Salvador, Brazil

Except for ominous clouds and rain falling behind us, the view was magnificent as the MV Explorer sailed into the beautiful city of Salvador, Brazil and docked at 8 am today.



We had a woman from the embassy speak to us in Diplomatic Pre-port in the morning, and the ship was cleared at about 10 am.  We did not need out passports for going ashore if we were staying in Salvador, so things moved pretty smoothly.

As in most ports that we have visited, there was a welcome music group. In this case, there were jugglers, dancers on stilts, and drummers--all quite entertaining and engaging.




We were docked in the lower part of town which is mostly a business district.  Today was a holiday, so the banks, government buildings and post offices were closed.  We left the port and walked to a market that seemed to be mostly souvenir type of items.  The most popular place was the ATM with a 45 min wait because of all the students using it.  The currency is the Brazil real. $1 US equals 1.76 Brasil real.

Just past the market was "the elevator" to the upper part, or historical part of the city, also known as The historic center.  This section had been renovated and was the destination for most of us.  We had been completely warned about the dangers of the city, and under no circumstance were we to walk between the levels--"don't even take the elevator at night, only a taxi".  As it was, a couple of students did have items taken from them within the first few hours in port--some jewelry and a Blackberry, but no one was hurt.

We took the elevator (for about 10 cents each) and walked across a plaza to a coffee shop.  While we were there, the sky opened up and it poured rain.  That meant we needed to buy a sandwich as well.  It turned out that we met very few people in this city who spoke English, so communicating was difficult, but we could at least point things out on the menu.  When we got a break in the rain, we headed for Santa Casa de Misericordia, a former hospital which was part of the Catholic church.  It still has a chapel inside that is used for worship.  The artwork is stunning, and the tiles of Portuguese drawings are worth the time. They have done a very nice restoration that includes paintings on the ceiling and some more modern works.  Our guide spoke fairly understandable English.

We were not allowed to take pictures inside, but the exterior views were very nice.
Students were everywhere in this area, and we recommended this stop to them.

We next walked through a plaza (where students were partying) to a historic church, the Igreja da Ordem Terceira de Sao Francisco.
This historic church was well-maintained and reflected some of the art of the Portuguese as well.  It had one room devoted to saints and an upstairs room with quite gruesome depictions of Jesus on the cross.  If you like old churches, this would be a place to go.

Lunch was calling us since it was now 3 pm, so we looked for one restaurant that had been recommended, but it was closed.  However, it was conveniently located near a tee-shirt shop where I got a Brasil soccer shirt so I could pull for a winner in the world cup.  We did find another recommended restaurant and had a great lunch while it poured rain again.

Walking around after lunch, we ran a group of students mugging for the camera.

We greeted another group of students that included two of our library student assistants--a great group of kids.

We followed our ears and came across a shoot for a television ad for the World Cup.  It featured dancers, and our SAS students had joined in.

It was starting to rain a little so we headed back to the ship--stopping to watch one of the students getting his hair braided.  A lot of students got their hair braided in Ghana.

Then we jumped on the elevator and went down.  We felt safe as we were accompanied by two policemen.  We wondered if the police were part of a special Semester at Sea patrol for our safety, because they were everywhere today.  After a footrace with some students (which I won) we got back to the ship, and I'm finishing this up so I won't be so far behind when we return from a trip to the Amazon in a few days.  (btw, Nancy gets credit for most of these pictures)