Day One

We arrived in Brazil more than a little disoriented—after a day’s delay and a slight sun singe from our ‘make the best of it’ party on Miami Beach, we were ready for a shower and a nap, and were too dirty and tired to say in what order. So of course we ended up realizing much too late (as in, after our shuttle driver had already arrived) that we didn’t have the cash we needed to pay him AND we had never told the bank we were leaving the country. So the ATM machine rejected us and we planned on fixing this at the hotel—the driver, of course, didn’t speak any English, and Portuguese is not really actually just Spanish with a slur, so communication was impossible.

Then he ended up bringing us to the wrong hotel (there are two Pestana chain hotels in Salvador) and was frustrated and annoyed—not with us, he seemed to understand the error was not ours, but still we felt bad. Thankfully he got a translator to explain the mistake to us, and we had the chance to tell her our fare predicament and she took a credit card for us--one crisis averted. FINALLY we arrived at Convento do Carmo, a seventeenth century convent renovated into this beautiful, beautiful hotel. We are very convinced it is haunted. How could it not be?! The floors are wide, worn wood boards and I like to hum nun music in the halls with their high, high ceilings and incredible acoustics. And by 'nun music,' I mean the melodies I remember Maria's cohorts singing while at prayer in 'The Sound of Music'.

We took a one three hour nap (the AC was too high on the plane last night for decent sleep) and got cleaned up before heading out to explore (and find Matt some coffee). Such an incredible city! Cats are everywhere—at the coffee shop across the street from our hotel, a cat was napping lazily right on the dining table where a man was eating and having coffee. Another cat lounged on the floor, tableside. Delightful. We found several other very friendly and adorable cats as we walked around the neighborhood, most more than willing to talk and settle in for a petting. Good thing, because we needed to catch our breath, with the uneven stone roads winding up and down hills, the gorgeous array of rainbow painted row houses and shops and all of the fantastic people watching. Green coconuts, produce vendors greeting us with a good natured "Hello, my friend! How are you?!," beautiful women dressed in traditional 'baianas' (Google it!), lots of Brazilian tourists--not at all the threatening atmosphere we were warned about. It didn’t take us long at all to feel comfortable slipping into the pulse of the city and by night’s end we were samba-ing with a drum crew down those same winding alleys. (So fun!)

Tuesdays are apparently party night here in Salvador (dating back to an old tradition in which the Church handed out alms after Tuesday evening mass), so it was awesome to get to hear lots of live music and see amazing drumming and dancing. And Brazil is by the looks of it pretty equally African, native and white in terms of racial descent mixture--plenty of people a mix of two or all three of those. And racial divides, though I'm sure they exist,are not immediately evident--on a night like tonight, everyone was dancing and drinking and listening to music all together, and groups of friends seemed not to be harshly divided by racial lines. Of course this was striking to us, and hopeful to see.

Dinner was surprisingly easy—though we were disappointed to find the Happy Cow recommended veg-friendly restaurant closed, the neighboring restaurant had some vegetarian options as well, so we had a really nice salad, bread and pasta dinner—pasta had a really good tomato sauce (not spaghetti sauce, but thinner and more savory…hard to describe) with mushrooms and peppers. Delish! The weather here is perfection, so of course we opted to sit outside. A black kitten came wandering into the square and jumped into Matt’s lap the second he called it over. She spent the course of the entire meal napping happily snuggled up to him as we both petted and loved all over her. As it got darker we heard the drum groups and singing starting up from all around the neighborhood, and a smattering of fireworks at one point.

We bought a few souvenirs on the walk back to the hotel after dinner, and came back to our room to leave them and have a drink at the completely empty and very luxe hotel bar. We chose 'caipirinhas,' the "national cocktail" of Brazil--it's kind of a cross between a mojito and a margarita. Tons of lime, and totally delicious! We went to dip our feet in the (also empty) pool and the bartender brought us roasted cashews to snack on...after a few minutes we got up and spread out on a big double lounger and took in the few stars we could see in the light of the full moon, and complete with the garden ambience of the pool/bar area, it was total bliss. Then it was back into the madness, which was by then in full swing and very fun to watch and join in, but tired us pretty quickly, so here we are, now lounging in our comfy bed with computers.

Oh, and one last anecdote--before dinner we stopped in at an electronics shop to buy a power adapter--the guy in the shop spoke very little English but was very excited that we were from the states (we have not noticed any other Americans here so far), and was SUPER excited to see the last name 'Smith' on Matt's credit card--he ran to get his own and pointed out that one of his last names was also Smith! He could not seem to believe it! "We are cousins!" he exclaimed joyfully. "My brother!" Apparently there are not many Smiths here in Brazil. We didn't have the heart to tell him that "Smith" is the #1 last name in the USA...

I’m very tired and want to fight the jet lag and head to bed now, but hopefully tomorrow’s digest will be more densely detailed and I can find words other than “awesome” and “beautiful” to describe the experience. 

Love,

Mandy and Matt (Smith)