Salvador, Brazil was interesting. People who traveled to the waterfalls had an amazing trip, as did those who traveled to Rio. The Amazon trip would have been amazing also, were it not for numerous cases of food poisoning. Dan and I decided to stay in Salvador (he had a lot of grading to do) and just take day trips from the ship. Not 2 hours after we first walked from the ship into the old, historic part of the city did we hear about several purse or camera snatchings, in spite of plenty of police standing around. Something fishy about this tourist area, but we still had fun. We later heard about a handful of people who used ATMs at BANKS and had their accounts plundered. You'd think their tourist industry would not want this to happen... Salvador looks very Mediterranean, from the Portuguese settlers. The city is right on the coast on the edge of the second largest bay in the world (the largest being Hudson Bay.) It was a big port for the slave ships coming straight from Ghana. We went to an orphanage one day, 25 children, mostly toddlers, some infants and handful of older children. Volunteering there was a woman from Atlanta, whose son goes to the College of Charleston. You never know when you're going to run into someone from back home! She volunteers through Cross Cultural Solutions, for 6 weeks at a time, and loves it, even though it is heart wrenching. We also visited one of Mother Teresa's places where 4 nuns try to meet the needs of the many poor here. We took a ferry to 2 lovely little islands one day, from which Danny has already posted pictures. The last day a big group of students and faculty helped to paint a community center in a favela (that is what they call slum communities here.) The young men who had built the very rustic center are very inspiring, working to give the young people a place to go. So, in the midst of deplorable conditions there is hope and very positive energy. Enough said..on to Fort Lauderdale!
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