Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

 

Monday April 8, 2024

We arrived in Salvador ( Bahia, NE Brazil) on Sunday April 7 having flown from NY to Atlanta to São Paulo along the way.  We spent Sunday afternoon and much of Monday touring Salvador with a local guide. Salvador was the original Portuguese colonial city in Brazil. It was founded in 1549 and became rich from the slave trade and sugar cane. The Portuguese did not capture Africans for slavery, instead they armed the Luanda tribe, who could then conquer neighboring tribes and give the captives to the Portuguese for slaves. Over a period of two hundred years, 10 million slaves were brought to Brazil. 

Salvador served as the colonial capital of Brazil from 1549 to 1753. The city was built high on a bluff above All Saints Bay, with a defensive wall around it. Initially the walls were to protect from the indigenous people, but in the 17th century, the French and the Dutch invaded to try to take over the sugar cane plantations. As we learned on our Caribbean trip in January, sugar cane was the dominant cash crop in the New World.  Salvador also attracted missionaries (Jesuits, Franciscans, Carmelites) and was the see of the Bishop of Brazil. Heresy (against the Catholic church) was as big a crime as treason or insurrection. The old city (a UNESCO world heritage site with the largest number of historic buildings in Brazil) is dominated by churches and monasteries. Catholicism played a huge role in the shaping of the local culture. We toured the Jesuit cathedral and the church of St Francis.  Both are lavish beyond description; Baroque style decoration in the early 18th century was in part a counter-reformation strategy. 

In the 19th century, a lower city was built on land reclaimed from the bay. A giant elevator and a funicular train system connected the two cities and are still used today. The lower city is less well maintained than the upper, and a new downtown of high rise buildings has become the new desirable residential area. In recent times, Salvador has embraced its mixed heritage of Portuguese, African and indigenous cultures. We visited a museum devoted to Carnival, which in Salvador is an 8-day event with parades, costumes and music. Bahian music includes being the home of bossanova and is famous for its drumming (on Monday afternoon we received drumming lessons from an all-female drum band).  

Salvador has about 3 million inhabitants, and our guide estimated that 60% live in poverty. It made for some sobering bus rides, particularly in the lower city which flooded badly with the heavy rains we endured both days. 

Early evening the skies cleared as we boarded the Endurance, our ship and home for the next 22 days. Just before we left port we were treated to an amazing sunset. The sun sets quite early here, today it was at 5:23 pm. We are currently heading northeast along the Brazilian coast. The Endurance is a new purpose-built exploration tourist vessel, and is more elegant than other ships we have been on. We will talk more about the ship in future entries.