Today Tallita from the CAT Travel Brazil office tells us about her favorite places to travel in Brazil. Salvador de Bahia in the north takes her number one spot.
What’s your name and where are you from?
My name is Tallita Costa Silva and I’m from São Paulo in Brazil. I work as an operations exec in the CAT Travel Brazil office.
This is me with a Baiana lady in traditional dress
Where are your three favorite places in Brazil?
The small historic town of Paraty near Rio de Janeiro, Salvador de Bahia in the north of Brazil and my hometown São Paulo!
Can you choose one place and tell us about a time when you visited it?
I’ll tell you about Salvador de Bahia, where I traveled recently to visit some family who live there. It’s such a great place! So warm and the people in Bahia are extremely happy and receptive!
Most of the sightseeing is within easy walking distance, all dotted around Pelourinho – the historic center. In this area you will find loads of churches (one of them is filled with gold, which was pretty cool!), souvenir stores and beautiful houses – and they are all so colorful! The beaches around Bahia are beautiful! Praia do Forte is the main beach, and probably the most well-known.
Here i am in the old city center of Salvador
On the historical tour I took around Pelourinho I learnt a lot about the history of Brazil, such as that Salvador de Bahia was the very first capital of Brazil. You can really visualize history happening here – it’s very interesting to see.
I also took an island hopping tour and visited Ilha de Frade, a small island where you can just lay on the beach and not worry about a thing! Then Ilha de Itaparica, one of the bigger islands, where you can visit the house of Vinicius de Moraes, one of our greatest writers.
Ready to go island hopping!
But the thing that really impressed me about my vacation in Salvador de Bahia was the food! They have so many diverse dishes with sea food, different kinds of peppers and so many flavors that it is hard to explain! I love spicy food, so I tried everything. The most important thing to try is the acarajé – typical Bahian street food. It´s a fried, black-eyed pea patty stuffed with shrimps and spicy sauce. You have to try their exotic drinks and juices too! Because of the sunny weather in Bahia, they have a lot of exotic fruits, some of them I´d never even heard of before! And they taste excellent!
Praying to St Antonio for a new boyfriend! He is the patron saint of single people. We had a serious chat that day!
What made the trip so special?
Bahia is a special place, no matter when you visit it, but the fact that I went right before carnival made it even more exciting. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay for carnival, but I am going back next time!
What was your favorite part of the trip?
My favorite part was visiting the Fundação Casa de Jorge Amado, which is a museum dedicated to another of Brazil´s greatest writers, Jorge Amado. In his books he used the city of Salvador as the setting for his stories. I would recommend his novel Capitães de Areia (Captains of the Sand) it is a really great one.
Outside the Casa Jorge Amado museum
What is it about travel in Latin America that you find inspiring?
I think that you can sense a kind of magical feeling here, that you can’t in other places. It is something that just makes you feel good, and you can’t quite explain it. It’s more than just beautiful places, it’s a whole experience.
Where´s next on your Latin America travel list and why?
Probably Buenos Aires. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about the city, and I’ve got to check it out for myself!
