Welcome to Brazil-Salvador and Praia Do Forte

Hello hello hello.  It has been a while since my last post, but I am happy to say that from now on...since things be be constantly changing and I am alone (have more writing time)... I will be blogging again and more frequently.  I left Buenos Aires, and it was hard...but I knew I had to continue my journey.  I loved Buenos Aires so much, but it was getting cold and I was getting antsy.  I took a flight to the North of Brazil, and right now am staying in a city called Salvador.  It is, as Brazilians have told me, unlike any other place in Brazil.  It has a very distinct flavor and a very unique culture to the rest of Brazil.

It is a city of roughly 7 million and is literally set right on the beach.  It is beautiful and has a very tropical flavor to it.  It is known for its flavorful unique cuisine, made of seafood, spices, picante, and has very unique dishes that I will not even try to spell.  But it is fucking delicious.  It is a dominantly black population, as it had the highest importation of slaves back when the Portuguese first settled.  It was originally the capital of Brazil, and made money of Sugar...white gold.  But the city sort of died when other market spiked.  It is an amazing place and it has a reputation of being extremely laid back and everything sort of moves at its own slooooow, tranquilo pace, which is a good change from Buenos Aires.

It is a bit dangerous at night, but I don't let that interrupt my exploring, I just have been safe, but at night you are constantly bothered with aggressive beggars, and has a reputation for muggings and thievery.  Today when I was taking pictures with my nice camera, several police officers stopped me and told me to be careful.  During the day it is extremely safe, but as always...the night brings the danger.  Today I had a very relaxed day at the beach just soaking in the culture and observing the way of life here.  As a sociologist major, i find observing cultures very interesting and can entertain myself this way forever.  The water is beautiful, clear, about 70 degrees, and everybody runs to the beach after work around 2 or 3pm.

One cool thing that I never expected is that I can understand, and speak with the people in Brazil using Spanish and some broken Portuguese.  It really is not that different.  Alot of the words are the same, and I have been studying from a Portuguese book and have been able to get by.  After this amazing discovery I really am determined to become trilingual, perfecting Portuguese and Spanish.  It really is an amazing thing to be able to speak another language.  I had never experienced this before, because I was never in a place for so long.  I know I won't get Portuguese down, but I think I may move back to Brazil after Christmas, with hopes to get Portuguese down and work in Rio.  The economy is booming and it is just a very flavorful and beautiful culture.

Yesterday I went to a little and relaxing destination called Praia do forte.  It was very nice.  The bus drops you off at a cobblestone path and it takes about twenty minutes to walk down to a little town and then the beach.  It is famous for its turtle preserve.  I went to their museum and facility there, where I saw gigantic turtles and baby turtles.  They explained how they help the turtles to fertilize etc.  It was a beautiful day and finally I got in the water and rented a snorkel and did some of that.  It has been several years since I last was in a climate like this and I am truly in heaven.  I am so happy I came up here and have 20 days to work my way down the coast.  Although I would like to stay north because the further south you go, the more colder it gets.

But everything is amazon here.  I met a Brazilian my first day I arrived who spoke perfect English so that was a relief, and took away alot of my stress.  He left today, but I met two girls today, one from the Netherlands and another from Germany.  It really is an amazing thing to travel by yourself because you are forced to put yourself out there and meet people.  At the same time when you travel alone, you are in turn alone alot and you have to hang out with yourself and literally just be with you.  You learn and debate with yourself, you decide whether or not you like yourself, and it really is a treat.  Luckily I like myself (but not too much).  I can keep myself entertained and actually have a good time.  It is also important to keep moving because then you are always doing something.  For instance I like it here, but I am leaving Saturday morning to go 6 hours inland to a jungle sort of place with waterfalls, underwater caves, hiking, rivers.  But luckily two days ago in Praia Do Forte I met two girls from California and will be meeting up with them there.  So things tend to work out.  And even if I don't meet people, it is really a growing opportunity when  you have so much time alone, and you make yourself try and communicate with vendors, hotel staff, locals, waiters...and through this you get a flavor of the place you are in.  All in all things are really good and I love it here.  After Lencois (the inland jungle adventure), I am heading to Morro Do Sao Paulo, a small island where I'll surf, dive, and just literally hang out on the beach.  After that I am heading to a famous Surf beach called Itacare.  And just keep working south.