Exploring
Salvador, Bahia
The American Discovery of Coffee
Now onto my first adventure – preciso de un cafezinho! (“I need a coffee.”)
I’m at the “famous” Tempera da Dada, just ordered coffee, and the
house special "bobo de camarão."
The streets are so colorful, the people nice, non-threatening. In the
shade it’s around 75 degrees, just my speed. Ah, the coffee comes like
a double espresso. Tempero da Dada is on a bustling road closed off to
auto traffic. I notice I can understand most of the Portuguese better than
expected; perhaps it’s Cariocas [from Rio] I have trouble with I passed
a scantily
clad
mulatta with hairy thighs and tummy and could only smile at the freedom.
People take their sandals off while eating. The bobo was a disappointment.
It tasted merely like shrimp in a thick cream sauce. If that was a yam
sauce, I couldn’t tell. It was served with white rice. I guess most people
share it, but experiment over. Ironically the coffee was only .50 and was
the best part of the meal! Even so, one must supplement caffeine intake
at another establishment. In a land of curly and kinky hair I realize how
my stringy hair is an anomaly.
I wandered shooting photos as the light got richer. At Cafelier,
my second cafezinho of the day arrived to my white marble table. I use
sugar just because it’s a local product. And now I sit, the only customer,
in a 5 table café with slatted wooden chairs and brick floors, as
white clad Afro-Brasilians dance uphill.
Visiting Itaparica Island
Down the 5 cent Elevador Lacerda [a vertical elevator that transports
people to the lower part of the city] to catch the bus to the ferry port.
After a stop at the very tourist market, I secured the long awaited cashews.
Near the terminal, I found the very non-tourist produce market of Sao Joaquim.
I fruitlessly haggled for light blue zorries, ending up at $2.50. Wondering
if you can get airborne diseases from meat, I held my breath for long
stretches. An old man carrying a live chicken wrapped in newspaper: “All
your candomble [voodoo] supplies here.” Avoiding smoky dark alleys canopied.
No tourists but me, and even very few locals.
I’m in the waiting room for the “conventional ferry” to Itaparica, an
island nearby. No one can understand when I try to say the name. I make
an effort to smile at everyone I interact with since I think they like
it. Now on the ferry eating dark brown crunchy cashews (lunch), staring
at a steel rail, wanting to see the view but too comfortable in my metal
pew chair. Maybe Portuguese is easier to understand since as the easy going
north they speak more slowly, like in the U.S. south.
It’s really beautiful here and relatively clean in the tourist areas,
pockets of stale urine not withstanding. I really wanted to take a picture
of a "urination not permitted” sign at a bus stop with people filled benches
but I thought they might get annoyed.
On Itaparica: I have a coffee headache, surrounded by mosquitoes,
hoping my tummy downfall doesn’t come from this coffee, lukewarm, questionable
if the water was actually boiled. I couldn’t believe they don’t have agua
mineral right now at this little iffy café/restaurant where I rest.
The island is depressing, as it’s a weekday in the off seasons. However
it’s the closest I have gotten to a beach. The owner, hangdog look and
snaggleteeth, is amazed I don’t need sweetener for my coffee. I think he
thinks I might be writing a review (ha ha). As far as I can tell, it’s
called Pizzaria. A “Kombi youth,” who works on the minibus lines, walked
me here, saying there are 22 types of mangoes, and the island is famous
for them. There are 22 schools as well for the 35,000 person population.
The very granular sugar is caked around the insides of the bowl, from humidity.
This morning the hotel’s big tempting honey jar had black specs and an
ant floating in it. Their standards are different, evidently. The Kombi
boy, probably in his early 20s, sweetly brought 3 shells and a tropical
yellow flower to me.
Snaggletooth didn’t charge for the coffee – and I am currently obsessed
by the idea that it could be he used tap water and knows it’s going to
make me sick. The tour kid didn’t ask for anything in return for walking
me around – how refreshing. I guess it’s fights the boredom. For some reason 
they’ve
placed me in a VW van they are now cleaning. I hope there are other people
at the beach, or I might not want to stay for fear of ladrões.
I’d been sitting on a log when a Brazilian dude sipping a drink came
up to invite me down the beach . I got my point across when I sat with
the Italian couple he introduced me too; no one I wanted to get my
groove back with. They’d brought a supply of pens and pencils for the island
schoolchildren, as they cost about $5 each on the island. Herds of young
men played futebol on the beach until sundown. I ate another of my dwindling
supply of protein bars, and it immediately lifted my mood – possibly since
I knew it had been hermetically sealed and I wouldn’t be dying from it.
I find travelling alone much more stressful. I guess all decisions are
made on your own, not after tossing ideas around. You always have to be
on your guard. Never a second person’s eyes or intuition to assist.
Night in Salvador
Wow,
I’m in the coolest café, Atelier Maria Adair. Everything
is oil painted in bright stripey abstract patterns and words, overlaid
by paintings. It’s like I’m within the set of a cartoon made as oil painting
style. I hate the light people silk shirt I’m wearing. It’s totally unflattering
but comfortable in heat. Why do I always bring clothes I think are too
ugly to wear at home, then have to suffer looking at pictures of me in
them? {At the rate I’ve perfected hanging out, I surely qualify as “bohemian.”
I checked out a couple jewelry stores, like H Stern, who’s styles were
too mainstream. I’ve decided to conveniently use a phantom physicist boyfriend
should anyone grill me on my status, rather than invent someone from scratch.
[The inevitable street hawkers...]
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