South America Day 5: Hello, Salvador!

Today I have arrived in Salvador, Brazil, where I will spend the next three days. I am absolutely thrilled with this last-minute historic hotel find in Salvador.

Pestana Convento do Carmo Hotel Histórico, Salvador, Bahía, Brazil

This leg of the trip was a last-minute improvisation. Salvador is Brazil’s third largest city, and a good refuge from the crazy-high prices of Rio at this time of year.

I received a lot of advice about rush hour traffic being bad (it wasn’t) and wound up getting through security almost two hours ahead of departure time. (It’s probably worth noting that I flew out of the smaller Santos Dumont Airport instead of Rio’s international airport.) I would have slept in a bit more if I had known that would happen!

Domestic terminal security moves pretty quickly here. Small wonder: Nobody has to take their shoes or belts off. Also: No need to remove laptops from bags. After scanning my bag, the X-ray tech smiled at me and said “tomar fotos?”

After a two-hour flight and a 40-minute cab ride, I have landed at the amazing Pestana Convento do Carmo Hotel Histórico, which is a 1500s-era convent lovingly renovated into a hotel. (2022 Update: Sadly, this hotel now appears to have closed permanently. It was such a beautiful site; I hope they can reopen it someday.)

Most of the images that follow are from the hotel itself or from some short walks around the cobblestone streets of the Pelourinho neighborhood in which it is located.

Pestana Convento do Carmo Hotel Histórico, Salvador, Bahía, Brazil

Composure · Pestana Convento do Carmo Hotel Histórico, Salvador, Bahía, Brazil

And Down the Lonely Street I Walked · Pelourinho, Salvador, Bahía, Brazil

Pelourinho, Salvador, Bahía, Brazil

The Fire of Sadness · Pestana Convento do Carmo Hotel Histórico, Salvador, Bahía, Brazil

Being in this location, on the edge of Salvador’s historic Pelourinho district, was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because there was a lot of interesting subject matter to shoot within easy walking district. A curse because everyone warned me that I needed to be hyper-vigilant due to the high rate of street crime in that area. So I took relatively short walks in daylight in areas I came to know and feel safer in. Being a very fair-skinned person with an expensive camera around my neck definitely made me feel highly visible.