Portobello Ondina Praia Hotel Salvador

... for about 25 a night and looked forward to a couple of days relaxing in tropical sunshine.

It ended up raining for the next 2 days so we decided to get the boat back to Salvador which was just as rough as the first time!

When we got back to dry land we decided to stay in Barra beach which was much nicer than old town. Just wished we could have had more time there in the blazing sunshine before having to catch the plane back to Rio.

... of the most wonderful beaches Brazil has to offer. It also has a real edge to it and tourists are urged to be cautious after dark as muggings are very frequent. Luckily we didn't experience anything like this and had a great stay. We timed it well as we were there for the Sao Joao festival which was brilliant, great food and music ...

... present police presence you take your life into your own hands if you do the campe grande circuit outside of a bloco. The dodo cicuit is more sedate but your still likely to be serialy pickpocketed and will get into a fight if you try to challange a pickpocket and his gang of associates. What about the music? It sucks worse than a $2 dollar *****, and trust me you wouldn´t want to go near one of them in Salvador. Imagine the ...

... during carnival, and also we met Alex, a Finnish girl who confusingly only spoke Swedish . So there was a group of us to go to the carnival together, basically the Salvador carnival consists of 3 circuits, Barra, Campo Grande and Pelorinho. All were different in the various different atmospheres, music etc. The actuyal parade consists of various different blocos, which are lartge long trucks with speakers on them, called a trio, driving very slowly down the parade ...

... to Australia with me. We speak nothing but the truth to each other, the good, the bad, the ugly and we get along like a house on fire. I can tell him off and he gets it and still loves me and equally when I´m out of line he tells me so (but that is hardly ever, right! LOL). I am fine with letting whatever it is, just be, and breathe and grow. This is somewhat new for me, somewhat, and I´m enjoying it immensely. Plus it helps when two people love each ...

... a pill for every ail these days our guide told us that the Guarani are loosing their medical knowledge and are expected to become fully reliant on western medicine in the future. Furthermore since tourism had increased they have seen more profit from crafts and are able to purchase food more and more frequently instead of hunting and farming. I don't anticipate they will ever stop completely, but they are loosing parts of their culture to this influence and after ...

... and nearly every night of the week there's something musical happening. Since we've been here we've been to watch live Samba, live Reggae, a history of Bahian dance show (at which I got dragged on stage and had to dance and did very well at, I might add), watched a live show in the square and been to a very musical church. It's been a bit of a hidden gem has Salvador. You find not many people travel north of Rio because it gets harder to get back accross to ...

... Traditional Chinese Medicine, Worlds of Music, and Sociology of Religion. As well as Global Studies which everyone takes and is not much to write home about. I think my Chinese medicine class is my favorite so far. It is soo interesting. We?re learning so much about what Chinese medicine is based on and what it entails. In my worlds of music class I?m also learning about music therapy. My professor has been all over the world studying in villages, working with Shamans and ...

The second week here just shot by even quicker, especially once I got to know the city better. ´Lessons continued in the usual silly vein and did take up most of my time, but still managed to get some beaches and booty-shaking in lol. Have also done some virtuous cultural things: went to see the church of Bonfim, a barrio of Salvador (got on the wrong bus but pulled my usual helpless-alone-blonde-female trick and got the bus to do a little diversion lol, but ...

... few kilometers through *tl*ntic forest to the be*ch. Unfortun*tely this led to long w*iting times *t the festiv*l entr*nce *t the st*rting d*y. The org*nizers promised to le*ve the *re* even cle*ner th*n it w*s before the festiv*l. To wr*p it up - UP 2007 is surely in * row with the best 5 psy-tr*nce festiv*ls in the world. The mess*ge of the festiv*l - *s org*nizer Alok (see picture) st*ted - is to open up the tr*nce scene to other scenes, to the world *nd ...