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fun in the pool
Pousada Rancho Fundo
Terreiro de Jesus
Marcelo's moqueca de peixePelourinho
Pelourinho, the historic center of Salvador da Bahia, has been restored to much of it's original beauty. The are, once a slave market (Pelourinho is the Portuguese word for "whipping post"), is a maze of cobblestone streets lined with restaurants, art galleries selling traditional arts and crafts, outdoor music stages and (best of all) Baianos!
The streets are mostly blocked reserved for pedestrians and the restaurants take advantage of this, placing tables and chairs right in the street where you can enjoy a wonderful meal in the cool (compared to the daytime) night breeze as musicians play folk music (called "Forro"). Every so often one of the area's famous drum bands will come by, dancing brilliant Samba as they pound out their syncopated beat -- with a few score and sometimes a hundred or more followers dancing and whirling along behind.
There are countless restaurants in Pelourinho serving every kind of dish imaginable. One of my favorites is Jardim de Delicias. The restaurant is set in a court yard separated from the street. To enter you pass through a long hallway that opens onto a tiny museum on the right. In the court yard are a dozen or so tables and, off to one side, a small stage where musicians play soft Brazilian music. The Brazilian steaks (picanha), Italian pasta dishes and fresh seafood are to die for. One afternoon we traveled by ferry to the Ilha Itaparica, a large Island in the middle of the bay with newfound friends. There we visited a restaurant by the waterside, at a place called "Point of Sand" and watched a fabulous demonstration of Capoeira (Brazilian martial art mixed with dance). Afterward, as we rode the ferry back to the mainland we watched one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever seen.
Those newfound friends? An American couple we bumped into on the beach the day before. We discovered that they live only a few minutes from my childhood home. Fast friends, we spent the next two days island hopping and laughing our way around Salvador.
This was all last year -- 2006. This year we went back for another month and went to Carnaval. More about that in my next post.
Until then... tchau, gente
Robert
