We arrived in Salvador early in the morning and everything seemed to be running smoothly but then they realized that Brazil had just gone into daylight savings time so everything was an hour behind schedule.

Brazilian cigar workers.

This caused a few big messes, and most of the students were a bit irritated by this "oversight" the the administration had made. It didn't really bother me that much, but I was itching to get off the ship and jump right into seeing as much of Brazil as I possibly could. After all the delays it was 1:30 by the time we finally got off the ship.

As soon as we were cleared to leave I got on the bus to on a Faculty Directed Practica about Bahian cuisine. We went to this religious community center that was focused on one of the African based religions in Salvador. Once we got there we were met by their high priestess and she went right on into explaining the spiritual significance of all the foods that they use to cook with. She didn’t speak any English but thankfully she had a translator there.

Street vendors selling cocanuts.

After she was done with all her explanations we were served a dinner that the entire religious community had prepared for us. The dinner was compromised of a vast assortment of traditional dishes of which I knew almost none. It turned out to be very good though and I was pleasantly surprised.

A dam overshadowing a fishing village.

Once we had finished our meals we left to go tour a local spice market and just walk around a bit. The market was ok, but it was a bit late so most of the shops had already closed. So we just walked around, had a few cold beers and enjoyed ourselves. On the way back to the ship I got off the bus at the local crafts market and ended up buying a drinking bottle made out of the calf of an oxen. We’ll see what I end up doing with it…

A crazy bus boy in Rio.

When I got back to the ship I took a quick shower and then met up with Daniel and we decided to go have a few beers at one of the small shops in the alleys all over town. So we found a little place and had some beers and got to know each other a bit. The beers there are almost all 600ml and I recommend the Pilsner made by Antarctica.

A small town meat market.

Once we had finished our drinks we walked back to the ship and I took a quick nap so that I could get a little energy to go out that night. After I got up I met up with a few people so that we could go out to a club. We ended up piling 20 people into a van that was owned by a con artist named Michael. Michael told us that he could get us anything we wanted. Anything at all. So we asked him to take us to a good club and 30 minutes later we ended up at this club on a beach somewhere. At first it seemed pretty dead, but around 12:00 the Brazilians started to pour in and the place got jumping. Brazilians love the nightlife!

The Jesus statue in Rio.