Salvador

After a few days in Maceio, we made our way south to Penedo, a quaint little city on the banks of the Sao Francisco River. From there we took a boat ride to where this river meets the ocean, a rather chaotic event that is given the name of "the falls" even though the water is not falling from anywhere.

After that it was a night in Aracaju and then on to Salvador, the capital of Bahia.

Oh, Salvador, how do I explain you? It is a magnificent colonial city, with towering churches and old government buildings from when this city was the capital of Brazil, ruling over the vast sugar wealth of Portugal's most prosperous colony. It is a second Africa, the cultural and ethnic influence unmistakable in every face and costume. It is the musical heart of Brazil, the site of the emergence of the country's most famous musicians. It is the biggest street party in the world - Carnaval - when the city comes alive and every stone vibrates with the energy that infuses the city during those weeks.

It's hard not to be overwhelmed by the place. Sounds and smells almost literally assault you as you walk by, while the sheer number of things to look at makes you wander in circles, without really caring.

The diversity of people walking the streets is amazing. Germans mix with Italians, Americans with Argentinians, and of course everyone enveloped in a sea of blackness. Conversations go on in an eclectic mix of language and hand signals, the push and pull of humanity expressing itself in negotiatons between buyer and seller, between capoeiristas barely missing each other in play, between the insistence and refusal of the beggar and the tourist.

I get the feeling that this is a very human place, that the miscegenation and syncretism that are exalted here as unique are in fact what we as a race are all about. When we stop clinging to our particular idealogies, stop trying to insist that we or our ideas or our pets are somehow "pure," we see that we are the product of countless years of mixing and matching. I think this realization should give us a healthy respect for each other, and for ideas and people we think of as beneath us because they are somehow less "pure."

I'm being kicked out. I'll continue later.