Am finally on the road and although its only been a week, it's been pretty hectic...and amazing.
Journey to Salvador was long, the overnight stay at the Rio airport was not at all what I dreamed of but I had no choice but to settle into a night of sipping Guarana and waiting. Fortunately met some amazing people there and we kept each other awake.
There was a scary moment at the luggage carousel when my bag would not appear for one hour and I thought I was about to have the repeat of last year... But luckily it did show up.
If I did not stay up all night I would have missed the most amazing view of the sun rising over Rio... It was almost worth it...Emphasis on almost...
But then I finally got to Salvador - it's such a great place. Immediately got into berimbau shopping and meeting capoeirstas then quick swim in the sea and acaraje at Rio Vermhelo - absolutely awesome!!!!
Salvador is so amazing to just wonder around the streets and watch the world go by. And music is everywhere. We chanced upon the Boi Bumba festival (it's a tale of a bull that dies and is brought back to live and an ugly preganant girl - I am not entierly sure how the story goes but there was a lot of signing and dancing :)), few streets further there was a spontanous samba night but we decided to go to jazz jam session which was really nice and chilled...
Being on a tight schedule :) it was already time to leave Salvador - never a great idea to try and do that on a Sunday with the irregular bus service becoming even more difficult. After a long long wait we made it to a bus station and off to Cachoeira and Sao Felix.
Cachoeria is such a special place, perched on the river bank with massive candomble culture weirdly combined with cowboys, reggae and bikers... But somehow this very strange mix makes for a beautiful place to chill out, grab some beers and just go with flow. Which is what we did.
Sao Felix has quite an interesting gallery in the old cigar factory which is well worth having a look at.
We were expecting a lovely and quiet night in this sleepy town but it was not to come to pass... Turns out that the town had other plans and it was the night of a big forro concert which happened to take place right behind our pousada so there was no choice but to listen to at least some of the 4 hour set... It was great if slightly excessive.
Next day we left for Lencois and Chapada Diamentina which is nothing but magical. Beautiful, beautil nature; pretty, chilled out town and some amazing people to go with it.
We did some walking, swimming in waterfalls, visiting caves, more swimming, simply put some prope holiday in the mountain stuff.
At night there was a spontanous samba de roda followed by the jam session and a party on the street with all who can play anything bringing their instruments, others joining in to sign and everyone dancing and having an awesome time... True Brazil style :)
And now after a tough day spent recovering by a waterfall we head back to Salvador to make our way to Itaparica for some capoeira fun.
It's all around awesomness! Am so happy to be back in Brazil and in the warm, carried by the hospitality of the locals...
Check out the photos in the gallery - more coming up on FB :)
