Hotel Bahia Do Sol Salvador

Flew into Salvador on Sunday, randomly on the same flight as Darius, an English guy I'd met on Ipanema beach, and his 3 Austrian friends: Arnold, who is the organiser and "dad" of the group, Arnold's brother Helle and their friend Mario, a huge jolly man who grew up on a farm and laughs all the time. I spotted their hotel's minibus and thanks to my burgeoning Portuguese, managed to blag a free ride into town in it for us all - result. It turned out the part of town where we ...

... to, Praia Farol da Barra, was a crowded city beach which is just the was the Brazilians like it. Picture the following: a group of men playing soccer, people selling toasted cheese, ice cream, and fried fish, other people practicing their capoeria moves, all while 30 kids and Jay try to bodysurf the same wave and not kill each other in the process. The second beach we went to, Praia do Flamengo was quite different. It's where the rich Salvadorans go to escape the city. At ...

... 8221; was set up. I still remember with a smile those low budgets dinners we had there, normally pasta or rice but always served with home-made caipirinha <br><br>So days in Salvador went away swimming, walking around ...

... to the influx of money and tourists generated by its status as a World Heritage Site, this once dangerous and chaotic place has become a bit of a tourist Disneyland. Even so, its a 'must see' with cobblestone (supposedly brought form Portugal as ballast) streets that make walking somewhat like canyoning and colorful colonial buildings. And walking is the point here as there are tons of little ...

... so he can show us around. He was very friendly.  I literally took 600 pictures in the last 3 days. Many of them seem repetitive but each one is so awesome I can't bring myself to delete any of them. However, some of my favorite pictures came from the bottom of devil's throat. The water was actually super clear and there was one fall in particular connected to devil's throat that kept producing a rainbow at the bottom. It looked like something out of a movie, but as ...

... the raising of the spirits began to intensify. Suddenly some of the dancers began falling into trances and had to be caught by the other people as they toppled over. The intensity of the spirits began to increase more and more. I closed my eyes and nodded my head to the music. I was floating along to the music and was feeling realxed UNTIL ... I opened my eyes and was jolted back into my body. I was ...

... America and as a result there is a very large black community here. <br><br>It gives the town a really different flavour to anywhere else we've been to on our trip so far, the place is definitely more colourful, the menus more interesting and the atmosphere more exciting. <br><br>Exciting is not always a good thing and it was clear very quickly that we would ...

... them and he tried to help get them away from us while we kind of ran. It was hard to lose them because we couldn?t leave the main street because then we?d be on a small alley where there weren?t a lot of people which would be much worse then where we were in the first place! When we thought we had finally gotten rid of them there they were again!! (they weren?t really doing anything, just saying random stuff and being sketchy, but we knew it could lead to worse). Luckily ...

... you can barely move, and its 100 degrees. 2 million people are on the streets of Salvador partying for the last night of Carnivale. So, we arrived at 9 and got a good spot for our group near the semi. Will put his hair into about 50 little ponytails so he would be easy to spot, and I wore my bright orange hat so we could keep an eye on each other. Our party didn't start rolling until 11 so we just hung out there for a while, saw my finance professor and talked to ...

... l*rge drumming *nd percussion circle erupted on the be*ch *round * fire, i believe it w*s st*rted by the be*utiful people from three tepees who seemed to be singing *nd d*ncing * jig whilst pl*ying little instruments like wooden flutes, tin whistles *nd ukuleles every time we p*ssed them by. There w*s the perfecto Chillout Dome, m*de with *mbient energy in mind. The dome w*s l*rge, sp*cious *nd open to *ll the elements but *lso provided sh*de vi* well chosen red ...