Nordeste Brasil - Salvador da Bahia

Salvador is a true gem. It is the African soul of Brasil, where the slaves and their descendants maintained their customs, religions, culture, food, and way of life more than anywhere else in the New World. A cascade of emotions washes through the streets, people and performances - from the joyous celebrations of life, to the anger and sadness unavoidable in a place central to the horror of slavery in the New World. In order to make their religions more acceptable to their owners, the slaves renamed their gods and goddesses with more Christian sounding saintly names. Today, there are two main Afro-Brasilian religions practised - Candomblé and Umbanda.

The historic centre is called the Pelourinho - literally, the whipping post where the slaves were displayed and sold. Today, the Pelo is a vibrant artsy tourist hotspot. Imagine well- preserved colonial buildings and churches, the ever present sounds of drums, constant parades on the streets showcasing different dance groups, and artists working in their studios open to the public.

Salvador is home to world-class dance and music performers. We attended an excellent performance called Balé Folclorico da Bahia where we sat enthralled by the grace and energy of the dancers as they did maculelé (a fast and aggressive dance to celebrate the sugarcane harvest, and to display aggression towards the slave owners) and and capoeira (a mock fighting-sparring dance that showcases the athleticism of the performers). The performance also included samba de roda and dances of the orixas (the Candomblé gods and goddesses). This dance performance is the highlight of my stay in Brasil. I highly recommend it!

The City sits in a stunning location on a beautiful bay with white sand. We spent an afternoon at the sculpture garden of the Museu de Arte Moderna. The pieces are all housed outdoors along a wooden deck facing the gorgeous ocean view. The Mercado Modelo is an artesan market where we purchased a capoeira tote bag, still high on the excitement from the previous day´s performance.

Another must-see is the Afro-Brasilian museum, a joint project between various governments in Africa and the Culture department of Brasil. Here are housed the splendid wooden murals of all the orixas by Carybé.

In Salvador is yet another gold church, Igreja do Sao Francisco, the opulence of which will open even the most gold-church-weary eyes. But really, this one is excellently maintained and looks as elegant as a church entirely done in gold (on the inside) and dead saints can.

In Salvador we could finally sample local vegetarian cuisine at Ramma, where they make fresh and innovative food from local Brasilian and Bahian ingredients - highly recommended (albeit expensive, so we only went once.) Also of note is the artisanal ice-cream shop - Le Glacier Laporte - which had flavours of local (even non-Amazonian) fruit and interesting others like a mixed-spice flavoured one which was surprisingly good. Lastly we would also like to recommend Bar Zulu which also had some great vegetarian options like Thai Curry and Alu Gobi, but we tried the Morrocan Lentil stew which held its own against anything we´ve eaten on the trip. The rest of our outside meals were cheap pizzas at a quiet corner bakery washed down with fresh pineapple juice.

And finally, a huge thanks and a big nod to the excellent hostel we stayed at, called Nega Maluca (which means crazy black woman). The staff goes above and beyond the call of duty towards their guests (for instance, when our flight out of Salvador was inexplicably cancelled, Nega staff dealt with the airline and got us on the very next flight out with no extra charge), the breakfasts are sumptuous (with eggs made fresh the way you want them), and the rooms excellent. There are many other nice touches such as the provision of tote bags for its guests to not have to use plastic at the market. Instead of going the regular dorm route, we treated ourselves to a suite with our own bathroom, kitchen and balcony (with hammocks!).