Well, you've basically got three ways to go: by taxi, by bus, or by rented car. With Brazilian currency being so weak, taxis are cheap and buses are practically free (fifty cents a ride). I'll fill you in some more and I'll start with the buses --

First, you don't enter via the front door. You get on through the back door. (The executivos, the more expensive and easily distinguishable alternatives to city buses, are entered at the front. They don't have rear doors.)

In order to get from the airport into town you can go by any of the three means above: taxi, executivo, or city bus. Taxi, of course, is the most expensive. The fare is around seventy reais, which would be about twenty-five dollars as I write (November 15th, 2004). The executivo is R$4.00, and the city bus (ônibus coletivo) is R$2.00. The advantage to the executivo is that it will accommodate as much luggage as you have.

The end-of-the-line for the executivo is Praça da Sé, at the entrance to Pelourinho, the old colonial city center. To be more exact, the bus stops a couple of blocks before reaching Praça da Sé (the end-of-the-line used to be Praça da Sé itself, but a public plaza was built there a couple of years ago). A lot of the route encompasses a beautiful ride along the orla, or seafront. Oh, and by the way, you don't pay the fare for the executivo when you board the bus. It will either be collected along the way by a fare-collector, or collected by the bus-driver when you get off.

Getting back to taxis, Salvador has many honest, hardworking and honorable taxi drivers, but like most cities in the world it has dishonest taxi drivers as well.  Somebody I can wholeheartedly recommend as trustworthy and an all-around excellent person is Marcio Pereira (click to be taken to his page), who speaks English, French, and Spanish, and who also works as a guide.

Another good guy is Vilela.  Vilela speaks English (not fluently, but well-enough; he took a one-year course and worked hard at it).  His cell phone number is 9105-9360.