Toasted Nice and Brown
3 July 2005 (Sunday) – Salvador, Brazil
During last night’s Candomblé, a lady from Argentina, Raquel, had mentioned that today, there would be a organ concert in the main Cathedral at 11am. I met up with her this morning, and we entered the huge cathedral together.
The organ is one of those huge ones found at the top of cathedrals, at the back. I had never really been inside a cathedral when one of these was being played. So, it was really special to me, listening to the maestro play the various classical pieces from Handel, Wagner, etc…
As the organ was actually behind where we were sitting, one could only gaze upwards at the altar, the ceiling, at Jesus, the saints and angels carved all around us, everywhere except at the maestro… and let ourselves be lost in the emotive feelings the beautiful music stirred in us. At times, I kept my eyes closed and felt myself soaring upwards. It was truly very gorgeous music.
So, yesterday, Candomblé. Today, Cathedral.
We then caught a bus towards the airport with the intention of getting off when we start to see nice beaches. As the bus travelled along the coast, we saw that all the beaches were completely filled with Salvadoreans. Wow, the beaches all looked great! And everybody was here to enjoy them! We asked the driver to let us off at a beach, but he kept on driving as he gestured that the ‘next’ beach was much, much nicer. So, the ‘next’ one became the ‘next’ one and the ‘next’ one, but finally, he dropped us off. Hahaaa, what a funny chap!
These are all surfing beaches, it seemed, as the beaches faced the Atlantic Ocean, with really strong waves. We saw many surfers s-o-m-e-w-h-e-r-e out there. This section of the beach was lined with umbrellas, tables and chairs and had little huts selling drinks. We found a nice little spot and sat down to enjoy the beautiful day.
I was hungry but the Bahian deep-fried snacks called acaraje, permanently being fried in the offensive-smelling dende oil, being sold by Bahian women did not appeal to me at all. They pound and stir some sort of white sticky mixture in a pot first. Then, they spoon out a palm-sized portion and drop them into the dende oil. When they get really dark brown, they fish them out. You have the option of the deep-fried one or the steamed one which is wrapped in a particular type of leaf, it seemed. The ladies would slice open the snack and spread some sort of foul-looking paste inside, grab a portion of deep-fried tiny shrimps still with their shells on and stuff it into the gap and then, lace with some green cucumber-looking cubes. YUCKS, to me!!
But later, a guy selling a type of snack – cheese-on-a-stick, came by. Now, this is a great snack! The cheese is first coated with oregano and then, toasted for a moment until the surface is a little brownish. For this guy, he had a bottle of honey-type syrup which when squeezed on top of the cheese-on-a-stick, makes it absolutely heavenly. Yum-yum!
Finally in the evening, when we were both toasted nice and brown, we returned to Salvador, just in time when the sky broke and rain fell down in torrents suddenly.
Although I had spent the day at the beach, I was still nursing my cold and not feeling well at all. Now, caught in the rain, I was a disaster. I would move into Raquel’s hostel tomorrow as I really needed to have hot water in my shower. Otherwise, I would permanently be having this damn cold!
Tags: 03) The Land of the Spirits, Salvador
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