A Travel Story from Salvador, Brazil

Last night we had a beer in the square. Something big is definitely about to happen here in Salvador, there are decorations everywhere, and people busily set up stalls in the centre, pinning brightly patterned material to wooden food stands.

The bulging heat feels like the sky is about to explode with rain. As we sat, children cracked bangers on the pavement, a tiny shred of an old woman asked for spare Reais, a man tried to sell us skull-based smoking paraphernalia (a beaded crocodile-head bong to be precise) and a beggar kissed Rhiannon on the cheek.

As we walked, a drum school were having their Sunday night practice in the streets. Boys to men savagely banged their huge drums, wildly shaking their bodies and gathering hoards of people on their circuit around the square. Bahians shook their booties, and Gringos plodded after them nodding their heads. The beat pulsating through the old quarter of Salvador .

The later it got, the louder the drums became. What started off as a small crowd, turned into a sea of mostly dark, all smiling faces. The troupe attacked their drums. Arching their backs and then surging forward. Dancing and playing to the same pulsating rhthym.

Black arms dripping with sweat and bulging with muscle. Hair braided and beaded swinging and slapping the air. One foot foward, the other foot back. Forro, samba, who knows, but dancing . All this along the cobbled streets, through the ever increasing crowds. It was amazing. Africa meets Brazil , the perfect combination of raw beauty, and unfettered passion.

The smell of danger lurks in the air. So does the smell of urine. Men fix their eyes on your purses, bags, white faces. And it is very hard to go unnoticed.

Today we went down in the huge city lift, that takes you from the old town, to the new town and the market. Capoeira pants, Afro-Brazilian instruments, strings of coconut and gemstone necklaces, and tacky gifts made from the wings of poor defenseless butterflies are everywhere. We had fun attempting to play some of the instruments, and shopped till we quite literally dropped.

Back at the top, we visited the Museu Afro-Brasiliero, which told us (in Portuguese) all about the slave trade and the tribes that were brought to Brazil , and the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology-which had lots of pots. A little old man tried to translate for us, and I suddenly wished I had done an anthropology degree.