The Salvador Carnaval

At Pousada La Villa Francaise we chop a stack of limes with the Swiss army knife & squeeze them into teacups laden with ice. In goes a healthy double of suspect rum (2 quid a litre and featuring a cheery pirate on the label). A splash of coke & we're back in a card game of shithead. We're charging ourselves up for another mission down the Salvador carnaval, down the Barra strip. It helps to borderline inebriated on arrival cos it's a full on mental place, in many ways a shade grating on the nerves to arrive sober. Allow me to explain...

There are several major and many minor carnavals in Brazil during February. Rio is home to the globally most famous, with glorious costume displays and popular national musicians singing atop articulated soundsystems. This is where the tourists go to take photos. In minor cities are the underdog circuits, such as in Porto Seguro (see the blog 3) and Outo Tempo, an ancient town north of Rio. These hold friendly approachable events awash with various incantations of cachasa cocktails, the uniquitous local sugar cane spirit. Meanwhile, on the Bahian coast a thousand odd K's north of Rio, is Salvador, the locals (and backpackers) carnaval. Salvador hosts an altogether more musical festival, in three city areas, the old town, the Barra beach strip and Campo Grande. As people come from all around the country and world to drink, sweat and crush in the various carnavals, they act as an a melting pot for exotic colds and viri.

We settle into our guesthouse a five minute walk from the Barra circuit, considered by most locals to be the best part of Salvador's carnaval, and spend four l o n g evenings dancing like men on fire behind articulated 'Bloco' sound systems. It is difficult to describe the madness of the main drag. But try imagining taking 3000 sweaty hedonists out of a nightclub & dropping then inside a rope-cordoned off rectangle, drop a 16 wheeled articulated lorry built out of speakers, and put a live 20-piece band on top. That's a bloco, and each partygoer inside pays a small local fortune for the T-shirt to gain entry (from 50 pounds upwards per night). Now shuffle all that lot down a 6km beach road at 2km/hr for 8 hours, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of bouncing nutcases packing the streets and hanging out of balconies and elevated viewing platforms (camaroches). Finally, add about 15 more blocos. It's a somewhat chaotic event. We're advised to take nothing stealable bar beer money (35p a beer), as being that rammed it's hard to tell who's hands are in your pockets. James & I thought later that, as a pickpocket deterrent, one would be wise filling ones pockets with razor blades or hot pasties. Zesh said all we had to loose was our dignity, which we generally lost by the 4am stagger home.

Apparently over a million out of towners and rock up in Salvador at this time of year, and the million odd locals either come out to play, or figure out some way to rinse the visitors of their cash. Guesthouses prices bust through the roof, restaurants crank up all their prices, and everyone and their kids go to the supermarket to buy crate upon crate of beer to sell on at a premium.

Apparently Skol, considered a top beer in Brazil, produce 20 million extra cans of cervesa for consumption at Brazilian Carnavals. Most of which seem available on the Salvador circuit from 15 year-old Brazilian entrepreneurs with their polystyrene iceboxes. These help wash down the ropey cuts of smoky BBQ street meat you find every 5 steps. In between you'll find loads of hawker grub: tasty pear-shaped breaded potato & chicken blobs, burnt cheese on a stick, trays of tiny boiled eggs and hot dog stalls competing to see how many weird toppings they can offer. You want crisps, carrot, dried onions & tomato ragu on't dog? You got it. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. The sidestreets, strung with lines of lightbulbs & stalls, smell fabulous. At least until you pass the portaloos or any borderline secluded wall upon which men can slash.

The problem is that, like at home, too much beer = fighting drunks. The Cachasa in caiprinias on the other hand makes happy drunks, with samba rhythm, until eventually, and almost totally unpredictably, your legs are stolen from under you. Because of the teaming mass of wasted revelers, punctuated by more pickpockets than you'll find in all of Manchester, there are loads military police about. These draconian law enforcers stomp about single file, looking hot & bothered in numbered bullet proof flack jackets, heavy brown shirts & trousers and riot helmets. The most interesting thing is that they pretty much get to carry their favorite weapon of choice, excluding firearm in case it gets swiped. Most choose the standard baton, others bring their largest hunting knife (tied on with rope) but most carry baseball bats, in hand and ready to bat.

These fellas (and occasionally ladies) command respect and the packed crowds part like the red sea whenever they arrive. Should they happen to rock up behind you without your noticing, you're forcefully shoved aside. These dudes mean business, are everywhere, and from the looks of it, can smell trouble. We saw several disconcerting acts of police brutality during evenings in Barra, and lets just say the militia don't hold back. 6 giants with sticks seem an efficient means to dispel disorder. Once wrongdoers have been suitably duffed up, they're put in painful armholds & paraded to the MP HQ to discuss bribes.

Some nights we danced in the rain and others in a 28 degree sauna. Every night we arrived back at the pousada with mysterious marks, stains and mud over all our clothing. The combo of mud, rain & leather sandals dyed my feet bright orange, a new look I suspect will be big in 2008. The streets are filth, covered in plastic bottles, cups, mud and beer cans. Though the very poor crush and collect the cans to sell to recycling places for a ridiculous pittance. I believe they get one Reil (25p) per hundred cans. Salvador is massively poor, mainly just a sprawling tumble-down favela, and many locals scratch an arduous living.

Traditional blue and white strings of beads, with an African tribal backstory, are sold and worn by all as they bring good luck. Zesh & I get a few, and I find they rip out my chest hair - not good when you only have 14 hairs to start with. James couldn't seem to stop himself, and the crazy foo bought so many carnaval necklaces he ended up looking a bit like Mr T from the A-Team.

If anything, the thing that let down the Barra side of the Salvador Carnaval was the music. Ironic considering it's the musical festival. Every Bloco had a massive polished band uptop, lead singer strutting at the front or hanging off the side. But they all seemed to play pretty cack 'Soca' music, bassless, brass heavy and real samey. At Notting Hill carnival every bloco plays different tuneys. Here there is one song, which I believe is called 'Cachasa', that is so nationally popular and infuriatingly catchy, that every bloco played it. That said, once we almost got a handle on who was playing on which bloco, we found a ska reggae truck & danced our asses off in full carnaval getup: beads, garlands, sweatbands and skol Bandanas. A look I doubt will be big in 2008.

While the Barra run was definitely a full-on experience, in our imaginations we had thought the carnaval to be more following drummers & fancy dressers around old streets. Like the impromptu street party we happened upon in old Rio - which as it happens, is exactly what we found when we hit Salvador's old town, Pelourinho...


Barnaby
Beard state: kept to blade one on the beardy trimmer to allow the baldy crap bits time to catch up.
Mental Jukebox: ‘All Night Long’ by Lionel Richie