were adorned with beautiful light blue colored tiled frescoes depicting various religious and other ancient allegories. Our guide held deep knowledge of all of the frescoes and had a hard time controlling himself, so I bailed after he had completed only one side of the quadrant and headed for the hopefully cooler conditions in the monastery.
The interior of the Monastery of San Francisco was breath taking, I have literally never seen anything like it – almost the entire surface of the intricate baroque alter, side chapels and ceiling was covered with gold leaf. It was only slightly cooler in the monastery, but there were many fans in operation which offered some relief – I was still as sweaty as a glass blowers’ arse. Sitting in the pews beside a fan, we waited for our tour group to catch up. Many guides were giving tours to groups as small as 2 people and as large as 20, the monastery was relatively small and so it was difficult to find any quiet reflection time within the maelstrom of the multi-lingual lectures swirling around us. There does not seem to be the same reverence for the quiet sanctity of churches in Brazil as I’ve observed in other countries.
The forced hike continued, this does not seem anything like what it said on the tin when we booked it. By this time many in the group were openly firing visual daggers at the guide and begging for the air-conditioned coach – all to no avail. Continuing on along quaint cobbled streets we passed many more churches, apparently Salvador has 365 churches – though I think this number seems very conveniently equal to the number of days in a year and provides a very nice little factoid for the tourists. Still no bus in sight. In another square we stopped to view some building that had a connection to Michael Jackson, I didn’t catch the details as I was trying to find a seat and cold drink for Sandra – I managed to purchase a coke from a kindly vendor who let us use his plastic chair in the shade. I gave him a few extra Reals and his face beamed!
We did eventually re-board the beautifully air-conditioned coach and made it back to the ship safely. Heading straight for the Chart Room bar upon reembarking, I downed a large superb cold wheat beer in about two gulps – talk about hitting the spot.
All in all a very interesting day in Salvador with its many beautiful churches and plazas only marred by the excessive heat and the uncompromising tour guide.
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