After getting settled in my hotel room, I set out to the bank to change money, and to stores to buy post cards, and water and juice for my fridge. That's when it hit me. Walking around, there were more beautiful women than I could look at. And the next one was more beautiful and sexy than the last. I came to Salvador primarily to meet the women I had written to, but this first afternoon I found myself quite distracted by the scenery. Even the female hotel clerks were good looking and one was especially sexy.
I got reais at a rate of 3.50 with a new fee of $US5.00 at Banco Bilboa Vizcaya. I hadn't shopped around because BBV has always had the best rate of the major banks on my previous trips. The new fee changes that but I wasn't prepared to do another round of shopping on this trip. I wrote on the post cards that I was in town and if she was interested in seeing me in person to leave a message at my hotel. It would take a few days for them to respond and during that time I went exploring.
The next day, after mailing the post cards to the 15 or so women I had written to in Salvador, I went out exploring. The place I went to that day was a town called Lauro de Freitas. This is a beach town 15 miles or so north of downtown Salvador. I started to appreciate just how large metropolitan Salvador is since LF was still well within the city limits. The town itself is some distance from the beach, too far to walk. The beach itself is beautiful and lined with barracas. These are "shacks" of varying sizes out of which people sell beverages and light meals. This beach also had a recreational area which featured a go-cart course. At one of the barracas where I stopped for refreshment, I was served by a tall, curvy, golden brown lady in a skimpy bikini. I thought she was a sunbathing beachgoer, but she brought me a menu after I had sat down. She turned out to be the Brasilian girlfriend of the Argentine owner of the barraca. He had come to Brazil from Argentina about a year ago and he seemed very adamant about never returning. He was relatively young and very pessimistic about Argentina's economy and standard of living. His point of view was that run runs his little barraca, he lives on the second floor, his front yard is a beautiful beach, he enjoys beautiful weather, and enjoys even more the beautiful women. Why should he leave that? The entire beach scene in LF seemed really laid back. It appears to be a great place to to relax and just do nothing.
The bus ride to LF was interesting enough to note. It passed through an area called Vida Nova. The driver confirmed my suspicion that this is a place where the very poor live. It resembled a large housing project. About half of it was composed of red clay brick houses with unfinished roofs and unpaved roads. Very similar to pictures of the favelas. The other half was more orderly. It was composed of block after block after block of small one story houses. I would estimate between 650 and 850 square feet. The windows suggested that there were 4 or 5 rooms in each one. The houses were almost identical. It reminded me of what a Levitt town for the poor would look like. I would not be the last time I saw extreme poverty in Salvador.
