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Heya! SO we have finally reached an internet cafe with FAST connection and enought time to fill you in on our crazy first week in Salvador. Get comfy guys cos this is going to take a while! (cos it´s half Marisha telling the story!)
Sooooo.... we got to Heathrow at some insane hour of the morning, dragging our backpacks (they have wheels!!) along behind us and praying that they weren´t overweight (Marisha´s was about 28kg and Rakhee´s was 24 kg!) Luckily the Iberia woman was quite nice (though she didn´t look it) and warned us not to be overweight on the way back. Our flight was slightly delayed and so we got to Madrid with 30 mins to clear another passport check and RUN to our connecting flight. They were on the last call when we arrived, it was like something out of Home Alone and everyone was staring at us when we got on the plane including the gorgeous boys sitting behind us (embarassing, but they turned out to be just like a load of harrow boys!).
Passport control at Rio was LONG, the woman on the plane wouldn~t give us a landing visa for some reason so we had to hunt one down before we could go through. Jumped in a taxi to our hotel in Rio just for the night, it turned out to be quite posh with a rooftop terrace etc and so wasn~t really a first night of backpacking! We walked through a sea of homeless people in search of water and ran back because it was so scary! The next morning we had to fly (two planes) to Salvador, and lets just say that TAM airlines are LONG, we were VERY delayed and tired and finally arrived in Salvador in the evening.
As soon as we arrived you could feel the electric atmosphere, it was HOT, everyone was so friendly and chilled out and we had a nice long taxi ride into the centre where our pousada (hostel) was. The reception was manned by a guy called Manuel (Fawlty Towers anyone?!?!?) who is lovely, but speaks no english and insisted on talking for about an hour in Portugues to us. We´ve come to realise that this is true of most of the brazilians, who don´t seem to care if you understand or not! The room was fine, but quite noisy outside and we had to wake up REALLY EARLY for school the next morning.
Monday morning we had the most AMAZING breakfast out on the terrace of the pousada, words cannot describe the fresh fruit, AMAZING scrambled eggs and fresh cake EVERYDAY! Don´t worry though, we have over 200 teabags with us, as neither of us can function without a proper cuppa in the mornings! Spent about 20 mins trying to find the bus stop to catch the bus to school, only to walk round a corner 30 secs after asking in a shop to find a bus STATION. Hopped on the bus which takes about 20 mins to get to school and goes through some really lovely areas and passes the nearby bay.
School is great, we have four hours of lessons in the morning, ALL IN PORTUGUESE, which was difficult at first, but we are now getting the hang of it. We´ve made loads of friends and the classes are small (about 6 people in our class) so we~re getting in some good practise before we have to travel on our own! Our teacher, Lara, is LOVELY, very bubbly and makes classes really fun, telling little stories every five minutes, and the other day we even made a collage, it~s literally like being back at school! On Wednesday we had our first Samba class and the teacher was hilarious, he really knew how to shake his ass! Initially felt a bit stupid, but really enjoyed it in the end and looking forward to the next one and samba-ing at carnaval in a few weeks time!
We are staying near the buzzing nightlife in an area called Pelourinho and the pousada is fantastic. All the staff know us by name already as there are very few people staying there, and we have sat there countless times after school communicating with a mixture of english, portuguese and hand gestures. We love the pousada and have had no problems, BUT, after the first night we moved rooms to the back of the building (less noisy and TV, although we haven~t watched it!) and twice have run screaming from the room (Rakhee literally ran up to the next floor!) after seeing the BIGGEST COCKROACHES you have EVER seen in your life. The pousada staff find it absolutely hilarious, as we have to keep asking them to come and get rid of them and I guess it~s just something we~re going to have to get used to because they~re so common everywhere and will be even BIGGER in the Amazon.
Most evenings have been spent in Pelourinho itself because it´s really buzzing. We have seen capoeiristas, break dancing, a big live band one evening, public carnaval practises, bossa nova and samba bands. There are two main squares and then lots of little cobbled streets coming off these with restaurants, bars and shops selling afro-brazilian crafts. Salvador de Bahia has a very strong african influence, as it is where the slaves were first brought to in Brazil and you can definitely feel the afro-brazilian vibe compared to our one night in Rio. Because of this, Rakhee feels pale as everyone is browner than her for the first time in her life, and Marisha keeps getting mistaken for a baiana (from Bahia). The squares are littered with little food stalls selling local dishes, drinks stalls selling caipirinhas and other local beers, fresh coconuts and other fruits. There are a few hair braiding stalls so Marisha had her hair done, but has now taken it out owing to sunburn of the scalp (!).
Most afternoons have been spent hanging out with our language school friends at the beach, or having lunch/dinner and generally soaking up the atmosphere. Everything is SO cheap, for example six of us went and had about 8 big 1L bottles of beer between us which came to R$24, which is about 6 pounds!! We have tried a few local dishes, but Rakhee is struggling a bit because EVERYTHING has meat in it and as we are next to the sea there is also a lot of seafood, which again she doesn´t eat!
This weekend we had a weekend away with two girls, Fanny and Eve, from the school. We hopped on a boat heading for an island resort called Morro de Sao Paulo, which was about 2 hours away. This place literally has the most BEAUTIFUL beaches we have ever seen, it´s very postcard-like. Four white sand beaches, each getting more beautiful as you go along the coast, clear sea with coral and lots of tropical fish and a really cute little town that looks like the set of a movie. There were lots of rich argentines holidaying there, and it is the equivalent of the spanish costas for the british (only a lot nicer!). Night time is just one big party on the beach (see the pics). They do have big club/bar nights that you have to pay for, but everyone just seems to hang around on the beach outside where you can hear the music anyway and there are millions of stalls selling fresh fruit cocktails and you just pick your fruit and spirit. They were the BEST cocktails we~ve had so far (although caipirinha for R$2 (50p!!!!) comes in a close second!!). Our pousada there was also amazing (see pics!) and the staff were really friendly. We spent the days on the beach and in the sea, and then just partied on the beach in the evenings. The only drawback to paradise seems to have been getting burnt!! We´ve been using factor 50+ sun tan lotion and still seem to have been burnt to a crisp. It´s something to do with the malaria tablets we~re taking, which reduce your skins tolerance to the sun. Rakhee is in a bit of pain at the moment, and Marisha is just stunned that she could even get burnt in the first place! The boat back was a speedboat and not so great as it kept bumping the waves so we had one woman being sick and the rest getting soaked if they were sitting outside. It was quite funny though as the boat staff were handing out yellow macs, and it was a bit like biology field trip all over again!!. We didn~t want to leave, especially knowing that we had to go to school the next morning, and Rakhee was definitely suffering from post holiday blues. They were quickly forgotten though, when a man came along with a tarantula (yes a tarantula) as big as our hands, trapped in a plastic bottle and was trying to sell it to us so that he could use the money to buy new flip flops. He was totally loco!! To be honest though we are slowly getting used to the craziness in Bahia, what with the lady-boys dancing out in the streets every night and our personal favourite, this CRAZY lady called Theresa (pic on its way!) who we see everywhere and is so sweet but clearly not all there.
Thats pretty much it, HOWEVER, we should mention that from the moment we got on the plane EVERYONE, AND WE MEAN EVERYONE is ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!! Even the binmen are goodlooking here and its hard not to just stare at people as they go by (boys and girls alike!). We have one week left at school here in Salvador and then we~re off up the north two a few towns before hitting the Amazon Jungle (woohoo!). We have realised though that we have totally underestimated the size of this country (and even continent) and are having to miss out a lot of stuff. Oh well, I guess we~re just going to have to come back....
That´t it for now, thanks for all of your messages on our blog, keep them coming because its always nice to hear from home. Enjoy the snow,
Big love
Marisha and Rakhee
xxxxx
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