The carnival of Salvador de Bahia 2012 is around the corner! The big party fueled with music, drink and massive crowds will soon occupy up the streets of Salvador. During the dates of the carnival two large closed circuits are set up in the city of Salvador: the Barra Ondina circuit and the Campo Grande circuit. Parading through them, mammoth juggernatus, the trios elétricos, with music bands and artists playing on top of them.

Three useful sources on all carnival-related info:

• Portal oficial del Carnaval 2012. The carnival’s official website.
• Folia Bahia. Complete information including a map showing where the carnival circuits are.
• EFolia.net. Another site with a good deal of practical info.

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dates of the 2012 carnival in Brazil

The Brazilian tourism authorities recently launched the website Brasil 360° Experience, with versions in Portuguese, English and Spanish.

While most travelers are familiar with panoramic and 360° photos, 360° videos will be a novelty for many. As the image moves, the viewer can change the angle of vision and point the camera in whichever direction he chooses. It is a technology that produces surprising and fascinating results. Brasil 360° Experience aims at surprising the views with moving images of a handful of Brazilian tourist destinations.

The website contains videos of Rio de Janeiro, Cuiabá and the Pantanal, Curitiba and Foz de Iguazú, Manaos and the Amazon and Salvador de Bahía.

The page contains a link “Know more about…” that takes the reader to the Brazilian Tourism Portal, a true liability for the promotion of Brazil as a tourist destination. At the portal, when the tourist tries to find out more information about, say, tourist attractions in Rio de Janeiro, he or she will find the following screen:

Worry not. If you want more info on the destinations covered by the new website, you can check our very own entries for those destinations:

• destination: Rio de Janeiro
• the Pantanal handbook
• destination: Curitiba
• destination: Iguazu Falls
• destination: Manaus
• destination: Salvador
• the Amazon: an index of blog posts

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There can be nothing more Brazilian than an informal soccer game at the beach – played by the locals. You will witness those friendly disputes all along the Brazilian coastline, from the widest strips of land to beaches where the advancing tide threatens to turn soccer into waterpolo. The photos illustrating this entry are from Arraial d’Ajuda and Caraíva, both in the south coast of the state of Bahia.

If you want to see more photos of Arraial d’Ajuda check out our Flickr album. We have our photos of Caraíva at this other Flickr album

If you want more information on the two destinations, have a look at our blog posts destination: Arraial d’Ajuda and destination: Caraíva.

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Our weekly shot captures a moment of the quiet and calm life of the little village of São Francisco (aka Cova da Onça), on the island of Boipeba, state of Bahia. Blue skies, palm trees, evening sun, absolut bliss.

If you want to see more photos of Boipeba check out our Flickr album.

If you want more information on the destination, have a look at our blog post destination: Boipeba.

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This is the fourth on a series of videos produced by the Brazilian tourism authorities. They all have a common theme: those states that will host 2014 World Cup games. During the coming weeks we will present all those videos here in the blog. They are shortish videos, with conventional but beautiful images of the states and its main destinations.

Bahia:

We have devoted several blog posts to the state of Bahia, including our guides to Arraial d’Ajuda, Boipeba, Caraíva, Lençóis/Chapada Diamantina, Morro de São Paulo, Porto Seguro, Salvador and Trancoso.

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institutional videos: Paraná
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institutional videos: Rio Grande do Sul
institutional videos: state of Amazonas
institutional videos: Rio de Janeiro
institutional videos: Minas Gerais

The website PanMAP, specialized in pano images and virtual walkthroughs, contains a series of photos covering very well known Brazilian destinations. Delight yourself from your very own desktop!

• virtual walkthrough: Jericoacoara (Ceará)
• virtual walkthrough: Morro de São Paulo (Bahía)
• virtual walkthrough: Paraty (Rio de Janeiro)
• virtual walkthrough: Porto de Galinhas (Pernambuco)
• virtual walkthrough: Río de Janeiro

The Brazil Travel Blog contains destination cards on with plenty of travel information on Jericoacoara, Morro de São Paulo, Paraty and Rio de Janeiro.

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The carnival in Salvador de Bahia 2010 will take place from 11 to 16 February. A handful of websites with information on the carnival:

• Portal oficial del Carnaval 2009. The carnival’s official website. Detail information of the carnival events hasn’t been made public yet, it will be announced during the first fortnight in January.
• Folia Bahia. Complete information including a map showing where the carnival circuits are.
• EFolia.net. Another site with a good deal of practical info.

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destination: Salvador

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Publishing house Empresa das Artes, with an extense travel-related catalogue, is enabling free online access to the full contents of several of its guides. To read the guides you need to access the tool provided by Book Stand Panrotas.

The available guides are:

Amazonas
Bahia
Goiás
Mato Grosso
Pará
Paraná
Santa Catarina

To open each guide, click on CLIQUE para ler esta publicação. A new window will open where you will be able to read the guide. Unfortunately, the guides are available in Portuguese only, but if you have a basic grasp of the language you will find tons of background information as well as beautiful pictures and maps.

As well as the guides listed here there are a few commercial publications from Panrotas, a trade magazine. Congratulations to the private companies responsible for the initiative.

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National parks: online brochures

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[photo: view from the window of our room at the Ibis Rio Vermelho]

NAME: hotel Ibis Rio Vermelho

WHERE: Rio Vermelho, Salvador de Bahia

WEBSITE: Ibis Salvador Rio Vermelho

IN ENGLISH: yes

PRICES ON THE WEBSITE: yes

LOCATION: the hotel is located in the Rio Vermelho neighbourhood, right next to a tiny and secluded beach. Rio Vermelho is one of the bohemiam quarters of Salvador, with lots of restaurants and an active night life. To get to the center of Salvador (Pelourinho) from Rio Vermelho you have to take a taxi or a bus. The tourist Salvador bus stops right in front of the hotel. See the location of the hotel on Google Maps.

THE PREMISES: the hotel occupies a building attached to the Mercure hotel – belonging to the same hotel chain. It has the classic structure of most Ibis hotels, with a dining room and bar on the ground floor.

THE ROOMS: your standard Ibis room, correct. Separate bathroom. Tv and telephone. For our travelling needs, more than enough.

PRICES IN MARCH 2009: we paid R$109 per room per night.

BREAKFAST: not included on the price. It costs R$10 per person per day. We ended up having breakfast at the hotel to avoid being delayed. Breakfast is correct, it lacks the charm of a classic breakfast at a Brazilian pousada but it is more generous than a continental breakfast.

FOOD: available at the restaurant. We didn’t eat at the hotel.

INTERNET: the hotel offers paid wi-fi access. There is also a computer offering paid internet access.

RECEPTION: efficient and professional.

CONTACT BY EMAIL: we booked through the hotel’s website. All the options and charges were presented clearly.

OUR OPINION: those familiar with Ibis hotels are unlikely to be dissapointed. Comfortable accommodation with no luxuries attached at a very competitive price. Those wanting to stay at the Rio Vermelho neighbourhood will find the Ibis hotel an excellent choice. Being far from the center of town wasn’t a problem for us.
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Acarajé is a true culinary delicacy from the state of Bahia. An acarajé is a ball made from black-eyed peas and fried in dendê oil, usually served with hot chilly pepper sauce. It can be eaten along with dried shrimp and traditional dishes from Bahia such as the vatapá or the caruru.

Acarajé is often eaten as street food, found in traditional food stalls managed by the traditional baianas do acarajé, the ladies that have prepared the delicacy for decades and have turned their activity into an art.

Salvador is where the elite of the baianas do acarajé is found. Each citizen from Salvador has a favourite baiana, but if you choose among Cira, Dinha (no longer alive) or Regina you can’t go wrong.

When you order your acarajé, you have to make it clear if you want it con camarão (with shrimps) or sem camarão (without them). The former is a bit more expensive (in March 2009 R$4 at Dina’s). If you don’t want any hot sauce on it ask for it sem pimenta.

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destination: Salvador
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