World Traveller November 2019

entle bays
where turtles
swim in
turquoise seas.
Dancing feet
on cobbled
streets... The
images filled my
thoughts. Carnival drums and carved saints
came to mind. Crimson sunsets and freshly
cracked coconuts brimming over with juice.
If I’d rung up a travel agent and uttered
those words I know where they’d have
recommended: the Caribbean for two weeks.
But I knew precisely where my tropical
daydreams could be brought to life — Brazil.
For a while in the Noughties, I lived
in Brazil’s biggest city, São Paulo. It was
friends there — friends who I keep to this
day — who’d opened my eyes to the allure
of the northeastern state, Bahia. ‘You have
to see it,’ I remember them swooning. ‘It’s
just like Jamaica or Barbados, but better.’
Of course I went — and not just the once.
In Bahia, Africa was replanted in South
America — under coconut palms and in
sugarcane plantations cut from parrotfilled
forests. Transported slaves were
inevitably part of the story — and they held
on fiercely to what traditions they could.
The legacy for arrivals today? Spicy food,
magical saints, street parties and irresistible
music. I’ve holidayed in the Caribbean,
and Bahia makes me think of what those
islands might have been before the cruise
ships and high-rise hotels arrived.
Its state capital, Salvador — wow!
Never mind Havana, this is the liveliest,
most sultry colonial city in the Americas.
The food’s unforgettable, the nightlife
pulsating, and the white-sand beaches just
a half-hour ferry-ride away on Itaparica
island. It’s so good that, basically, I’ve
never been able to tear myself away.
So that’s where I’d be heading. But those
friends again... Ringing me recently, they
raved about Boipeba, a reef-fringed island
south of Salvador, shrouded with forest,
seemingly with more wild horses than
people. ‘It puts Itaparica in the shade,’ they
said. It stuck in my mind as I finalised
my plans. Would Boipeba be the one to
seduce me from Salvador’s embrace?
Watching the sun sinking golden over
Salvador from the balcony of my hotel room
on my first breeze-cooled afternoon, I was
already falling back under its spell. The
houses of the Pelourinho, the old colonial
centre, rolled down a hill below me in
tumbledown terracotta and stippled steeples
to a Tiffany-blue sea. Itaparica island floated
on the horizon. A hummingbird flitted over
a bougainvillea tree next to my window and
music wafted up from the streets. As the day
was ending in buttery yellow light, Salvador
was waking up. It was Saturday night and
soon it would be dark — time to let the
sensuous, spontaneous city carry me away.
Outside the hotel, Terreiro de Jesus Square
was a swirl of movement. Afro-Brazilian
women in huge bustle skirts and bright
headscarves served steaming falafel-like
acarajé snacks at lace-draped stalls. The
air was sweet with the scent of chilli and
shrimp, and danced with the melodious
chatter of Brazilian Portuguese. I heard
the rat-a-tat of a repinique samba drum
echoing from one of the brightly painted
houses set around the square, and in the
distance, the Voodoo Chile wah-wah twang
of a berimbau — the single-string guitar
with a gourd for a sound board. I followed
the notes along a narrow cobbled street into
the thronging heart of the Pelourinho.
Music was everywhere: a normal
Salvador weekend entle bays where feels
like Trinidad in carnival time. Brazilian
reggae oozed from streetside bars, samba
skipped across little praças. And somewhere
I could hear that most Salvadorean of
sounds — an afoxê orchestra warming
up. Paul Simon called afoxê the ‘rhythm
of the saints’ — a pounding, visceral
beat that hits you below the waistline.
It’s played by bands of drummers who
parade through the streets with military
precision and tribal swing. They energise
the Pelourinho at weekends, calling the
crowds with bass drums and clattering
timbales, and pulling revellers behind
them like Pied Pipers with percussion.
First, a drink or two. At my favourite
Salvador bar, Uauá, above a narrow street
leading into the Pelourinho, I had a ringside
seat. As my first Caipirinha arrived, an afoxê
band came round the corner. By the second,
I was jiggling in my seat, ready to dance. I
could already hear the next wave coming.
44 worldtravellermagazine.com