Bad Case of Wanderlust (My Trip Around the World): Salvador, Days 4-5 (Jan 16-17th)

The next day was as blisteringly hot as those prior, and since I had gotten a bit of sunburn in Praia, despite regular and vigorous applications of sunblock, I chose to spend the day in the hostel's front room where I could enjoy the sun without actually being in it.

While I lounged on the red sofa, reading and writing, another hostel guest joined me, and pointed out that we knew each other.

After squinting at him for a moment, I realized that he was one of the Manchester guys with whom I had spent New Year's Eve! He reminded me that his name was Ben and told me that the rest of his group had returned to England, while he had chosen to travel for another few months. Shortly, we were joined by Stefan, my roomie with whom Ben had hung out the night prior, and the three of us decided to stroll down to Praca de Se...

... where the Laredo elevator provides access to the lower half of the city..

... and views of the bay below.

After grabbing some graviola and acai-flavored ice cream from a local shop, we caught the sunset at the restaurant I had tried to return to the previous night.

The boys conceded that both the carne de sol and the views relieved them of the doubts they had had upon entering the admittedly dingy-looking bistro.

After dinner, we had a few drinks with Marcus (on the right) back at the hostel bar, and I fell asleep around midnight yet again.

I started the next day with some yoga and exercises in my dorm room and then vegged out with Ben on the hostel porch yet again. As the midday sun abated, we ventured out into the city and checked out the Afro-Brazilian museum, which featured some stunning wood carvings.

I also loved the metal depictions of the peaceful African tribal deity who resembles the Judeo-Christian devil. Different strokes, different folks.

We returned to the hostel to pick up Stefan for dinner. Upon seeing me with makeup on, Stefan, ever the blunt German, cracked me up by asking, "Who are you?" The three of us ate an overpriced and rather unsatisfying meal at an Italian place Marcus had recommended, further cementing my preference for sticking to local cuisine when traveling. They even tried to serve red wine cold! Granted, such is often the practice in Brazil, but they claimed to be a real Italian place! Fortunately, they had great sangria. ;)

The service had been so slow, that we had to scramble to finish in time to get back to the hostel in time for the party in the Pelourinho, which occurs every Tuesday and is oddly the biggest party of the week in Salvador.

Fortunately for us, it all starts with a concert on the steps outside our hostel, so we were able to climb through the window onto the side balcony for the best seats in the house (or outside of it, in this case). That's Ben and Stefan on the balcony on the left.

As we drank and danced above the party, we would wave and shout to the revelers below. I spotted Sue and Max in the crowd and flagged them down.

The crowd was massive and spread across not only the staircase but the street in front of the hostel as well. The popular local band, Geronimo, captivated the crowd and brought on some amusing special guests, including some very flexible drag queen dancers and a corpulent girl with an impressive ability to shake essentially every inch of her body at once.

After the concert ended, the party moved up to the streets above the Pelourinho. We all put away our cameras in case of theft, grabbed beers from the hostel bar, and moved on with the horde. Sue and Max and a group of French travelers staying at Cobreu came with us, and we spent a good hour partying on the cobblestones and drinking libations from the street vendors.

After an hour or so, most of us entered Sankofa for some salsa and samba. I spun from partner to partner, learning a few new steps from each, but mostly just enjoying the hell out of the dance. By 3am, I was drenched with sweat. I went to check on Ben, who had been sitting along the all chatting with our Chilean friend, but he had left. I decided to leave the club as well, but just outside the doors, I found the street party still going strong.

I rejoined Max and Sue, who had barely moved an inch since I'd last sent them, and as I stood chatting with them, someone approached me from behind and placed his hands over my eyes. I reacted calmly at first, thinking one of my hostel mates must have a juvenile sense of humor and asking who the hands belonged to. In answer, he began to lick and kiss the side of my face while keeping his hands firmly clamped over my eyes. I began to yell and slap at his hands, but only after Max pushed him away did the aggressor release me. I spun around to find a Brazilian guy I had met through a friend five minutes before entering the club. When we had first met, he had been very forward, but I had thought I had made my lack of interest clear. Apparently not. I yelled at him, in the best Portuguese I could manage, for essentially molesting me but at the very least for not releasing me when I asked him to. From the look on his face, you would have thought that I had been the one to cause offense. He simply could not believe that his advances were unwelcome and that any girl would react so angrily to being licked by a virtual stranger. I asked Max and Sue to walk me back to the hostel, and they obliged.

Upon my return, I checked with the front desk to make sure that Ben had made it back safely and headed to the front room, where I chatted with one of the French guys. As we sat talking, Stefan wandered in, half asleep and rather tipsy and extremely entertaining. I laughed heartily as his talk turned to rambling then to little more than the vocalization of his stream of consciousness. After a while, I left him and the Frenchman and hit the sack.

So despite a rather wet bit of effrontery, that Tuesday certainly ranks as one of the most epic and enjoyable of my trip.