Sheltered Girl Meets World

To Brazil: Projeto TAMAR and São Paulo

I want to take you home but I don't think you'll fit in carry on.

One of the highlights of our short stay in Salvador was renting a no frills car (no air conditioning, radio, manual transmissions) and driving 80km to Praia do Forte to visit Projeto TAMAR.  Salvador traffic is an experience on it's own and I am happy that I left the driving to the Boyfriend who is more experienced in traffic that is more like a road race with pedestrians, motorcycles and bicycles as obstacles.

Projeto TAMAR, short for Tartarugas Marinhas (Sea Turtles), is a non-profit organization that protects sea turtles from extinction on the Brazilian coastline.  Praia do Forte is one of their 22 bases along the coast where they hatch and release turtles into the Atlantic Ocean.  While there you can learn about their efforts and see some of the turtles (and other fish) they are trying so hard to save.  Seeing the baby turtles swimming and feeding in their small pool was one of my highlights of the visit.

We are at the end of our trip and in the last city on our itinerary - São Paulo.  It is the largest city in Brazil with a population of 11 million but not well known for tourism.  It's winter here and temperatures aren't as hot as they were in Manaus or Salvador, reaching a chilly 15°C at night and only rising to 22°C during the day.  I could get used to this type of winter.

To Brazil: Visiting The Pelourinho

The colourful houses in the old city center - The Pelourinho.

Yesterday we visited The Pelourinho, Salvador's city center during the Portuguese Colonial Period named for the whipping post in the central plaza where African slaves were punished.  As well as having gorgeous pastel coloured buildings The Pelourinho is home to many shops, restaurants and street performers.

While we were visiting, the old city center was preparing for a festival.  Banners and ribbons were decorating the already colourful houses and workers were busy building stages and filling hundreds of coolers full of beer.  We walked around for quite a while enjoying our surroundings, stopping occasionally to watch Capoeira dancers or to sample acarajé, a black-eyed pea fritter fried in palm oil stuffed with a shrimp paste made with cashews, shrimp, a small chopped salad and hot sauce.  Vendors of  acarajé are usually women and dressed in white cotton dress, head scarf and cap - they are called Baianas.

We've rented a car, a very basic (not even a radio!) Fiat Palio and plan on visiting the beaches and turtles at Praia do Forte.  We don't have a GPS and our cell phone data connection is shotty so I will have to do some tricky navigation - wish me luck!