Salvador

razil really should be called the melting pot of the world. Everything

On the streets of Salvador

here seems to have been thrown into a pot and ...well...melted together.

The main religion is Catholicism but (remember everything's melted)

it's been infused with an African religion called Candomblé. Basically

all of the Saints are represented by African Gods and Goddess from the

Yoruba tribe in Africa. This is because Brazil was the biggest port for

slaves in the 18th and 19th Century so to disguise their religion they

just adopted it into Catholicism and over the last couple hundred years

it's completely merged. The slaves did the same thing with a form of

martial arts, Capuiera that they practiced. They put the steps to a

dance and pretended that that was what it was. Even most of the plants

at the Turtle Sanctuary

and trees were imported.

The night before we got to Brazil we were going to sleep out on

the deck, s however I found a very large population of large moths and

bugs. They were quite friendly but I didn't appreciate them crawling on

me so I went back inside. A couple of us got up to see sunrise and

watch the ship come into port but it was so cloudy we could hardly see

the sun. Almost everyone went and walked around today. In Salvador you

walk down a ways and then take an elevator up to the upper city. A

couple of us had other trips so we just grabbed some reals (ray-als),

Brazilian currency, and had the best lunch ever! It was this seafood

stew of sorts, lobster, octopus, squid, shrimp (yes that's right mom I

ate shrimp...and LIKED it!), mussels, clams, and some type of fish. We

all drank this local beer Bohamian, not bad. The ship's doctor actually

suggested we just drink beer everywhere, as opposed to anything that

might have water in it. He received a round of applause for that

suggestion. The meal came with this salsa like hot sauce, except

salsa's never made me sweat before or almost cry. I don't know what was

in it but it was HOT!!!! Ryan would have liked it.

I went on a trip to the Candomblé Temple. It was more like a

compound in which the initiates live. However they also have a whole

house devoted to taking care of people who need it. Everyone in the

compound contributes if not financially, then they help take care of

the compound. Candomblé based on Orixas (Or-E-shas) there are 16 basic

Orixas. Each house or compound chooses a few main Orixas and then those

have their own house at the compound. Each person has an Orixas that

"rules your conscience" as Mother Stella put it. Then you wear that

Orixas' color beads. Mother Stella started the compound 14 years ago.

In the Candomblé ceremonies there are men playing the drums and people

pray and dance, Samba. Most of the time an Orixas will come down and

posses a person praying. All the women wear these big dresses with hoop

skirts. And all their clothing is white. Yemanja (ya-men-jaw) is the

mother of all gods and rules the sea. She likes perfume, shiny things,

and lipstick. Yemanja is a material goddess living in a material spirit

world. Mother Stella said we should take pennies and circle them over

our heads while we're at sea so that she will be appeased.

We saw the church of Sao Francisco and Bonfim (Bon-fin), both are

pretty big and are covered in gold. Sao Francisco has a big museum

connected to it, some of the stuff doesn't really seem to have any

significance with the church. For instance they had a record player, we

thought that was pretty funny so we were pretending we didn't know what

it was. One person in the museum thought we were serious and tried to

explain it us in Portuguese. Bonfim has plastic bones hanging from the

ceiling, this is in case you hurt yourself, you go and light a candle

and buy the body piece. BAM! You're better.

I got to go see the Marine Turtle Project in Praie de Forte (it's

about an hour outside of Salvador). They have about 5 different species

of sea turtles that visit the coast of Bahia (the state Salvador is

in). They range from 3.5 to .5 in length and 700kg to 50 kg. The center

removes the turtles eggs from the site where they're laid and relocates

them to an enclosed area, so they don't succumb to any harm during the

45 days the babies are waiting to hatch. Then after 45 days they put

them back in the same spot, but block out any distractions for the

babies (bright lights). They keep about 100 to study. Sea turtles will

always return to the exact same spot they're hatched so 25 years later

the babies will come back. There is no documented study on how long sea

turtles lives because they've only had the centers open 25 years.

However, they tag turtles in the ocean every year and they've caught

and retagged one turtle 150 times! They also chart how many sea turtles

return to lay eggs and the numbers have been improving steadily. Most

sea turtles are endangered but especially the Hornbill (Crush in

Finding Nemo) because it is so pretty, that people want to make jewelry

out of it.

I went out to Carnival one night while we were there, we had a lot

of fun. It's just a big street party. It's really cool for guys to have

these Gahndy outfits. They're flowing robes and have blue beads, with a

towel over their head, that's been twisted into a hat. The out fir

costs anywhere from 500-1200 reals! It's pretty crazy but none of the

girls in our group were bothered by anyone and we didn't have any

problems at all. They have giant buses driving through the streets

(they have to lift up power lines for them). All music groups play Axe

(ash-A) music. It's so loud you can hear your heart thumping. In front

of the buses are big mobs of people all wearing the same shirt. The

people are closed in by ropes and the ropes are held by security

guards. These are called blocs, nobody can get into the bloc unless

they have a shirt, which go from 50-200 dollars. They have a whole

section of the newspaper devoted to people making out with other random

people, so it's actually pretty common for guys to go up to any girl

and just kiss her. We had the antidote though...other guys. Three guys

came with us, because girls really can't go anywhere in Salvador by

themselves. We were lucky Jorge, our cab driver waited for us because

it's almost impossible to get a cab out of there (and it's out of the

question to walk).

We only used one Taxi driver in Salvador, Jorge. He was great and

every place he took us we all would look at each other and ask "should

we get out of the car?" However when entered the place we were going it

was this gorgeous hide away with amazing food. Jorge loved to play his

American music for us...however the music was interesting. It always had

a good tune but the words were almost completely cuss words. We asked

Jorge if understood what they were saying? No but listen to this beat!

So we smiled and car-danced along. Jorge, slept in his car just in case

people needed a cab ride at any hour. It was pretty sad, he worked for

a few days straight through without going home to his family, just to

support them. His wife had their baby the second day we were there, a

girl! Brazilians are very much into their families so we were shown

pictures upon pictures of his 8 year-old daughter. Isn't she beautiful?

he would say. Jorge looked out for us whenever we wanted to go

somewhere that was unsafe he would always go: "No, no, no, no!" and

then make a funny death face.

A couple of us all went to Itaperica, which is an island about an hour

from Salvador. We ran into a guy in the ferry line that worked at Isla

Pardisa, a beach on the other side of the island. We hopped into a cab

and had amazing pineapple juice, fish in mango sauce and filet mignon.

Filet Mignon is EVERYWHERE and you can get it for about seven dollars a

person. All dishes in Brazilian restaurants are shared. Then we went

down to the beach, which was significantly less crowded than the ones

we saw coming into the island. The water was so warm! A couple of us

breeched the language barrier and played with a few kids in the ocean.

Cabellro (somersault) competitions were almost as a amusing as the

handstand competitions. When they had to go Alucia told me, "Yo tengo

American amiga!" My little heart melted. Ivan, one of our friends

played football with the locals on the beach. He came back exhausted,

claiming that any of those guys (15-20 year olds) could play college

football (soccer for you gringos). We caught a private ferry back to

Salvador which was lucky because everyone who doesn't like carnival

goes to Itaperica and they were all coming back that day. Even when we

got there at 11:00 the line to get back was a couple blocks long.

Romero, our Itaperican friend, says some times it takes days to get

back.

That last day was Ash Wednesday so a large group of us all got up early

and found that it was pouring. With umbrellas unfurled we were ready to

attend mass. We went all the way to the Bonifim church just to find

that mass was not at 9 like so many people had assured us. We spent the

next couple minutes trying to convey to the lady at the desk that we

didn't want to find the bathroom we wanted to find a church that had

mass. Jorge drove us to every church in Salvador...but no church was open

let alone performing mass. In the end we figured that God would