Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [130]
Without wasting any more time, we’re off to Pelourinho, the historic center of town a few miles away. Our original plan called for us to be in the old city well before sunset, to get our bearings in daylight. This is Tuesday, the prime day of the week for local bands to perform on outdoor stages all around Pelourinho, and it’s also the first Tuesday of the month, a major payday and party day in Salvador. Our advance reading suggests the area is going to get crowded and boisterous, but what we find still bowls us over.
Our cab drops us at Praça da Sé, a plaza one block from the main square, Terreiro de Jesus. Right in front of us, as we shut the car doors, a large children’s chorus is singing Christmas carols in Portuguese. Most of the kids stand on an elevated stage, but some range farther afield, including in the windows of an adjoining colonial building. Massive speakers—they like the volume high in Salvador—boom the music to an appreciative, packed audience occupying every square inch of available space. The carols enchant us, especially “Silent Night,” though it seems curious to us at first that “silent” translates as feliz (happy or merry). Later in the week, we realize that the English word would have a negative connotation here; in a city so full of music, a silent night would seem dreary.
Just beyond the choir, in the midst of a swarm of people, Santa sits in a pretty, tinsel-covered, one-room house, taking requests from a long line of admiring youngsters. A dozen teenage elfettes, cloaked in red satin and faux ermine, assist Santa, as do a red-shirted security guard, three hunky shepherds with crooks, and several young women in Christmas tree and star outfits. Mary comments, “This is like going through Disney’s ‘It’s a Small World’ in a speedboat.”
After the cheerful overture with the children, we plunge into bigger adult crowds on Terreiro de Jesus. At food and drink stands lining three sides of the square and spilling into the streets, Baianas preside regally, attired in traditional white, with billowing skirts, puffy-sleeved lacy blouses, and blossomy turbans. A bandstand occupies the fourth flank, facing the cathedral. A few people watch the group playing now, but most cluster with friends, talking, laughing, gesturing.
On the dark fringes of the plaza, two young men dance acrobatically, not so much with each other as at each other. Bill recognizes the thrusting, fading, fluid movements as capoeira, a martial art that slaves brought from Africa and refined in Brazil, particularly in Bahia. Slave owners distrusted the skill, as you might expect, and eventually got capoeira banned, but it continued to flourish underground. Though it has spread around the globe now, Salvador remains the center for the teaching and practice of the ritualized craft. Performers pop up regularly around the city, always attracting a circle of fans.
The horde of revelers and the maelstrom of activity quickly disorient us. Without a map, and no streetlights to guide us beyond the busy square, we have no sense of where we are in relation to anything else in Pelourinho. Music reverberates dimly in the distance, but not clearly enough to follow the sound. Dodging and weaving our way through the throngs, the four of us wander aimlessly for a while before deciding to retreat inside for drinks and dinner at Axego, a second-story restaurant right off the plaza.
According to a story Bill came across on a good Salvador Web site (www.bahia-online.net), Manoel dos Santos Pereira founded Axego accidentally. He liked to cook on weekends for friends at his rustic summer home, which had a large terrace great for alfresco dining. One day a French guest at the nearby Club Med saw this happening, assumed the place was a lively restaurant, sat down, and ordered the dish of the day. Manoel served him happily, but when Monsieur asked for the check, the host tried to explain the situation, saying the meal was a gift. Probably