4 September

Went to Pelourinho, a mix of historic center and nightlife spot. The center, with a music stage and a lot of people selling food and dollar-fifty drinks is at the stop, and the rest pours down narrow cobblestone streets packed with colonial (or colonial-style) architecture with restuarants...bars...god knows what else...it did seem to be a bit of a tourist magnet, albeit a young tourist magnet. (read: obviously coked-out blond Europeans) At one point a drumming procession came up the street, playing what I think was samba...or perhaps a genre or related genre...carnaval music, one would think. That was stereotypically Brazilian enough to make a narrow road of pastel centuries-old century buildings snaking off into the dark even more surreal. I also encountered two guys whose very essences cried out for their own buddy-comedy movie. He's the smooth banker with a french name who speaks English! He's the goofy drunk with dreadlocks! They have only one week to go to the international potato-sack racing finals on the other side of the country to get the money to save the local playground from the evil developers! BATHROOM, FOOL!