Salvador, Bahia (Day Two)

We had the day to explore Salvador on our own today, and I really enjoyed getting to see and experience some new places. In the morning we went to the first lighthouse in Brazil which is here in the city. It is a beautiful lighthouse and was used to help navigate the first Portuguese boats into the harbor here. It still lights up at night, and when it does it is a sight to see. After the lighthouse we visited a church and fortress that were on the top of a mountain, which gave us a beautiful view of the ocean and the city as well. After some lunch we took a tour of an old government palace that was used when Salvador was the capital of Brazil. Once the tour was over we were just hanging out outside of the palace in the square there (which is right next to the elevator that we visited yesterday) and we found out about a contemporary dance that they were going to have there in the palace in a few minutes. We decided we would check it out, and I will be honest that it was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. Let me go through a few of the highlights: So it started off with a group of strangely dressed people (the men were all homosexual from what I could see) standing outside of the palace in white sunglasses. While they were standing there, music was playing and a couple was dancing in a window on the third floor. Once they stopped, a creepy looking lady with a green dress holding a silver pot came through the people in sunglasses and threw dog food at them. This lady throughout the entire play would just be off on her own doing strange things, like one time she was off in a corner by herself pushing the silver pot with her head to the wall. Anyways, after the throwing of dog food the dancers went into the palace and we followed them. At this point, they all started barking viciously at us and as they increased the intensity they got on all fours and starting attacking us. Once they dropped dead, we walked over them to see a woman with long hair in a long white dress sitting on the floor. We were surprised once again when she attached a long rope to her hair which lifted her up in the air. As she was being lifted up in the air by her ponytail, there was a different woman crawling down the staircase next to her, on her back, going backwards (if you have seen the Ring, she looked like the girl when she was climbing up the well, it was very creepy to say the least). After this exhibit, there was a group of four people playing a game at a table that they had put together with four separate smaller tables. The game they played involved turning their hands palm up or palm down, and if they were the odd one out of the group they got a cup of water thrown at them. Throughout the rest of the play we saw a woman drilling holes with a drill in a dog house, a man playing with mechanical toy horses and falling dead amongst them, men wrestling with women and throwing them to the ground, and a woman being pushed around on a spinning table with the sounds of one of those toys that winds up and jumps out at you. The big finale was a couple (the same from the beginning in the window above us) dancing on a balcony with ropes tied to them, swinging out of the balcony while four women whipped eggs in bowls with whisks attached to drills. The main reason we stayed until the very end was because we were so intrigued and curious to see what would happen next. Like I said, it was a very interesting experience.

The lighthouse on the hill behind me.

These are the rocks in the ocean on the coast right next to the lighthouse.

On the fort part of the lighthouse looking over the city and beach.

About to climb to the top.

Making my arrival!

The view from the top.

This is a model of the first ship that the Portuguese took to Brazil in the 16th century.

This is a picture of the lighthouse in the distance, looks like it could be a postcard!

This is on top of another fort that we went to on top of a mountain with the bay and a Marine fort behind me.

In front of the palace before we took our tour.

A dining room with a painting of Salvador behind me.

This was on the ceiling of the palace, and is made of painted glass. It has the names of all of the states of Brazil with the coffee plant around it, which is what has kept Brazil's economy alive for hundreds of years.

A statue of the first governor of Bahia when it was the capital of Brazil

The beautiful staircase going up to the statue and upper rooms.

The following are pictures of the contemporary dance that we witnessed. These pictures do not do justice as to the strangeness that we experienced firsthand, but take a look (I already gave a description of what you'll see in the top caption).