13 - Empire of the Sun-Tanned (Salvador, Lencois)

Salvador, BRAZIL - 19 september 2002

We arrived in Salvador at about 3pm in the rain. Our favela tour guide had told us it never rained in Salvador. How wrong he was.

After settling ourselves in Pelourinho, the well-restored old city centre, we headed out for a walk and encountered a group of boys making music known as Oludum. This is music, with African origins, created from various sorts of drums. The music had great rhythm and charismatic ‘oomph’. The drummers looked like they were having the best fun.

Salvador was turning out to be very vibrant and spontaneous, with loud booming music at every corner. It has quite an Afro-Brazilian culture here, unlike in Rio. The majority of the people here are of African origins. Naturally, there are some mestizos and mulattos but I hardly saw a white Brazilian whom I could say was a local. I guess that was how the racial mix was like up north in Brazil.

Well, unfortunately, we could not really enjoy the night-life of Salvador tonight as it rained incessantly for the rest of the night.


Salvador, BRAZIL - 20 september 2002

Deepa and I meandered more around town today. Salvador’s Pelourinho is quite touristy. We learnt that this previously downtrodden district had been restored and cleaned up for tourism’s sake. Shops along the streets here mostly sold tourist souvenirs. These houses were plastered up evenly and painted in all sorts of pastels shades. Police were stationed at every corner to protect the area.

Once out of the immediate district, we saw crumbling buildings, cracked walls, peeling paint-work, foliage-covered walls, broken windows, lopsided balconies, missing shutters…

Capoeira, as I had explained earlier, was resurrected here in the state of Bahia. So, naturally, I expected to see some fighters-dancers out for a ‘play’ here. Deepa desperately wanted to see one. She had not seen one before. In the end, she paid and went to the capoeira school to see it. I wandered around the street and by night-fall, at the main square, as predicted, there was a circle of capoeira players so I watched for free.

This evening was perfect. The near full-moon was breathtaking in the clear sky. We sat al fresco at the tables set up on the uneven cobble-stoned roads, amongst the pastel colonial houses and enjoyed some ‘live’ music and drinks. The entire town was alive with locals, not just tourists, enjoying their share of music, drinks and dance for the evening. Every bar or restaurant had loud samba or oludum playing.

In a very humble local eatery that did not even have a menu, the locals broke into spontaneous dancing. And what I meant by locals here were fat, aging, tubby aunts and uncles. Not the slim and skimpily-clad youths. The energy in this town was electric.

At some corners, typical in this state, women in white Bahian, bouncy, lacy dresses and white head-wraps (they looked like they were wrapped in layers of doilies, actually), were sitting and deeping-frying Bahian snacks in dendê oil. Surely, your road to heart attack.


Salvador, BRAZIL - 21 september 2002

We attended a Candomble session tonight. It was quite an experience. This was a religious ceremony where they communicate with their gods and baptize a boy of 12 years.

The men were in charge of the complicated drum-beats (sometimes with hands for a god, and other times with drum-sticks for another god) and provided the main singer.

The women (and a few men) danced slowly in tiny movements in a circle in the yard. The floor of the yard was strewn with a type of leaves.

The dancing, singing and drumming went on for hours. Some younger, inexperienced disciples (who had to dance with their backs hunched and heads hung low) might fall into a trance earlier. A girl did that, actually. She had to be led out and revived because it was not the time for the trance yet.

The 12-year-old boy was brought out, first covered with white dots to immune him against illnesses. Later, he was brought out again, covered with yellow, pink and blue dots. We were to throw a sort of leaves at him as he passed by.

Slowly, the women and the disciples entered into a trance and the main matriarch of the event started hopping on one leg at some point. That meant she was possessed by a particular god called Ossain who was painted on a picture as hopping on one leg.

They were watched over and guided by some mentors who were not in a trance, just in case the entranced got a little lost in their walking or started grabbing their jewellery and hurt themselves.

Then, with their eyes closed, the entranced swooped out of the yard one by one, somehow knowing where the open gate was.

After a very long wait, they returned with very colourful and intricate costumes - bright blue, yellow, red, sequined-dresses and head-gears which had beads or shells draped across their faces. They held implements on their hands like axes and metal-snakes.

OK, we did not always understand what was going on. It was very complicated. Many gestures steeped in meanings. It was also a very long session. It started at 10:30pm and lasted beyond 1:30am when we left. No way they faked this for tourists. This was a religious ceremony and was not widely promoted as a tourist event. Still, I appreciated it and found it interesting. Some tourists had looked very bored with the repetitive dancing, gotten fed up and left in taxis earlier. Well, this was not a performance for them to like or dislike. This was a complex ceremony which had its origins from Angola and Nigeria, with too many things beyond our understanding.


Salvador to Lençóis, BRAZIL - 22 september 2002

Deepa is an art student. She wanted to do some sketches today to while away the time. Hmmm… I had bought a sketch-book in Irkutsk, Russia and I last used it on the Trans-Mongolian Railway. Yeah, I would crack mine open too.

We spent the day, idling around and sitting at the square, sketching the local people. It was awkward for me not to include details for the sketches. But this was what sketches were about. No way I could include details as people walked away or changed positions ever so often. A teenage boy was very amused with our sketches. He peered from behind our shoulders and laughed in delight whenever he identified whom we were sketching.

We had been eating at buffet-by-weight restaurants (cheaper) in Salvador but the food was unexciting and sometimes, not very fresh. So, as it was our last day together in Salvador, we decided to treat ourselves and order a la carte.

I only realised this much later, but most of the items on menus in Bahia were for two people. But we did not know it then, and she ordered fried fish and I ordered a Bahian speciality - Ximxim de frango (that is chicken cooked like a curry and swimming in dendê oil). Dendê oil which is red palm oil, a local ingredient here, is s-t-r-o-n-g stuff and extremely high in saturated fat. So, when I expire due to a heart attack later in my life, as my whole life flashes before me, I would surely recall this afternoon, sitting under the Salvador sky, eating chicken cooked in dendê oil.

So, imagine our surprise when the food was served with rice, salad, beans, and portions big enough for a party! We were embarrassed by the decadent display of such copious food and proceeded to partake of it quickly before more people spotted our greed. We did not do a bad job by finishing up all the fish and ¾ of the ximxim.

That night, we parted. I made my way to Lençóis tonight while Deepa travelled south to Caravelas for whale-watching.


Lençóis, BRAZIL - 23 september 2002

Lençóis, a small, quiet town, is set in the wooded mountainous region west of Salvador, near the Parque Nacional da Chapada Diamantina. The main tourist business here is trekking and day-trips to the rivers and waterfalls in the National Park by many agencies.

I arrived at, maybe, 5am in a disastrous condition. I stumbled off the bus groggily and into a group of hotel and tour touts. Many inquired if I wanted to do trekking today. Were they crazy? I hardly slept a wink last night on the 6-hour bus-ride with air-conditioning set to full-blast. All I wanted to do now was to find a place to sleep.

A guy said free transport to wherever I wanted. No way… “Sim [Yes]”, he insisted. OK, I climbed into his van, telling him the name of my pousada. Naturally, he drove me to another and suggested this was better, for the same price, no mosquitoes.

Não, obrigada [No, thank you]. You said you would take me to wherever I wanted. “No problem, no problem…” he drove on and dropped me by the pousada that I wanted. “Maybe you join tour today [sic]. We go to Glass waterfall [sic]. You meet at Hotel Alcino at 8:30am. Maybe… yes? Hotel Alcino…”

I could not remember what I uttered. A trek to the waterfalls at 8:30am today??? He was SO kidding me…

I slept til way after 11am. The grinning receptionist at my pousada asked what kind of tour I was interested in today. “Hoje? Não… Hoje tranquilo, tranquilo… [Today? No… Today tranquil tranquil…]” I told him.

I was keen on the 3-day tour to the Cachoeira da Fumaça, also known as the Glass Waterfall. At 420m, it is the second highest waterfall in Brazil. He said he was not sure if there would be a group. I would be able to know by 8pm tonight.

I headed out. Lençóis, after Salvador’s loud and wild music, parties late into the night, and reputation for mugging, was incredibly quiet and felt thoroughly safe. Birds were chirping. The town was tiny, sleepy and magically silent.

I walked around and sat around without anyone really paying any attention to me. People were friendly but a little restrained… if I managed to get eye-contact and greeted them. It was really different from Salvador. So sleepy. So tranquil. It was not long before I wanted to head back to my pousada to sleep again but I willed myself against it.

A man was crushing sugar canes through a rattling machine to squeeze out sugar cane juice. I got myself a cup for a perk-me-up.

I traipsed down to Rio Lençóis. The riverbed was a reddish mass packed with round, white, yellow, pink rocks. It was a very unique and beautiful landscape. Locals were washing their laundry and swimming in the pools with brown water. It was really pretty. There were small waterfalls here and there. Some pools were so deep, the locals plunged head-long right in.

By night, there was indeed a group formed - Malte from Germany, Egor and Carolina from France and I. We met our guide Crispian who could only speak Portuguese, and were briefed in Portuguese on what to pack for tomorrow.

Gee… now I did not feel quite ready for a trek.