Salvador is the oldest city in Brazil in the sense that matters, because it was the first capital, founded by the Portuguese in 1549 and ruling the colony until 1763. It sits on a peninsula at the mouth of the Baía de Todos os Santos, a big bay with islands, and its old centre, the Pelourinho, is a hillside of colourful colonial houses, baroque churches and cobbled streets, listed by UNESCO in 1985. The name Pelourinho means pillory, which tells you something about what once happened in the square.
This is also the heart of Afro-Brazilian culture. Salvador received more enslaved Africans than any other port in the Americas, and their descendants shaped the city's music, religion and food. Candomblé temples hold ceremonies on the hills, capoeira circles form in the squares, and drummers fill the old streets with rhythm. On every corner a woman in white lace sells acarajé, a fritter of black-eyed peas fried in palm oil and filled with shrimp and spicy paste, a dish with roots in West Africa that you really must try. Carnival here is louder, longer and more street-based than anywhere else in Brazil.
As a place to ride, Salvador is exciting rather than relaxing. Traffic is heavy and fast, with motorcycle couriers weaving between lanes and buses that stop without warning, and the steep streets of the old town have slippery cobbles and sharp gradients. Do not leave anything on the bike, and park it in a guarded lot if you can. The Lacerda Elevator carries people between the lower city and the upper one, and the ferry to Itaparica Island is a pleasant way to leave the traffic behind.
The Chapada Diamantina loop starts by heading inland on the BR-324, which crosses a hot plain of farmland and scrub before climbing to the highlands, and the distances are long, so fill up before leaving the city. Fuel is plentiful in Salvador, but less so in smaller towns.
The sunsets from the Barra lighthouse are famous, and the crowds who gather there to applaud the sun are part of the show.