entle bays where turtles swim in turquoise seas. Dancing feet on cobbled streets... The images filled my thoughts. Carnival drums and carved saints came to mind. Crimson sunsets and freshly cracked coconuts brimming over with juice. If I’d rung up a travel agent and uttered those words I know where they’d have recommended: the Caribbean for two weeks. But I knew precisely where my tropical daydreams could be brought to life — Brazil. For a while in the Noughties, I lived in Brazil’s biggest city, São Paulo. It was friends there — friends who I keep to this day — who’d opened my eyes to the allure of the northeastern state, Bahia. ‘You have to see it,’ I remember them swooning. ‘It’s just like Jamaica or Barbados, but better.’ Of course I went — and not just the once. In Bahia, Africa was replanted in South America — under coconut palms and in sugarcane plantations cut from parrotfilled forests. Transported slaves were inevitably part of the story — and they held on fiercely to what traditions they could. The legacy for arrivals today? Spicy food, magical saints, street parties and irresistible music. I’ve holidayed in the Caribbean, and Bahia makes me think of what those islands might have been before the cruise ships and high-rise hotels arrived. Its state capital, Salvador — wow! Never mind Havana, this is the liveliest, most sultry colonial city in the Americas. The food’s unforgettable, the nightlife pulsating, and the white-sand beaches just a half-hour ferry-ride away on Itaparica island. It’s so good that, basically, I’ve never been able to tear myself away. So that’s where I’d be heading. But those friends again... Ringing me recently, they raved about Boipeba, a reef-fringed island south of Salvador, shrouded with forest, seemingly with more wild horses than people. ‘It puts Itaparica in the shade,’ they said. It stuck in my mind as I finalised my plans. Would Boipeba be the one to seduce me from Salvador’s embrace? Watching the sun sinking golden over Salvador from the balcony of my hotel room on my first breeze-cooled afternoon, I was already falling back under its spell. The houses of the Pelourinho, the old colonial centre, rolled down a hill below me in tumbledown terracotta and stippled steeples to a Tiffany-blue sea. Itaparica island floated on the horizon. A hummingbird flitted over a bougainvillea tree next to my window and music wafted up from the streets. As the day was ending in buttery yellow light, Salvador was waking up. It was Saturday night and soon it would be dark — time to let the sensuous, spontaneous city carry me away. Outside the hotel, Terreiro de Jesus Square was a swirl of movement. Afro-Brazilian women in huge bustle skirts and bright headscarves served steaming falafel-like acarajé snacks at lace-draped stalls. The air was sweet with the scent of chilli and shrimp, and danced with the melodious chatter of Brazilian Portuguese. I heard the rat-a-tat of a repinique samba drum echoing from one of the brightly painted houses set around the square, and in the distance, the Voodoo Chile wah-wah twang of a berimbau — the single-string guitar with a gourd for a sound board. I followed the notes along a narrow cobbled street into the thronging heart of the Pelourinho. Music was everywhere: a normal Salvador weekend entle bays where feels like Trinidad in carnival time. Brazilian reggae oozed from streetside bars, samba skipped across little praças. And somewhere I could hear that most Salvadorean of sounds — an afoxê orchestra warming up. Paul Simon called afoxê the ‘rhythm of the saints’ — a pounding, visceral beat that hits you below the waistline. It’s played by bands of drummers who parade through the streets with military precision and tribal swing. They energise the Pelourinho at weekends, calling the crowds with bass drums and clattering timbales, and pulling revellers behind them like Pied Pipers with percussion. First, a drink or two. At my favourite Salvador bar, Uauá, above a narrow street leading into the Pelourinho, I had a ringside seat. As my first Caipirinha arrived, an afoxê band came round the corner. By the second, I was jiggling in my seat, ready to dance. I could already hear the next wave coming. 44 worldtravellermagazine.com
BRAZIL Clockwise from top left: Sunset falls on La Rivera beach; traditional drummers bring the beat to the street; a colourful hut between coconut palm trees on Boipeba Island; capoeira played on the beach worldtravellermagazine.com 45
Change language