Esther's Adventure

Ola,

can´t get to grips with Portuguese at all. Its unlike anything I´ve heard before. It may as well be Chinese or double Dutch. Speaking of Chinese, I have a Chinese symbol on a necklace round my neck. It was my one necklace I allowed myself to take with me while away. I´m really missing the one Sarah bought me for my birthday, but I knew I´d probably loose it, so left it home safe. So I have a Chinese symbol round my neck and I don´t know what it means. I´ve had it in my jewellery box forever, Mum did it come from you? Anyway I´m assuming it means peace or good fortune or something. I need to find out. I feel silly not knowing.

We arrive feeling jet lagged in Salvador at 6.30 ish in the morning. Felix joins us and comes to our hostel. Its painted bright yellow and it´s in a beautiful old colonial house. M is worried about Salvador and isn´t sure she likes it. Driving to the hostel (we take a taxi, luxury!), it seems Salvador is just one big favela. I´m looking forward to seeing the architecture...but at the moment, I just need to sort my bed out for tonight. The inefficient girls behind the desk tell us to return at midday because they don´t know what beds they have available yet. We bite our tongues, dump the backpacks in the front room, slap on some sun block, and head for the beach. Not the most beautiful (or clean) beach, but straight at the bottom of the road and quite quiet! (oh yeah its still only 7.30am...).

We flop there till we can check in. We can´t stay in the same room. M chooses the long straw and gets the air-conditioned room...I squeeze into a matchbox room for 6. Its supposed to be for 4 girls, but because of carnival they´ve squeezed in 6, great. Salvador is definitely poorer and dirtier that Rio, I´ve heard so many stories of pick pockets, muggings and other stuff. I feel quite scared walking around (in retrospect this ruins my stay there, we got a lot of attention but I wish I hadn´t felt quite so uncomfortable). We stay in Salvador till the 1st and get in one night of Carnival. One morning we decide to walk to the old centre but take a wrong turn, so we really do end up in an area we´ve been warned about. We have cameras with us and even though it feels like everyone is out to mug us we still take a few snaps. M points out that Kate Adie must feel rather like this.

One of the most striking features in Brazil is the colours. They are incredible. London is so grey! Brazil is so vibrant and the colours are super bright. Whether its the green foliage, the blue sky, the turquoise sea, the buildings and the clothes. Its a feast for the eyes and one I could never tire of. Even in the run down crumbling streets of Salvador; the peeling facades of the architecture brighten the landscape. Mixed with cool graffiti and crazy electrical wiring and dripping rusting drainage and ironmongery. I want to take a million photos, but I´m too scared to take out my camera. I hate this. Luckily our wrong turn ends up in the Pelourinho, the old colonial centre.

Our reluctance to fork out 300 ish pounds for hostel accommodation for the full 6 days of carnival, and the thought of getting wasted for six days (oh my god what's happened to me?!) means we decide to stay for only one night of the carnival. I slightly wish we´d done one more night, but we couldn´t find accommodation and this decides it for us. We put on sensible clothes (shorts and t-shirts, not a whiff of playsuit!), take out 30 real each, no bag, camera or anything. Not even any jewellery. We hit the streets about 6 ish in the evening. Its crazy. Being the only white blond girls anywhere to be seen, we get touched, stroked and our hair felt. Unnerving. We walk about three blocks before we stop next to a Pousada on the main street which has a balcony of blonds sitting on it. Within about 5 mins we´ve been spotted asked if we were aussie and invited up to the balcony, result! Front row seats of the procession. A private balcony with a bar and we meet some nice people! From our vantage point we observer the craziness of the carnival stress free, I wish I´d brought my camera.

Insert: completely forgot about a funny thing that happened in Trancoso! One evening when we´d finished our disco nap and then headed to meet the aussies at their trance pousada. We ended up getting rather drunk?!...then remembered that we had to meet Henry (the English cousin of Caroline who stood us up), well on walking back we nipped into our pousada to freshen up etc. 15 mins later we left and I stormed ahead across the green in the middle of Trancoso completely oblivious to about 100 people sitting in silence watching a movie on an outdoor screen! Luckily one of us has our whits about us (M!) and rescued me in the nick of time. I was about to walk straight in front of their movie, how embarrassing!!! Thanks M I owe you one...

So the carnival was amazing and even more colourful and noisy than I imagined, and such a brilliant atmosphere. We didn´t do a Blocco which you pay 100 pounds for...you get a Tshirt and basically you can then travel with a mobile sound system (ie 18 wheel truck dolled up to the nines with bar, loo and monster bass bins etc...they move along the streets very slowly and when you´re part of the blocco you can dance in the enclave or roped in area around the truck) It all looks very confusing and how they police this i´m not sure. We didn´t do it...apparently the DJ Tiesto Blocco was the bees knees and I´m sad I missed it. Fat Boy Slim did on on the last night too, but havn´t heard about it. We finally get to bed, and are then woken throughout the night by totally wasted girls (don´t know any of them)...being pissed and loud. I awake to a Danish girl trying to work out whether the body in her bed, is a boy or a girl!? This discussion goes on for about 20mins during which they try to wake the person but to no avail. I feel smug I´m hungover, but not THAT hungover. M and I head to the Terminal Turistico to get the catamaran to take us from this craziness. Secretly I wish I´d done the whole carnival FULL ON! I think my mind and body thank me for not though.

Missing everyone!

xxxx

Interesting things:

It was a girl in the Danes bed.
We meet friend George (from London) in Salvador...oh a quick snog??!
We see H in Salvador but then loose her again.
Grilled cheese on a stick, new favorite food.
The search for Greenfields a club, but actually a street.
M´s sense of humour failure.