There’s a church in Salvador, the state capital of Bahia in north-eastern Brazil, whose cherubs appear to have been modelled on a certain generation of male British politician. Leon Brittan’s in there, and Geoffrey Howe, clinging to a pulpit with his eyes rolled to heaven. David Mellor, sans specs, makes two or three appearances.
It’s said that the carvings that encrust the walls of the 17th-century Igreja São Francisco represent a two-fingered salute from the slaves who carved them to their Portuguese masters. Swollen breasts, spanked-pink buttocks and bloated bellies grace the insanely ornate, gilt-smothered statuary, and a wicked parody of the Portuguese ladies’ hairstyle of the day — a dead ringer for Nigel Lawson’s — crowns every doughy, slack-jawed face.
Africa’s legacy is hard to miss in Salvador, Brazil’s fourth city. Capital between 1550 and 1763 of Portugal’s most profitable colony, the city, which now sprawls around the cluster of steep hills and dramatic bluffs that formed its original, strategic location, brought in thousands of slaves from Africa, who clung tight to their traditions. The abolition of slavery in 1888 created a civic majority of free blacks, and today 80 per cent of the city’s population is of at least part-African descent.
This exuberant city is without doubt the world’s most African city outside the mother continent, with a distinctly Latin flavour. The cult religion, Candomblé, thrives (and welcomes paying tourists), funky statues of its gods, called orixás, float above the lake Dique do Tororó, and shop after shop sells paintings of these iconic, wildly costumed figures. The smells of shrimp and palm oil hang in the air, as Baianas in traditional white lacy frocks and head-wraps keep the African cookery traditions central to Bahia’s distinctive cuisine alive at street stalls.
In the historic centre, Pelourinho — for Unesco’s money South America’s most important colonial complex — the streets of grand houses, baroque churches and stately former municipal buildings in contrasting pastel colours, thunder with percussion. Reggae, samba and the local styles — funky afoxé, lilting forró — blare from bars and squares, and rival drum orchestras roam the area, whipping up impromptu dance parties in their wake. (While Rio takes the crown for most sequins, any Brazilian music nut will tell you Salvador’s Carnaval, on February 17-20 next year, is the one and only.) On the beaches and in the squares, impossibly lithe shirtless men pair up to trade spectacular kicks, spins, tumbles and leaps to the music of a berimbau in the martial art/dance hybrid capoeira, an acrobatic “game” practised by slaves centuries ago and now a worldwide export.
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“It was the unique, vibrant, creative culture, and the friendliness that kept me here,” says Charles Butler, a London-born artist who touched down here on his way to Rio in 1988 and never left. “And I got hooked on the beach life. Although at 2.5 million people Salvador is a big city by European standards, it has a low-key, provincial feel, and everyone lives outdoors most of the time. Other Brazilian cities like Recife and Fortaleza have a similar energy, but they’re not as African. There’s something special here. And it’s a very sexy, flirtatious place. Salvador just makes you feel good.”
Finding in 1999 that his Bahian wife Helena was pregnant, Butler put his painting and sculpture on hold to oversee the deeply stylish renovation of a large colonial townhouse in Santo Antônio, the next district to Pelourinho, which he and Helena opened in September 2000 as an upmarket pousada. That, six years later, Butler’s Pousada Redfish now occupies a much larger premises on the same street is indicative of the way in which Salvador has in recent years opened up to tourists.
Accommodation options once consisted of a handful of soulless, corporate five-star high-rises in the modern central suburbs, a few smart pousadas in the historical centre and a lot of seriously basic backpacker joints.
“Now there are ten pousadas on our street,” Butler says. “Visitors come from more countries, and the demand for good-quality, mid-range places with local character is more catered to. And the opening of Convento do Carmo down the road is a major sign of respectability coming to Pelourinho, which 15 years ago was pretty much a war zone.”
Brazil’s first historic luxury hotel, the Convento do Carmo, which opened this year, is an elegant makeover of a convent founded in 1586 by the first order of Carmelite Friars. A glamorous bar and gourmet restaurant line a cloister whose centrepiece is a round, green-tiled pool, and touches like LCD TVs, pillow menu and a spa make it the city’s first property up to any and every kind of international standard. It’s gorgeous, and priced to match.
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Meanwhile, downtown in the well-heeled modern beach suburb of Rio Vermelho, the Pestana Bahia is breaking new ground for Salvador’s high-rise behemoths. Since the classy Portuguese hotel chain took over this towering property on the Atlantic shore, its rooms have had a hip 1970s makeover and this giant pulls off a cool, urban, boutique feel.
Real estate is also transforming the city, and as more direct international flights are routed here, more Europeans and Americans are turning up with their chequebooks. Praia do Forte, a beach town an hour up the coast, which five years ago was a single dirt road, is now covered in condiminiums. And while inland gems such as the tranquil colonial twin towns of Cachoeira and São Felix, and the gently bustling market town of Santo Amaro, are as beguiling as ever, this stretch of coastline, the Linha Verde, has been massively developed, with large-scale, purpose-built package resorts. Thanks to Brazil’s longest stretch of shoreline, though, you never have to go far in Bahia to have a slice of perfect tropical beach more or less to yourself.
All this ready cash is having an effect on Salvador’s character, and Pelourinho can be quite a dark, cynical place late at night, although the world’s greatest density of police keeps it safe, combined with sensible precautions, by day.
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But for the most part, Salvador is hanging on to a uniquely unsophisticated charm. In a world where “remote” beach bungalows in other continents show the latest Tom Cruise film over dinner, Bahia’s absorption in its own culture and consummate lack of interest in what the rest of the world is up to amounts to an incredibly exotic experience.
Need to know
Getting there: Rupert Mellor travelled with TAP Portugal (0845 6010932, www.flytap.com), which has 47 flights a week to Brazil (via Lisbon or Oporto), and offers return fares from the UK to Salvador from £643.
Staying: Pestana Bahia (00 55 71 2103 8000, www.pestana.com) has rooms from £65 (tax and service extra). Pousada Convento do Carmo can be booked through Keytel International (020-7616 0300, www.keytel.co.uk) and offers B&B from £114.50pp. Hotel Redfish (00 55 71 3243 8473, www.hotelredfish.com) has rooms from £60. All prices include breakfast.
Useful website: www.bahia.com.br.