Salvador Part II

Salvador Part II

So before Salvador becomes a distant memory (it’s already physically pretty distant), I will fill in some more details. As for the city, we did dine out one evening during Carnaval, at a street-side café, literally on the street. Another precaution was to join what our on-ship Doctor (Matt, from Seattle, incidentally) calls “The Cult of the Black Tongue.” In other words, take Pepto-Bismol before each meal in an iffy area. Seemed to work for me. We had quite a good dinner of shrimp moqueca (sp? again) which was shrimp and veggies cooked in a clay pot and served over rice. Another dish was a crab salad, which looked a little raw to some folks but I said what the heck. There’s a local favorite of ground manioc (tapioca, I believe) mixed with fish, mashed vegetables, etc. into a sort of a paste, which was OK but I wouldn’t want to have it every day. That tapioca base made its way into something I’ll mention in a minute.
While we dined, of course we had a floor show of traditional neighborhood Carnaval. Salvador is home to some of the largest and most extravagant street Carnaval, which involves literally hundreds of thousands of people, thousands dancing on the streets for miles and others lining said streets and buildings, with these giant trucks of sound (imagine a semi-trailer made entirely of speakers with a stage on top). This was not my thing, but on the neighborhood level it’s more of what you may imagine. It was as if groups spontaneously came together to play music and walk up and down the streets or around the square. Some groups were obviously planned; may people wore identical striped shirts over white pants, differing only in the color of the stripes to differentiate the groups. Pretty colors! And these neighborhood groups also had the giant papier-mâché puppet heads they wore to make themselves look 10 feet tall.
On the way back to the ship we took in the main square, and walked around it as part of the festivities. Watch out for standing “water” at Carnaval. Another bit of high hilarity was the amount of atrocious drag there was, everywhere. Part of the “let loose” aspect is men dressing up as women, complete with facial hair, hairy legs, etc. But they really camp it up, even though it’s not at all associated with a gay component. So we walked around, bought popcorn, watched the assorted sights for hours, and made our way back to the ship safely. It didn’t hurt that a member of our party was about 6-4 and 230. He was also the photographer, as I did not bring my camera, so I will snag some photos from him.
One final day I went to the Market (alone! gasp! although several other cruise ships docked that day and there were throngs of people….). It was interesting, and I spent a few reals (money unit) but didn’t really go nuts. Stopped for another local favorite (I’ll try to get or remember the names of these things) which was that samemanioc flour, shaped into ovals and deep-fried in palm oil, a real heart-attack on a plate. They cut it open and fill with some of that paste I mentioned early, marinated veggies, shrimp, lots of hot sauce (I like!) and so forth. It was very good too. I love (local) food. I enjoyed experiencing the market.
Unfortunately, our collective visit was marred by large-scale ATM/credit card fraud, originating in that same market. I’m so glad I didn’t use any cards. Some people lost thousands of dollars (which they typically get back, since it’s pretty easy to prove they couldn’t have made withdrawals in Salvador when they were at sea) and the hassle has been great as people had had to cancel and replace cards – not easy in any circumstance, particularly moving around as we are.
One a happier note, I was able to go to Praia de Forte, a resort area which is also home to a turtle conservation project. So we experienced a nice area and lunch, plus I got to see the turtle facility. They had some tanks with giant turtles of various kinds (loggerhead, leatherback, Olive’s and Kemp Ridleys, etc.) for research purposes, and lots of babies they are hatching as well as some other interesting things from the ocean. They also partitioned off part of the beach to fence the nests, help the eggs hatch and the chicks get back to the ocean. Brazil is a real hot spot for marine turtles, and they are doing good work to increase the numbers.
We left at night, seeing the nicer part of Salvador, which few of us experienced and even fewer knew existed! It was cute also as we left, the captain sounded the ear-splitting horn, even louder on the 7th deck where we routinely gather for departures and arrivals. So another cruise ship saw fit to reply. So we had horns going back and forth for a good minute. As we got into the bay, a tiny fishing boat joined the horn symphony, but it literally sounded like a pipsqueak after these deep rumbling ship horns.
Many people had experiences beyond the city of Salvador, and those experiences in different areas, cities, and islands, were very positive. Folks mentioned going back to those places, less so to Salvador, but all in all the visit was good and we avoided many potential problems. I must end more positively than that, and to do so I will say that I would return for holiday to Praia de Forte, Boipepa Island (which sounded idyllic), and even the Amazon. We all say the last port was our favorite – it will be interesting to see which one stands out at the end.