Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [132]
Pelourinho brims with boutiques these days, like all tourist areas. Since this is our last stop on the trip, and we don’t have to haul our bags anywhere except home, we’re ready to load up on Christmas and other gifts. The fetching Mariana at Planet Bahia obliges us eagerly, getting us to try on almost everything in the shop over the course of several visits. She lived briefly in Los Angeles with her aunt and speaks English well, a rarity in Salvador. When she mentions once that she spends her days off at the beach, Bill asks which of the dozen possibilities she prefers. Mariana says, “Usually Flamengo, all my friends agree it’s the best,” which sounds like a solid recommendation to us. She finally sells us a bunch of colorful hair doodads for our daughter and granddaughters as well as a bright beaded necklace and earrings for Cheryl. Elsewhere in Pelourinho, we also pick up local music CDs, an Olodum T-shirt, jars of malagueta chiles, and some gemstone jewelry, mostly for presents.
A large crafts bazaar in the nearby Comércio district, the Mercado Modelo, offers little of interest to us, but farther along the shore to the north, the Feira de São Joaquim proves livelier and more remarkable. Almost a miniature city, it encompasses an earthy food market, stalls with kitchenware and baskets, shops selling a range of local merchandise, and snuggled behind it all, some shanty-town living quarters that make us wince. Our cabdriver, Wellington—who speaks no English but starts calling Cheryl “Hillary” after learning Bill’s name—insists on escorting us for security purposes. He takes us past stands packed with produce, including greens, okra, manioc and other knobby tubers, malagueta and Scotch bonnet chiles, sugarcane, and cashew fruits, which look like voluptuous calico bell peppers with a curved, green-brown nut on top. Butchers cut meat for customers, vendors hawk dried and fresh shrimp by the bushel, and a live frog the size of a guinea pig croaks at shoppers from a cage. A man brushes by us on the way to his car with a bellowing goat, feet tied together, in a sack slung over his shoulder.
Continuing north on the same taxi trip, we visit the Nosso Senhor do Bonfim church, a beloved eighteenth-century sanctuary associated with miracles. Outside, vendors sell us fitas, good-luck ribbons in a variety of colors that we tie around our wrists in the traditional fashion. Making our way inside through crowds of the faithful, we go to a back room where people seeking cures and giving thanks for them leave testaments in the form of photos and replicas of afflicted body parts.
From the divine to the worldly, after a few days of sightseeing and shopping we’re ready for some beach time. Barra beach, actually, has been omnipresent since our arrival, greeting us enthusiastically every time we step out on our hotel balconies. Tanners and swimmers congregate down the shore from us, while sporting types gather directly below our perches. Surfers, often in droves, ride the waves, and joggers dodge pedestrians on the sidewalk and cars on the street. From early morning until night, football teams compete constantly in the game Americans call soccer, always keeping the ball in play even when it bounds far into the sea. On occasion, it’s just a few guys and gals, using goalposts made of sticks, but now and then, full squads show up with regulation equipment, uniforms, and referees.
On our first weekend morning, trombones wake us at 7:15, when a festive parade passes along the beachfront. A jazz band leads the procession, followed by a truck loaded with beer, coconuts, and people blasting fireworks over the water. Bringing up the rear, a woman wearing a fancy headdress and sash guides scores of celebrants in identical white T-shirts toward a sandy destination somewhere ahead. Figuring the ruckus roused even the late-rising Mary, Cheryl calls their room to say, “Let’s