Savador,Brazil

On Sunday September 6th the MV Explorer arrived in Salvador, Brazil. A big group of us ventured out into the town of Salvador. This was quite an experience; we had to walk down this street that smelled like urine to get to the first market. As we were walking, all of the locals stopped and starred as these frightened Americans paraded down the street. Once we arrived at the market we were met by capoeira dancers, which is like a graceful fighting type of dance. So we watched for a little while but when we tried to walk away they got angry because we did not give them money. It seemed like if we were to even glance at a local they wanted money. We quickly learned our presence was an easy target and from then on we walked quickly and did not look at anyone. The market was similar to any flea market found in the U.S., every stall basically had the same merchandise which you could haggle for. One real is equivalent to about $1.70 U.S. dollars. After the market we went to the upper city. In order to get there we had to take an elevator that was about 3 or 4 stories high and it cost five centavos ($0.05). We then went to lunch at a quant little café where we had Acai. This is a famous dish in Salvador. It consists of the fruit acai which is only found in the Amazon, the consistency of the dish is like a smoothie. There was also banana slices, raisins, and granola mixed in. Delicious! I also had a crepe with ham and cheese which was also very good. After lunch we continued to walk around the sketchy upper city. Somehow we took a wrong turn and an older couple was yelling at us in Portuguese. We later found out that they were saying “danger, danger! Put your camera’s away and walk fast” Apparently we put ourselves in a dangerous situation and were very lucky nothing happened. (At the end of the week I found out that a few people got mugged, one guy had a gun pulled on him, and another a razorblade pulled.) We eventually found our way back to the lower city and walked through the market again. During this time one of the guys had a little boy following him asking for a coke. So the guy finally gave in and went over to a drink stand. Well they didn’t have coke, but they had plenty of other drinks. The boy would not take any other drink and he would not leave the guy alone so the guy had to walk to a few other drink stands to find the boy a coke. I thought beggars can’t be choosers...? I guess not in Salvador. We walked back to the ship around 3:00 and went back out for dinner around 7:00. We went to a Brazilian BBQ (Churrascaria) called Sala e Brasa. This restaurant was amazing! About 23 SAS students sat at one big table. It is set up like a buffet and then they have guys walking around with huge prongs of meat. This was some of the best meat I have ever tasted. I am not sure what some of it was but the flavor was just delightful. I know I ate a chicken heart which was pretty good. We were there for about 4 hours, and the check was 1,159.00 reals. The biggest bill I have ever seen. The buffet was $40.00 alone and then drinks were extra. Some people wanted to go to a dance club afterwards but most of us had excursions starting really early the next day and decided to just go back to the ship. Overall the day in Salvador was a success, just different from anything I have ever been exposed to.