day 11, jan 23, 2011 salvador, brazil

This is our tour of Salvador, the first capital of Brazil. There was a lot of walking but we enjoyed that because it provided a good feel for the city, although it was very hot. The population is about 3 million people, 80% African. This is because the slave ships came to Salvador first from Africa. The local Indians were not good as slaves because they knew the country and could escape to easily.

Here are some pictures we took. (They have loaded in reverse order). A government building(sorry its sideways, I forgot to fix it) – the government and the churches have the best buildings. The bay, which is the second largest day in the world after Hudson's Bay, and the elevator to get from the upper city to the lower city. A broken cross -which was a protest for tearing down one of the early churches. One of the 365 churches in the city, all Catholic. The blue church is a slave church. Slaves had to be Catholic but were not allowed in the churches. There is a picture to compare with the government building which shows the difference between the rich and the poor. There is a picture of some guys sleeping and lying on the sidewalk who waved to us. It is Sunday and the beach was crowded with people swimming. The lighthouse separates the bay from the ocean. The statues in the lake are African gods (voodoo).

We also saw the British section, which includes $2 million apartments with swimming pools on the balconies. British warships protected the Portuguese court when it escaped from Napoleon to Brazil, in exchange for very favorable trade and other privileges. That's the way the British got there.

The first major economy was for Brazil Wood, the second was sugar cane, and the third was gold. Silver was actually 5 times as valuable as gold at one time because gold was so plentiful.

We came back to the ship and had a lovely nap and have just awakened. We are off to Rio at six o'clock and will arrive there in a couple of days.