WANDERING

Dork

My first destination during this trip is Itacare, a small fishing village/surfer town/hippie enclave in the Bahia region of Brazil, about an 8 hour drive south of Salvador. Bahia is where the majority of African slaves were brought to work on the sugar cane fields by the Portuguese after they finally gave up their attempts to enslave natives due to the consistently vigilant resistance on the natives’ part. I bring this up because of the massive influence of African culture in this region. Besides seeing African faces everywhere, you see it in the cooking, dance, music, religion, clothing, etc. It’s a very interesting mix of Brazilian Portuguese and African cultures. Among many other things, one of my favorites is that at any moment you can see a dance/drum troupe just bust out a show in the middle of any street (this is especially true in Salvador, where massive drum groups would just roam the streets every night with a huge crowds following close behind - there are very few things in life more impressive than that). Well, that’s exactly what happened last night. Here are some photos (click to enlarge):

And video here:

Other than surfing and revisiting this town, anybody who knows me halfway decently knows I also came to take photographs. Although I havent had much time (only one good session so far) because of so much time surfing (4-5 hours a day, plus the 30 minute hike each way, then the 30 minute drive each way) and still organizing a certain part of my trip, but here is what I've come up with so far: