March 13 – Salvador da Bahia

Today we sailed into Todos Os Santos Bay, the world’s largest harbor slip, which is apparently 1,100 kilometers of bay. It’s so huge that local people and the marine aficionados claim that all the ships of every fleet in the world could fit side-by-side in this bay. It was impressive! This part of Brazil was colonized by Portugal in 1549 and served as a stronghold to defend against the Spanish, French and Dutch who also had designs on this area. Today the city is divided into two sections, lower town (Cidade Baixa) and the upper city (Cidade Alta) accessed by 2 funiculars, a room sized elevator in addition to roads. Life moves at a slower pace in the lower section where there are traditional family neighborhoods and traditions and still have traditional fishermen. The upper city sits on a cliff overlooking the lower town and you can find cobblestoned streets, whitewashed houses, small but nice hotels and shops offering traditional Bahiana wares. We visited Pelourinho in the upper section where there were beautiful ornate churches and colorful restored buildings. The area is so cultural significant that it is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This section is well maintained and the colors of the buildings are vibrant and beautiful, contrasted to the lower section where everything is covered with graffiti and very run down. The Bahia area is 80% Black and is the largest group of Blacks outside of Africa. The people are very friendly and happy and they have lots of parties. They are very culturally and economically mixed with wealthy people living next door to the poor. They produce sugar cane, coconuts, ethanol, the biggest Ford plant in South America, chocolate, gem stones and granite. It was a very interesting but as our tour guide said you really have to WANT to live here, to live here, as it appears to be a very depressed city with very friendly people.