Today I was up early and hoping to have my last breakfast with Guel before I said goodbye and moved to my new hosts place. Unfortunately she was off super early so instead I gathered my things - off which I now have far too many and headed to the bus stop. The bus came and after asking the ticket lady I found I was on the correct bus and headed in the right direction. It wouldn't have been 10 minutes and had arrived at Lago Santo de Campo and there waiting was my new host Paulo. Paulo is about 7 foot talk and with a big smile on his face I could tell he was going to be fun to hang-out with. We headed back to his place - a nice little 2 bedroom apartment just off one of the main roads and this place was barricaded with even a gate to the alleyway. Paulo was off to lunch with friends at an expensive resteraunt in the city so I decided not to join him and instead have a wonder around his neighborhood and grab a few things for lunch. After having a wonder around the neighborhood I stumbled into the area of the favelas and things became very cheap - I felt a little uneasy but felt somewhat safe with all the people around. On returning to Paulo's I got very disorientated and it took me nearlly 30 minutes to find his place again and I had a lot of strange looks from the people living around him.
I had to try and find a new travel adaptor as I can not charge my iPad without one and unfortunately yesterday mine broke. I decided the best place to find this device would be the shopping mall and I was right; they indeed had the adaptors and they were unfortunately very expensive. I guess I am a little upset that I have to fork out money for a new one - specially seen as someone else had broken it in a silly manner - but hey as my good friend MARTI would say such is life and there is no time to be negative. After my visit to the mall (I usually can't stand shopping malls) I headed back to the flat hoping to take a short-cut. My short-cut ended up taking me deep into a favela and wow it was quite an interesting experience; people looked at me very strange but no one bothered me as I walked with confidence and pretended like I was from there. The buildings consisted of about 4-5 floors and deep down in the alley ways they had schools, shops and everything else you could imagine - their own little communities. It took me a while to get out of there as I didn't fancy checking my map and looking like an obvious tourist - when I eventually made it out I took a huge breath of relief and realized yes I was actually s***ting myself for most part of that little adventure. In the afternoon Paulo and I hung-out and he introduced me to the music and Forro (dance) of Salvador - which proved very interesting and educational. Paulo then headed out for an hour whilst I stayed and made some dinner and caught up on some emails.

OBSERVATIONS:
- First favela experience - very interesting little communities set deep inside wealthy areas