Oh Brazil, you were certainly an adventure. From commercials to capoeira, piranhas to not catching the Amazon virus. It was crazy.

Salvador, Brazil: Day One

Bea was turning 22 on the 26th, so this was the only free day and night we had to celebrate her. It was a good one.

We left the ship and were immediately greeted by a youth drum corps. There were drummers, jugglers and kids on stilts. It was a pretty sweet good morning.

We had a tough time finding a working ATM because it was a national holiday and apparently ATM fraud is a huge issue in Brazil. We ended up walking ten minutes to a huge local market and getting in line behind about fifty other SASers at the lone ATM. Everyone elected one friend from their group to run downstairs and return with giant Brazilian beers to tide the line standers over. It was hilarious to see so many people disappearing, and then returning with six enormous sweating beers in their arms. Victor made the run for us.

When we finally had money (real) we started to explore the market. We hadn’t planned on spending too much time there, but it started pouring (this turned out to be pretty common) and we stuck around for a while.

The market itself was amazing. Everything was so colorful and they speak Portuguese, which is close enough to Spanish for my 4 years of high school Spanish to kick in. I had no idea how much I remembered and had a great time awkwardly communicating and bargaining. I ended up buying a couple paintings and necklaces and one queso (cheese) empanada, which was delicious. The guy I bought a necklace from had a crush on Bea, so he gave us free candied cashews, too.

After realizing that the rain wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, we decided to grab lunch outside the market under an awning. I’m not quite sure what we ordered, but like most Brazilian food, it had something to do with rice and beans. While we ate, we got to watch a capoeira performance, which was incredible. After lunch we ended up talking to the group’s teacher, Jonathan, and set up a meeting time to take a lesson ourselves.

We had a few hours to kill, so we took the elevator up to the Old Town District of Salvador. It had gorgeous old buildings and cobblestone streets. There were also tons and tons of cats. Some guy was breeding them and keeping them in their weird hole in the main square… I don’t know… We explored for a while and then hung out in a coffee shop to avoid another downpour.

After the rain finally slowed down we wandered down the street and stumbled upon the filming of a commercial. It was for the 2013 FIFA World Cup, which in being held in Brazil. We spotted a few SASers dancing in the background and hopped in. Long story short, the commercial is going to be nationally and perhaps internationally aired and we got to meet the musician whose song they were using. Apparently he’s one of the most famous Carnival singers in all of South America. I don’t know his name, but he was super nice and we took pictures with him.

After the commercial, we continued on our adventure, wandered around a little more, and then met a few local guys back in the main square. At 6 we met up with Jonathan and he took us to this tiny room that we were told was a popular dance club. The floor was a little bit damp, but he gave us an hour and a half long capoeira lesson. It’s hard to describe without pictures, but it was incredible. Difficult, but incredible. Later that night Jonathan took us to a great local restaurant where he had a few drinks and watched live music. He and a few of his friends met up with us again later that night and we stayed and talked for hours.


The second day was spent traveling from Salvador to Manaus/the Amazon. Let’s just say that I had a lot of time to catch up on reading that day… We didn’t get to the riverboat until midnight and we stayed up talking/watching the remnants of a meteor shower until 3AM.

The next couple days were spent on an Amazon riverboat, but this blog is ending here because we’re docking in Ft. Lauderdale in 8 hours and I want to go hang out with people.


This semester has been an incredible adventure. I have experienced more in these fourteen short weeks than I could have ever imagined; my eyes, mind and heart have been opened in ways that I never realized they could be. I am the luckiest person in the world for having family and friends that have supported me on this adventure and in life. I love semester at sea and I love you.