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Bon Carnaval!
After an eventless 11 hour bus ride we arrived in Salvador in the early hours of the morning, called our property agent and before we knew it were very settled. Due to the excessive prices carnaval attracts we found that it was actually cheaper to get our own apartment than stay in a hostel....given what we were to experience over the next 10 days this was a wise choice! Many locals choose to flee the madness and make a fair profit on a 10 day lease, which is the minimum you can rent for, and rent them out to the gringos!
Our home was a studio apartment in a block facing the Bay of All Saints. Initially, we thought we were lucky to be so close to the sea until our agent told us that 100, 000kw of volume would soon be bouncing around our walls due to the beach road being the parade route!
The weather on the first day was hot and overcast so we called it an admin day and the chance to get fully settled. We unpacked (simple pleasure) and made a shopping list before meeting the others at their apartment. We walked to the local Supermercado and decided that due to another newfound luxury, a cooker, a homecooked meal was in order......great lasagne and salad girls! Add the meal to the bottles of wine we purchased (not much around) and we were very content when we went to sleep that night. We also managed to wash a load of clothes....who knew homemaking could reap such pleasures?!
The following day, amidst the starting signs of Carnaval set-up and people asleep on the streets, we decided to check our email and head to the beach. It turned out to be perfect timing as while surfing we spotted our agent being handed a DHL package outside our internet cafe. Jackie´s new bankcards had arrived!!! (Many thanks to MA and PA Gates, our UK Administration Managers!) After the beach we went for a walk to get our bearings and noticed the many large trucks trundling past....surely they were delivery trucks!?
The next morning we quickly realised on leaving our apartment, that no, they were not delivery trucks with huge containers of speakers but, in fact, were the carnaval floats themselves with simply huge speakers on board. The thought of speakers the size of an upturned car, facing our apartment, and blaring out brazilian pop made us thankful for two things; earplugs and sleeping tablets!!! Fortunately, as the week went on we became used to it but the initial impact was sheer terror, although the "UMA, DUEZ, AH....AH, AH," sound tests started to grate on our nerves.
We thought Carnaval started on Friday, however as is the universal rule of partying, Thursday is the new Friday! Our agent told us of a free bloco (a bloco is a party that surrounds the trucks and is cordoned off by security and ropes. You have to pay to be part of a bloco and receive a team t-shirt as your entry card) on the proviso we dressed up. For the girls (and Jamie) this was the fun part; masks, glitter, sequins etc....for Mark this was necessary to have a beer, or was the beer necessary to get dressed up?! Either way he partook in both (see photos). Everyone was on great form and due to also meeting with a few of Jane´s friends (Mark, Jenny, Anita and Kate) it meant we had a fantastic party team. Cheap drinks, silly costumes and dancing on the street......welcome to Carnaval!
It turns out the people sleeping rough were in fact trying to stake their property claim as close to the route as possible as the world and its brother were all out selling drinks on the street and competition was fierce. One rather "dynamic" family had sent their eldest son, 12 years old, out with an ice box (esky!) right into the middle of the action with his two younger brothers, 8 and 5 years old, running back to mum and dad to keep stocks replenished. Jac wanted to adopt these poor kids until she realised they were having the time of their life dancing and playing....."you call this work?!"
The day of recovery started as all good hangovers do with a trip to the deli to buy bacon for sarnies and a strong brew! We decided to really push ourselves this day and went for a lie on the beach, such is life!
Porto de Barra, is a small little fishing cove with a beautiful beach and a deep, cool sea. Great for recharging batteries! Mark also reverted to being six years old (very easy transition) and spent a lot of time getting excited about the fish swimming around his ankles.
Friday night we had booked tickets to a Camarotè (many hotels and nightclubs have balcony views of the route and sell tickets to parties that allow you to watch the circuit). The all inclusive food and drinks (free poured vodka) plus the Ministry of Sound DJs, whilst dancing on the balcony, made this an unforgettable night. Not surprisingly, with the free poured vodka, some was forgotten!
Hangover number 2 proved to have a little more bite and the day´s agenda was as follows:
2pm - Wake up
3pm - Visit Supermercado
4pm - Quiet time
Rest of day - see 4pm!
That night we decided to go cheap and Jac cooked a meal with "what we had", unfortunately, this only stretched to; rice (gluggy), one red pepper, one onion, an egg and frozen veg. Due to Mark´s current gastric condition, which had plagued him for a few days, one mouthful was enough to send him running....not before saying "Jac, this is quite possibly the worst meal you have ever cooked!" (Mark - in my defense, Jac is normally a fantastic cook - no pun intended!)
Where is the culture we hear you call?! On Sunday we managed to find some. We grabbed a taxi to the historical centre, the Old Town, to see a different kind of bloco. The "Sons of Gandhi" bloco is an all-male event which involves dressing up in Gandhi-esque (lots of poetic licence) clothes and wearing many, many blue and white rosary beads. This traditionally is in honour of Gandhi and to celebrate his message of peace, however these days it seems more of an excuse to dress in a toga and spray very unique cologne into the air. Again, not sure of the relevance to Gandhi....for he was surely more of an "old spice" man! If you think this is random, it was!
We also paid a quick visit to the 16th century, Saó Francisco church, whose walls are adourned with gold statues and carvings. Simply beautiful! We shouldn´t ignore the fact that the church was built by African slaves and Salvador now has a population of up to 80% of people with African origin.
By Monday we felt the need to escape so took a local bus up the coast to explore and finally settled at Itacua beach. This is a very small local beach and due to the public holiday was full of kids having a whale of a time, but was nice to be amongst the families frolicking in the sun. We were approached by a street vendor, and after being promised English subitles, we purchased the new Will Smith movie 7 Pounds. It was time for a more low-key pizza and DVD night. No great surprise when no subtitles were available, however the pizza´s were great, and we were able to wash a load of clothes, so happy!
On Tuesday we recharged, psyched up, and all those other bustling clichés with a few hours on the beach and were ready for the biggest night; the close of Carnaval! We had purchased tickets (well sort of!) for the Skol (Brazilian premier lager) sponsored bloco, featuring among others, Pete Tong (baby boomer translation = world famous DJ´s, not mockney slang). We were very excited! This was the only bloco to feature non-brazilian pop music and unsurprisingly was full of Westerner´s/tourists (Australian´s and Israeli´s dominating, bizarre mix!). With our newly tailored team t-shirts and a few pre-drinks at Kate´s we headed down to the route at around 11pm. True to Sth American form the 10:30pm scheduled startactually kicked off at 12:15! Good job we had the system worked out already. The atmosphere was electric and after several hours we decided to opt out after feeling the crush of too many sweaty bodies. For those interested check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ZDhCpxFUA for a peek!
We slept soundly that night in the knowledge that the final bloco had left and our apartment would finally be quiet, only to be awoken at 9.30am by the closing ceremony. Man, these brazilians know how to party!
All in all, Carnaval was a great experience, and contrary to a list of pre-warnings, we never felt unsafe. The local stamina and enthusiasm was amazing to witness and be a part of. It seemed everyone we met couldn´t be friendlier. There is only one thing we won´t miss, the pungent smell of urine on certain streets after many men refused to use the provided portaloos! Salvador basically summed up our brief experience of Brazil; great fun to be had, friendly locals and as long as sensible precautions are taken you can´t go wrong.
Our last two days post-carnaval were spent lapping up the beach in the awareness that, due to our current plans, we wouldn´t see one for awhile, and discussing how it took 3 days to set-up and yet Carnaval was dismantled within one swift morning. We guess everyone wanted to go home!
We said goodbye to Kate and Jane, who are heading north to the Amazon and Jamie, who was off to chill on Morro de Saó Paulo. For us, it is HOLA to Argentina and back to Buenos Aires!
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