Brazilian Time - Salvador, Brazil

After 5 long sea days the question still remained: Are crew going to be allowed off in Brazil? Brazil is infamous for not letting crew off in their country and even though I had already got a Brazilian Tourist visa, I was told they can still keep me on the ship.

In the morning, a sheet of paper was sent under my door reading: “ Happy to announce all crew nationalities are allowed to go ashore today in Salvador. Please stand by for Santos and Rio de Janeiro clearance, as the requirement might change from one port to the other.” Excited, I hopped in the shower and after, I messaged a friend of mine who happened to be in Salvador at the same time to meet up. He gave me a location that was a little vague but I figured I could talk to the locals to get directions.

I grabbed my stuff and got off the ship and into the terminal. There was a few tourist information booths so I figured I’d ask about directions. The first booth I showed the lady working the booth my instructions on my phone; but she replied in Portuguese something along the lines of “uh, use the other booth” so I walked over to the next booth. I showed the gentleman working at the next booth my phone instructions and in great english he gave me a map and told me how to get there. I had to take a large public elevator and walk down a few streets and I’d be there.

So off I went on foot. Immediately after leaving the terminal, I was bombarded with locals try to sell me fruit, hats or water bottles. After giving some of my classic Pop Warner football jukes, I was able to break free. I walked down the street which was dirty and broken. I kept my hand on my camera bag very close. This seemed like an area that some one would cut the strap of my bag and runaway with it. I had to keep my head on a swivel if I wanted to make it out of this. Along the way I realized that taking my camera was probably a bad idea. Taking it out would only make me a target for theft. So the photos I did secretly take, I used my phone for which I thought was marginally better.

I eventually bumped into the ship's drummer Ric who was wandering the streets by himself. I invited him to come along as my friend was also a drummer and they could have some things to talk about. We made it to the elevator which takes you up the cliff and into Pelourinho which is the tourist area. Once we got off the elevator we were bombarded again with locals trying to sell you things or give you “gifts” which later they ask for money for. We raced by them and made it to the streets. I took out my map to navigate our position. I had an idea of where we were but I wanted to make sure so I asked one of the military personnel who was on every street corner. I told them the name of the church and they pointed in the direction and gave me a few words in Portuguese that I assumed meant “over there”. I walked over and made it to what called Jesus Square.

There we saw the Church Sao Francisco which was the location that my friend told me to meet him. There we looked around and finally decided to sit and wait for him at one of the outside Cafes. I looked at my phone and saw a message from Mike that said lets bump it to 11:30am instead of 11:15. I looked at the time on my phone and it said 11:20am. Rick and I walked around and killed some time before sitting down for a cold drink while we waited for Mike. 11:30am came and went and so did 11:45. By 11:50 we were wondering where he was. Were we in the right place? Was he running behind? Did we just flat out miss him? We then were trying to decide if we should start walking around and see some of the town when I finally saw him walking up.

I waved him down and shook his hand. I introduced him to Ric and we started walking. It turns out that Mike is here playing in one of the Samba Schools and has been here for two weeks. As we walked he gave us some history of the town and history of the musical importance of Salvador. The pothole filled cobbled streets had been decorated for carnival and they were filled with locals decorating, setting up stages and even some rehearsing for the great celebration. We eventually got to a part of the town where it looked like the locals were about to play. We sat on the curb and chatted and waited. Mike and I caught up and talked more about the music. We sat on that curb about 15min and decided that these guys weren't going to start anytime soon. Mike explained that people here on “Brazilian Time”, which meant nothing goes as scheduled and everything runs behind. We got up and walked down the street some more.

At one point while we were walking, Mike bumped into someone he knew. He introduced himself as Kurt and Mike explained that he was a UCLA professor and  also an author on a few books about music/samba schools in Salvador. So in other words, the dude was an expert on the music of this area. They chatted and I chimed in with an occasional joke. They swapped Samba stories and Kurt told a story of how he was waiting around for the march to begin (again with the Brazilian time), and when they were about to finally march, he noticed his shoes were untied. He bent down to tie them and the leader I guess shouted at him and gave him every bad 4 letter word in the book. Now he wears sandals.

We left Kurt and went to a little restaurant where we could have lunch. It was a cafeteria style where you take a plate and put whatever you want on and they weigh the plate and you pay after. I grabbed some rice, chicken, friend plantains, sliced guava, mango and papaya and a cup of Guava juice and took a seat. The food was nice, especially the fruit, It was cold and fresh. While we ate, Ric and I told Mike about cruise ship life and all the wild stories we had.

After lunch, Mike had to get back to where he was staying which was out in the Favelas which is basically the ghetto. We thanked him for coming out to meet us and showing us around. We left him and Ric wanted to find Wifi somewhere. We wander the streets for about 20min with no success. We decided then to head back to the ship and call it a day.

My first time in Brazil was an interesting one. Not the safest I’ve ever felt in a port but it had a lot of culture behind the old buildings. I wish I had the time to stay in the evening but thats ship life for ya. My friend Mike really helped us and showed us thing we normally would have never found. He proved to be a good host. I hope to have an even better tim in Rio de Janeiro which we dock in 4 days! We’ll see what happens then…     -DB