Salvador de Bahia and Praia do Forte

This is the true story...of 45 people picked by God to live in a house...to find out what happens...when the drumming never stops...and people start losing their minds. Real World: Candomblè.

Candomblè is a religion with African origins practiced by some people in Brazil. The practice involves almost daily ceremonies in honor of different gods. During the ceremonies, the practioners, who typically all live together in a compound-like terreiro, do a ritualistic dance to an ear-piercing and constant drumming. Some people´s eyes roll back in their head and they go into a trance (for the Candomblist, this is a good thing...we think). Then they are dressed up in costumes by the people who didn't go into a trance, and the trance people dance around the room according to the direction of the drumming and, on occasions which are entirely mysterious, let out long, deep growling sounds. Sometimes the power of the beat and the trance is so intense that one of the dancers flies out of the dancing circle and right out the front door of the building. Usually they come back, eyes still rolled back and squawking, but this time dancing backward down the center aisle of the room and back into the performing circle. In addition to the performers, the room is filled with spectators sitting on several rows of benches. The ones with pink sunburned skin who paid R$50 to attend the ceremony are generally very confused. Our English speaking guide spoke English words but wasn't all that good at putting them together into a coherent sentence, so unfortunately we missed a lot (ok *all*) of the meaning in the nearly 4 hour ceremony. Still, it was fascinating and if you ask nicely (and promise to give one of us a job when we´re done with all this travel business in September), we will perform our interpretation of a Candomblè ceremony for you. Of course in the spirit of sharing another culture and not ridiculing it (stop shaking your head Jeff Payne).

The rest of our time in Salvador was spent in Pelourinho, which generally refers to the old part of the city built by the Portugese founders (or more precisely, built by the African slaves brought to Brazil by the Portugese founders) on top of a high bluff overlooking the Atlantic ocean on one side and the Bay of All Saints on the other. Pelourinho gets its name from the small square in town that housed the whipping post (called a pelourinho) where disobedient slaves were publicly punished. Pretty gruesome stuff. The entire old city feels haunted by its history and the pastel colored colonial buildings, rotting under the tropical sun and showing the decay of years of abandonment, have a tragic beauty about them.

The nightlife in Salvador is famous and there are many outdoor venues (including the ultimate outdoor venue...a street corner) featuring different kinds of live, Brazilian music where people dance and drink and hit on foreigners and generally have a good time. Paul Simon was inspired by this music when he made "Rhythm of the Saints" and we saw a really cool all girl drum troop performing the style of drumming featured in the first song on that album, "Obvious Child". Then we managed to narrow in on the hippest Salvador scene and catch a forro show (a type of music which the Lonely Planet says Brazilians think of as "rustic" and "for maids and taxi cab drivers") and a guy singing early ´80s American adult contemporary hits while backed by what looked and sounded like a junior high jazz band.

Now we're in Praia do Forte, a small (as in one street) beach town north of Salvador, trying to work on our tans in our last few days in Brazil. Sadly, the weather isn't cooperating and most of our view of Praia do Forte has been from the hammocks on our veranda at our awesome hotel, the Pousada dos Artistas. But we did go to the TAMAR Turtle Experience today, one of the Brazilian government's educational and research facilities set up to protect and study endangered sea turtles, so we feel pretty accomplished.

Oh, and we made friends in Salvador! Smart, cool, normal friends! One Noodle said to the other, "Finally, we've met some cool people in Brazil...people just like us." Uh, Christina and Brandon are way cooler than us. But we've had an awesome time hanging out with them in Pelourinho and now in Praia do Forte and hopefully this shout out on Noodle Talk will get them blogging as well. And maybe they'll even move to L.A., and we can be friends forever, and... Is this moving too fast?

Bye for now...the Iceland cometh soon.