Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [131]
The menu—only in Portuguese, as is common in the city—offers Bahian specialties mainly, along with a smattering of other popular Brazilian dishes. In need of a calming elixir, we order a round of caipirinhas and some pão de queijo for nibbling. Then each of us gets an appetizer course of casquinha di siri, deviled sea crab served in a ceramic, shell-shaped dish with molho de pimenta, a hot sauce made in this case with bits of fresh red chile, onion, and tomato in a vinegar base. For an entrée, two large plates of pan-fried whole local sea bass amply satisfy our gang.
Since we arrived, a band has been playing somewhere below the restaurant’s back windows, but about the time the fish comes, a new group takes the stage and kicks up the beat substantially. The music now rocks the restaurant, sending us and the other guests into motion, tapping toes, beating fingers, shaking heads. Although we don’t know it yet, it’s the first of our several encounters with the amazing Olodum, which electrifies the Salvador Carnival parade each year with two hundred drummers, a number of singers, and thousands of dancers.
After leaving Axego, we head back to the bandstand on the main square, where an exceptionally energetic group is now performing to an enthralled audience. Three young female singers and dancers lead the ensemble, belting out lyrics while shimmying and pumping their pelvises, hips, arms, shoulders, and heads with such fervent abandon that you wonder how their bodies stay intact. Jan quietly says, “I’ve never seen anything more erotic in my life.” Bill stands agape, speechless. Our more restrained trio of ladies drags him to a nearby taxi and deposits him in the front passenger seat, alone with his reveries.
Our driver promptly jerks us all back to reality. He does the 0 to 60 routine in less time than it takes to grab a breath—without bothering to turn on the headlights, which he uses only occasionally later on the darkest streets we encounter. Red lights slow our suicidal momentum two or three times, though the driver ignores at least a dozen other stop signals, sometimes braking briefly for a glance in other directions but usually just zooming through intersections without heed. He gets us back to the hotel in one-third of the normal time, in direct but inverse correlation with the surge in our heart rates.
Over the next few days we settle in and sort out the pieces of our first-night experience. Gradually, we get to know every cobblestone street and many of the hidden courtyards of Pelourinho, learn that everyone disregards some red lights when they feel it’s safe to do so, and immerse ourselves in local food and music, both intricately tied to religion in this city. Eventually it dawns on us that Salvador is far and away the most exuberant city any of us has ever visited and that’s why it felt a bit overwhelming initially. Life gets seriously heady here.
Jumping in like most tourists, we start with the two primary attractions for visitors, the sights of historic Salvador and the lively beaches. Everyone goes early in a stay to Pelourinho, the core of the colonial city during its glory days and now a UNESCO-designated World Heritage site. Dignified though rather stern colonial structures surround the Terreiro de Jesus, including the seventeenth-century cathedral, a couple of smaller baroque churches, and a former school of medicine that now houses the Afro-Brazilian Museum.
Opposite the cathedral, a wide street leads to the Igreja de São Francisco (Church of St. Francis, the patron saint of the city). In the week we’re here, the avenue in front of the church slowly takes on a festive Christmas air, complete with an oversized Nativity scene and a giant effigy of a well-tanned Santa with cornrows in his white hair. The church itself, built in high baroque style between 1708 and 1723, echoes the grandness of scale in a more solemn way. The sugar