SALVADOR, BRAZIL
We arrived in this colonial port city this morning. Salvador was founded in 1549 and at one time was the capital of Brazil. I didn’t know that this area ones was revered to as new holland when it was under dutch rule from 1630-1654. We, ourselfs and another couple we met on the ship ventured off on foot to check out the City. The old city was on top of the hill. In order to get to the top, you had to use an elevator to get you up there. The elevator holds up to 100 people at a time. The city on top of the hill was very ancient, cobble stone streets and very old buildings, some in disrepair. There were still left overs from the previous carnaval. crews were cleaning up barricades and music stages. There was still the odd person laying in the shade against buildings and under trees sleeping off the leftovers from 4 days partying. Again it was a very warm day. There was a lot of police everywhere. They warned us on the ship again to not wear any jewelry, including watches and rings. We also had to be aware of pickpocketers. According to the the girls a group of young men were in the process of swarming Mark and I. After the girls yelled at us they took off. It’s hard to believe they were targeting us, as were definitely not the smallest guys out there on the street. We visited one of the churches, it was from 1708. The inside of the church was covered in old paintings and gold plated images of biblical figures. We stopped for lunch in a very nice local cafe on the old town square. After lunch we made our way back down the elevator. We were all done with walking for the day. Not bad, close to 10,000 steps in this heat. The rest of the afternoon we spend around the pool deck. we set sail around 4:30 PM for a sea day tomorrow.
Cheers
“South America” “Salvador” ” HAL Volendam”
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