The founder of Salvador

Salvador, or to give its full name – Cidade de Salvador de Bahia de Todos os Santos (City of Salvador in Bahia of all Saints) is today a sprawling city of about 2 million people. Portuguese sailors, commanded by the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, who discovered the bay sometime between 1501 and 1502, gave the city its name.

Although the land, according to the Treaty of Tordesillas which had been signed in 1494, as a modified form of the Papal directive of the previous year signed by Pope Alexander VI, clearly belonged to the Lusitanian crown, it was not till 1549 that a serious colonisation program began in Bahia – mainly as a response to attempts by the Dutch to exploit the areas rich resources.

In 1549 Tome de Sousa, the first governor general of Brazil arrived in Bahia. The chronicles of that time tell how he arrived with a retinue of 1000. Amongst them, as well as a small army, were the Jesuits who had been sent to 'colonise souls' and to turn the natives into good Christians who worked for the glorification of the Holy Mother Church, convicts, prostitutes, and as one chronicler says 'all the scum of Portugal'.

The colonisation began in earnest with the unrestricted use of slave labour. First the local Indians were used, quickly followed by slaves captured from the coasts of Guinea, the Congo and Angola who were stronger and cheaper. Within a few years the first capital of Brazil had arisen from the fertile coastal plains. It was to remain the most important city for the next three centuries.

The great influx of salves into the area has left a lasting effect on the area. Closing my eyes I let the sounds and smells drift over me, I could have so easily have been back in Africa. The colourful people, the pungent food and the mahogany coloured children who smiled coyly at me from every doorway took me back, back to fragrant markets, tropical nights and the whiff of adventure that I crave. The African soul, forcibly exiled until the late nineteenth century has taken its revenge here in Salvador. This was the Brazil I have come to know and to love.

Salvador's most famous son, the author Jorge Amado, obviously had the same thoughts as me when he wondered "Is there a white man, even the whitest of whites, who does not have some black blood in his blue veins. Doesn't the blackest black man also have a drop of white blood in his African veins?" In a later dissertation on Bahian culture he describes the population as "creatures out of a dream of love". A dream that is still as vivid today and, for me will always represent the great versatility and adaptability of man.

The slaves preserved their culture and heritage to an extent not seen anywhere else in the new world. Their religion fused with Catholicism, the churches ran amok with African deities and Catholic saints, mouth-watering African food became the standard fare and African tunes can still be heard today as you stroll the quaint cobbled streets. The music seemed somewhat familiar, hardly surprising when it has inspired the likes of Paul Simon, Michael Jackson and Branford Marsalis who, for example, used many of the traditional rhythms in his award winning opera 'Blood on the Fields'.

One local resident summed up the city for me describing it as "a Greek salad of cultures, a place of great spirituality" and if I listened carefully I might just be able to hear the passage of the numerous African deities that still prowl the streets. Standing, as I was, outside one of the many churches that made Salvador once second only to Lisbon, ("Salvador has more churches then we have sins") and home to South America's first synagogue, I could easily believe this.

I recalled another Jorge Amado novel and a dusty class room in London, and expected to catch a glimpse from the corner of my eye of a man "very old, black as coal, dried up and incredibly thin, enveloped in a gown that fluttered like a flag in the ocean breeze" floating past as he toured the city, seeing deep into people's souls, reading the good and evil there. But, like my literary counterpart, and despite the dire warnings from the Brazilian Tourist Board, I saw only good in the city and its people.

Beach at Bahia

I checked into the Pousada Azul. A small and relatively inexpensive hotel two blocks from the busy beach. I am not sure if the Pousada has yet gained legendary status amongst budget travellers, but I am sure that it will very soon. After years of travelling, and staying in all types of hotels only two others come close to this (the Yak hotel in Tibet and the Zenko-ji temple in Nagano). And I am sure I would have seen a lot more of Salvador if Beatrix and her smiling staff hadn't keep asking me each morning, in their delightfully lilting English if I wanted more cake, or coffee or fruit...

The other residents were all Europeans who had come weeks ago to learn Portuguese and had fallen under the spell of the Pousada. The idea that they might have to move on one day seemed to fill them with dread. I seriously considered staying. But then again it's not surprising that I fell in love with Salvador. A recipe for the city might be, one part Macao, one part Mozambique (places inherently linked in my mind with happy times), two parts modern Brazil all simmered gently with a whole range of religions, cuisines and possibilities. And amazingly this heady mixture seems to work.

Questions?
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