Crazy, Cool, Chaotic Carnival – a Tale of Three Houses By Gen, Paul and Kaye

Our time beach hopping down the Brazilian coast had left us in good shape for our next challenge – taking on Carnaval in Salvador. Having beached ourselves to oblivion we roused ourselves reluctantly and hit the road to our last stop before Salvador, the crumbly, atmospheric town of Cachoeira. Heeding the warnings of our local agent, Alain, that arriving in Salvador the afternoon before carnaval would be a “harrowing experience”, we hit the road early the next day to arrive in the city in the morning. We were slightly delayed by a random traffic police check point (apparently they wanted to see officially translated papers but it seemed more like they just wanted to take videos of the truck) but still made good time and were rolling through Salvador's streets by mid morning.

Here our story will divide as, due to the logistics of carnival accommodation, we were soon to split into three groups spread across three apartments. This required a fairly busy and very sweaty three part drop off for Simon and Emma and then a final stop to settle Matecito the truck into her home for the week. After two and a half months together it was a bit of a change to be separated but this was also a chance to put down temporary roots, spread out a bit and make the most out of a week in one place.

Mediocre Flat (by Gen)

Self named “Mediocre Flat” were the first to be dropped off at our apartment which turned out to be on the 18th and uppermost floor of our apartment building. With sea views on three sides we were feeling pretty lucky, even more so when we spotted the apartment pool and learned that we would have a maid who came three times a week to clean. As overlanders with now fairly relaxed views about showering and laundry we felt a little self conscious initially but soon came to appreciate the ironed tea towels and the fact that our fruit bowl now looked like a still life.

Panorama from our 18th storey balcony - Mediocre Flat

As time passed in our apartment it quickly became apparent that most of the inhabitants of Mediocre Flat were quite capable of spending entire days consisting of lounging around inside, eating generous quantities of pay per kilo restaurant food and making a daily trip to the supermarket to stock up on essentials like dinner food and rum.

Mike, Lee, Simon, Emma & Roberta enjoying mango cocktails on the balcony

Sunset from the apartment

 Of course, as well as catching up on wifi and sleep after our first couple of months on the road, our real reason for being in Salvador was to participate in its famous carnaval festivities. Carnaval in Salvador differs from that of Rio in that there are not huge elaborate parades. Instead, each night along the parade route there are a number of Trio Electricos which are large trucks, packed with speakers and carrying a band or a DJ. These drive very slowly down a parade route, surrounded by ticket holders who dance along around it. If you have a ticket, which consists of a special t-shirt, you can participate in the parade or “bloco” and move with it inside its secure rope cordon. If not you can still watch the parades from outside the rope from a position known as pipoca or popcorn.

A typical bloco truck by day

On our second night in Salvador a large part of the group met up along the parade route to be “popcorn” and have a catch up.

The parade route

The distribution of a large number of inflatable beer branded sticks caused a certain amount of chaos amongst the group.

Emma getting into the spirit

Dave fits in well with the locals

Lee

On the following night Mediocre Flat had tickets to participate in the bloco of international DJ Bob Sinclar. The arrival of the bloco shirts for the whole group also gave us a chance to dress up in other people's carnaval gear and amuse ourselves.

Emma & Simon model some of the bloco outfits

Suzana, one of our local agents, helps Gen modify her bloco outfit.  An essential part of carnaval apparently.

Mike, Gen, Lee, Roberta, Em & Simon all dressed up and ready to go

All soon turns to chaos

Mediocre Flat - brought to you by Schin

Amusing ourselves on the way down in the lift - it takes a while from the 18th floor!

Participating in the bloco was a sweaty, intense but very enjoyable experience as we braved the crowds and the extreme bass to party our way down the parade route.

Ready to go at the start of our bloco

Mid bloco - the bloco hits high gear

Simon, Gen & Emma - blurry but happy

The aftermath back in our apartment

As an alternative to the parades in our area we also spent a couple of nights in the old town, Pelourhino. There are no blocos in this part of Salvador, instead the area fills up with African influenced drumming bands and impromptu parades that wind their way through the streets. We visited the old town a couple of times and enjoyed the relaxed, inclusive vibe.

The Old Town

Streets full of decorations and parades

Sarah, Roberta & Lee watch the parade

Parade

Si, Gen & Em in the old town

There's always time for a quick selfie

Happy drummers

Lee, Mike, Roberta, Sarah & Kaye eating dinner in the old town and somehow ending up right in the middle of the parade route

Right on the parade route...

Kaye makes a new friend

Sadly, with such a potent mixture of extreme relaxation and busy nightlife, our time in Salvador was flying past. We filled our last couple of days with visits to our favourite pay by weight restaurants and threw in a bit of laundry doing and packing.

Not a bad view from our kitchen window

Too much carnaval makes Simon a tired boy

Lee cooks dinner for Mediocre Flat on our last evening in Salvador

The Marigold Hotel (by Paul)

The 'Marigold' was the flat of choice for the more 'life experienced' overlander. There was a great deal of sleeping, a fair amount of napping and some pretty decent snoozing, Wayne was the stand out star in this regard and we came to the conclusion that he only got up for breakfast so that he didn't wake up hungry at lunch time.

Wayne in the window of the "Marigold"

Once settled we descended on the local supermarket only to find half of Salvador was in there buying beer. Buying beer in Salvador isn't for the faint hearted. During carnaval the beer is sold on the streets at the rate of 3 small tins for 5 Reais, stocks have to be replenished and the local supermarket  was stacked floor to ceiling afresh each day with thousands upon thousands of cases which the local street vendors would buy in prodigious quantities. Getting through checkout took forever as one is obliged to endure the Brazilian custom of waiting for the checkout girl to get change, arguments over the bill, there being no change, there being an important text that the checkout operator had to send to her mates before, after and quite often during every transaction and the fact that no-one in Salvador is in a very great rush to do anything.

Schin anyone?  Ubiquitous orange Schin stalls line the parade route

Eventually, fully fridged, showered and laundered we ventured out to see carnaval up close and personal. We knew it would be a busy affair because from the balcony we could see the crowds flooding down to the seaside carnaval route and the procession of bodies, cars, microbuses and motobike taxis would grind into life about noon and just keep going till about midnight.

Barra parade route along the waterfront

Security keeping an eye on the revellers

Preparing for the bloco - presumably?

Colourful ladies

Carnaval is a major wealth redistribution opportunity for all levels of Salvadorean society, the poor who carry the ropes for the blocos, the street vendors selling the aforementioned beer (a vile chemical concoction called 'Schin' which achieved two things, firstly lousy headaches and secondly a grateful appreciation for all Brazilian beers not called Schin), the food vendors (grilled cheese on a stick anyone?), the pickpockets (I was surprised to find a strange man's hand in my pocket and in return he was surprised to find a strange man's elbow in his face, call it a cultural exchange) and not least those property owning Salvadoreans who rent out their apartments to revellers for extortionate sums during carnaval week.

David & Helen inside the Marigold

Salvador was Brazil's first capital and the centre of the slave trade and 200 years on it still has a deeply African flavour. For reasons still unclear carnaval African style seemed to involve lots of large African gentlemen dressing up in women's clothing and spraying other party goers with high velocity water pistols. There is a decidedly 'rainbow' tint to carnaval with a fair amount of in public multi person writhing and a couple of us almost had involuntary walks on the wild side due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Watch out for the men with water pistols

Wear a dress to carnaval?  Who wouldn't?

Slowly however we got the hang of things and ventured to the Old Town which not only is very pretty but also had the distinct advantage beer-wise of being Itaipava territory, a much more pleasant beer than the foul Schin. However the Marigolders, being experienced travellers, were pretty adept at tucking away a few snifters before venturing out, in this we were led by Iain who selflessly dedicated himself to the development of a tonic free G&T, although to be fair to Iain he always maintained that the problem was that the glasses were just too small and that after adding the required amounts of gin, ice and lemon that there simply wasn't any room left for any tonic. 

Itaipava in the old town - a good change from Schin

The old town by day

David, Helen & Wayne get a good view of a passing bloco from their camarote (private balcony) viewpoint

Wayne & Helen at the camarote

    

The days flew by all too quickly and at the end of our week we bid a tearful farewell to the hot showers, mattresses and the washing machine which we had all but worn out in our Howards Hughes-like efforts to expunge two months of overlanding grime from our clothes. Sparkly clean and pungently fabric conditioned we piled back aboard Matecito – it took less than three days for us  to transform back into our usual buggy grubby selves leaving us to wonder if it had all been just a dream.

Party House (by Kaye)

We were called the 'Party House' because we were quite literally in the middle of the party. The house was right at the start of the main Barra parade route on the seafront and as an added bonus it had the beach right outside our front door!  We used it every day for swimming and topping up our tans. 

The beach

The street through Party House's door

Our house was a gorgeous pale blue two storey place with high ceilings, a sweet little courtyard garden out the back and just perfect for drying our many loads of grubby overlanding washing and sitting outside to enjoy tasty capirinha cocktail drinking.

Party House's courtyard

Party house from the street

Sunset from the balcony

We were also treated to front row seats in our own camarote in the form of a large sunny balcony with views out to sea and of the trucks and parades. We also soon realized that there would be no chance of an early night, a realization we embraced with gusto! Many wonderful capirinhas were made by everyone, so many trips to the supermarket for more limes were necessary.

Good views of a passing bloco

But we didn't just hang around in our gorgeous house cooking and imbibing, we also joined a bloco!  Ours we like to think was the best one of all, best costume at least! Check out our skilful reinventions!!! We're so talented!

Party House modelling their personalised bloco costumes

The costume (which had been pre-modelled by our crew) was a spectacular African themed outfit with a skirt and frilly a shirt for the ladies and draping top and trousers for the guys.  It definitely got us in the mood to party! And party we did with our ticket covering three nights not just one. Though we managed to miss one by arriving three hours early and learnt a little bit about Brazilian time management in the process.

Our bloco was full energy dancing and Afro beats with it's own crazy drum parade, ladies in traditional meringue dresses, kings and queens to lead the march and men dressed as warriors to get us all in the mood. It was an ear pounding, feet stomping, hip swaying feast of extravagance! Awesome fun was had by all!

Later we retired to test out our culinary skill with feasts of salmon, lasagne, beef tacos and other meals we had been craving. We also attempted to sample some of the strangest flavours of popcorn ever invented (Romeo and Juliet flavour anyone?) We also became intimately familiar with our local pizza bar, situated right on the parade route for late night snacks and drinks and to party the last of the night away.

Cooking up a storm in the kitchen

Salvador definitely offered up her heart to us and we will remember her exuberance forever. Thanks for the wonderful week Salvador!