Trip to Salvador! Day 1

Oi everybody!

So my Brazilian cellphone got lost/stolen :-( and my camera is not working because I think I got too much sand in it... but other than that I had a lovely time on my trip to Salvador! Oh, and I was still able to extract the pictures that I took on my camera before it stopped working so I apologize in advance for the deluge of photos coming up...hehe

 I got back on Thursday night from a 5-day trip to Salvador, Bahia in the Northeast of Brazil. We had a one week break between the language intensive and before the semester officially starts tomorrow (my first class is at 7 am woohoo!) so I jumped on the opportunity to visit somewhere outside of Rio and I thought why not visit Salvador? Along with Rio it is one of Brazil's most popular tourist destinations so I knew I wanted to go there eventually, and I thought I would go this week to take advantage of the fact that my friend and old Mar e Floresta co-worker Kyla was there so we could reunite after two years of not seeing each other! I had a great time seeing a completely different side of Brazil and exploring a new city.

Planning the trip was a bit last-minute and not as easy as I would have liked...after being on the internet and phone for more than two hours calling Brazilian airlines and my American bank I was able to buy a ticket from Saturday to Thursday from Rio to Salvador with layovers in Sao Paulo. I learned the hard way that many websites only accept Brazilian credit cards and when I finally found one that accepted American cards my bank blocked my card. Anyway, with my ticket purchased just two days before leaving, I convinced three PUC friends to come with me and they all bought tickets the next day! I made hostel reservations the day before we left and thank goodness there was still space! We ended up having a lot of luck because it is currently the low season for tourism in Brazil and so prices for the hostel were reduced and even though we booked 4 beds in an 8-bed female dorm we had the room to ourselves as the hostel was pretty empty.

Our bright yellow hostel

Not a bad set-up for some R&R...

The first day we went to the beach right next to our hostel called Praia da Barra, where I had planned to meet Kyla. She had no cellphone though so I basically just had to scan the beach to find her. It ended up taking only about 5 minutes of looking around the beach until I found her: the beach was pretty small and although it was crowded, Kyla stuck out like a sore thumb with her super light blonde hair and blue eyes, rare features in Brazil and especially rare in the northeast where most people are of African descent.

We ended up just chatting on the beach the whole day, catching up one each others lives (Kyla was in town visiting her Bahian boyfriend!), swimming, and sipping on coconut water in the hot sun. In Portuguese there is an expression matar as saudades which means literally "killing the saudades (longing/missing feeling)." Meeting up with Kyla, reminiscing on our camp counselor days and discussing dreams and hopes for the future, was a perfect example of this :-)

Reunited in Brazil! A day at the beach at Praia do Porto da Barra Beach with Kyla to matar as saudades, 2 years after working together at the Portuguese language camp Mar e Floresta :-)

I don't think he has enough cans....

Beautiful day for a walk

Walking past the lighthouse! I almost felt like I was in New England haha!

Sharing a bowl of yummy yummy açaí

We finished the day with a walk to the beautiful Farol da Barra (an old lighthouse on the southern tip of Salvador) and with a typical post-beach Brazilian snack of açaí, an vitamin-packed berry that only grows in the Amazon and that is served frozen and blended guaraná syrup to counter its natural sourness. Topped with banana and granola, there is nothing more filling and delicious!

After walking back to the hostel at sunset me and my friend Sarah, from New York and who was also hanging out with me and Kyla all day, regrouped with our two Columbian friends and travel buddies Andrea and Diana for dinner. We opted for a traditional Bahian meal of moquecas (a seafood stew made with red palm oil, spices, and vegetables) to get a taste of the famous Bahian cuisine, known for being infused with African flavors and influences, and it was delicious! I am not used to eating seafood so it was a huge treat for me. Me and Sarah split the siri catado moqueca which was made from crab. They also brought rice, a typical side dish made from mixing flour with the moqueca juices whose name I forgot, and some very hot pepper sauce. It was so nice to finally have some spicy food after weeks without it (it is extremely rare to find spicy food in Rio) and overall it was a wonderful way to wrap up our first day in Salvador.

Our Salvador travel crew! From Left to Right: Diana, Sarah, me and Andrea. And that was the last time I saw my phone :-(