Email bt_paris@yahoo.com, Telephone 55 (Brazil) 71(Salvador) 8812-4576

This is Ben Paris, on his way back from the island of Paty (see further down, and that's pronounced pah-TEE) in the Baía de Todos os Santos (Bay of All Saints). Originally from New York City, Ben has been living in Salvador for most of the past 18 years (he's married to a Baiana), and he knows the city inside and out, like the proverbial back of his hand. He's also an inveterate traveller* into the Recôncavo, the region around the bay which was the birthplace of Bahia's culture.

(*Usually in search of stories; see Bennet Paris in the author's index of Fiction, Volume 14, Number 2, along with, among others, Heinrich Böll and Joyce Carol Oates.)

If you're looking for somebody to get you where you're going and then tell you about it when you get there (or even tell you where you ought to be going), Ben's your man! This is something he enjoys doing! Plenty of tour guides will get you to the places in the guidebooks, and Ben can as well. But he can also get you to places the guidebooks never knew existed!

Email him at bt_paris@yahoo.com, or call him at 55 (Brazil) 71(Salvador) 8812-4576.

Pai Raimundo in the front window of his house/restaurant

Pai Raimundo & Santo Amaro's best-known daughter

Dining at Nando's Restaurant in Santo Amaro (after a samba-de-roda at the Casa do Samba)

That's Badega grinning off to the right. Badega is The. Man. for Recôncavo percussion in recordings and shows.

Ben (right) with Dr. Ken Dossar of Temple University (left), João do Boi (second from left), and Zeca (the bar owner, third from left) in São Braz, Bahia

João is of course the magnificient roots samba man (chuleiro)...

João do Boi (John of the Ox), with his brother Alumínio to his right