Feb 12 - Salvador, Brazil

SANDY SHORE : Another great experience in Brazil! Loved Salvador… wish I had more time to spend in this beautiful coastal community. Again, we’re some two weeks outside of Carnival and the entire country of Brazil is bracing for non-stop celebration and Salvador is reinforcing the gathering spots with bleachers, stages and party points everywhere.

With 3 million people, Salvador is Brazil’s 3rd largest city. Some 450 restored colonial town houses that have helped revitalize the historical center making it a bustling city economically, socially and culturally.

We took in some great sites and couldn’t help notice that Salvador is thriving with new buildings, great restaurants and happy people.

Tonight we set sail and took in another glorious Brazilian sunset while soaking in one of the ship’s many hot tubs with new friends and despite our grand efforts, we have not yet sorted out all of the world’s problems. Please stay tuned… ~ss

DONNA KAY PHILLIPS : "Easy Salvador" was the name of this port's hermetically-sealed bus Tour. A mere 2 hours of driving around this culturally diverse city. There is a much larger African population here since Salvador was the official entry port for the slave trade. Hence the string of coastal forts turned museums, which make for great spider nets to sell the touristas the chatchkis.

The coastline and the beaches are beautifully clean and very compelling. There are many structures being built along the beaches to accommodate the millions for Carnaval. There is just more construction period in Salvador than in our past two ports.

As an artist, I found the mix of architectural styles exciting eye candy. I am facinated by a mix of colors and textures that I would never use in my own design. I love to see how other cultures use vivid bold colors that successfully create a fun tropical vibe.

We saw a number of electronica dance clubs that we wanted to check out at night - one of the few downsides of visiting by cruise ship. We are very excited about our overnight stay in Buenas Aires for this very reason - musica baby!

We visited the Old Fort, now a Nautical Museum and drove past picturesque parks and central gather places in Salvador that reminded us of Europe and parts of the smaller villages of certain Orange County Beach Towns. I was really surprised to see the development of a few very large shopping malls around the city as well. It seems that we see more of these types of lifestyle changes as we move south to Rio.

In Salvador, the seperation between rich and poor is large, but there appears to be a bit more of a middle class as well. Our guide told us that in other countries, the wealthy usually make around 5 times that of someone considered below the poverty line whereas, in Brazil it is more like 85 times more - ouch.

Still, you can feel the pulse of a place if you pay attention, and maybe it was just the preparations for Carnaval, but Salvador is a more modern attempt at living well and enjoying life than some of the ports we've visited so far. -dkp