“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.”
- T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”
The most important religious and popular party on the calendar takes place on the second Thursday in January. Dressed in traditional white garb and strings of beads, Bahianas (of the uniquely Brazilian, slave-descendant religion Candomble) lead an 8-kilometer (5-mile) procession of similarly white-attired and perfumed devotees and partyers from Comércio to the (Catholic) Igreja do Bonfim for the washing (lavagem) of the church steps.





