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In
the state of Bahia, more than everywhere else in Brazil, the
cultures and the races mixed, giving rise to the authentic
Brazilian heart. Bahia shelters the oldest churches, the colonial
monuments most important.
El Salvador is a city where the directions are requested permanently:
by the sight of the overloaded churches of gildings, exotic
taste of drinks and traditional dishes, the odor of spices
and aromatics, cries of the salesmen and especially, the rate/rhythm
characteristic of the music bahianaise. The music and the
religion are as important for Bahianais as drinking and to
eat it, its apogee being the carnival. Officially, the carnival
lasts four days, but in El Salvador, it prepares during all
the summer. The clubs organize balls of pre carnival, and
the weekend, the streets fill dancers who involve themselves
for the great day. The carnival of El Salvador resembles of
nothing the organized festival Rio or São Paulo. In
El Salvador, the carnival it is the festival in a pure state.
Except the carnival, El Salvador knows many other religious
celebrations or para nuns (one per month at least).
El Salvador
was founded some thirty years after the discovery of Brazil
(in 1530). It is into 1549 that El Salvador became the capital
of Brazil. For this El Salvador time has lost of its political
and economic importance, but it became famous in the capacity
as center of the Brazilian culture.
With nearly two million inhabitants, it is today the fourth
city of Brazil.
The streets of El Salvador make it possible to skirt the
sea front, since Barra, close of the center until the beaches
of the north of the city, regarded as most beautiful of
all Brazil.
In the surroundings, Ilha de Itaparica is a superb island
of Baia de Todos bone santos. This true tropical wonder
makes hardly 36 km length on nearly 20 km broad. Its 20.000
inhabitants are for the majority of the fishermen or rich
person holiday makers.
Estrada de Coco, the road of the coconuts, carries out towards
the north and the beach of El Salvador furthest away from
the center, Itapuã. This road skirts then the superb
beaches of Jaua, Arembepe, Jucuípe, Abaí and
Itacimirim, and is still prolonged during 80 km before arriving
at the one of the most beautiful places of Bahia, Praia
C Strong.
There, a hundred and thousand coconuts border a beach of
white sand, of 12 km, protected from tourism and attacks
with the environment by a private foundation.
The
road which carries out of El Salvador towards the state
of Espirito Santo, in the south, crosses the town of Valença,
old woman four century old. The first manufacture of textile
of Brazil is found there.
One of the most beautiful beaches of the area, Guaibim,
is with about fifteen kilometers of Valença. It shelters
very good seafood restaurants and pleasant bars.
Ilhéus, capital of the cocoa founded in 1534, is
a modern city which knew to preserve the treasures of its
past. The beaches are numerous there, and the carnival one
of is animated of Bahia.
It is in Pôrto Seguro, on the southernmost coast,
that the Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvarez Cabral first
of all accosted on April 22, 1500. This town of 5.000 inhabitants
resisted the walk of time and has to preserve its colonial
atmosphere.
To 200
km of the coasts, towards the interior, extends the arid
area of Nordeste, called sertão. Long period of dryness
the peasants of the sertão push regularly towards
the cities of the coast in the search of work. When returns
the rain, they turn over on their premises.
The best starting point to visit the sertão is Recôncavo
da Bahia it acts of the one of the economic and agricultural
centers most important of Bahia. With a few kilometers only
the sertão, an arid area with the poor vegetation
and choking heat starts.
The sertão also has its music, quite different from
the samba or of nova worked.
The area known under the name of Chapada Diamantina is one
of most beautiful of Bahia. Many sources of mountain fight
effectively against the dryness and make it possible a luxuriant
vegetation to push.
In way, one meets many caves which it is possible to visit.
A water fall, the fall of glass which runs out a height
of 400m. The top of Morro C Feeds Inácio, covered
with a multitude of exotic plants, makes it possible to
discover a sumptuous panorama on the whole of Chapada.
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