Salvador!

We have arrived in Salvador and i am suprised to say (yes i am very ignorant!) that it is significantly different to the state the farm is in, ´Minas Gerais´(means general mines- guess what their main industry is there!)

The architexture here is colonial and looks very grand outside, this square was particularly good for buying local street food off big African looking women dressed in white. The best was a fried bean curd burger, cut in half and filled with VERY HOT spice, (in fact after she put some in she wiped it off again as we were obviosuly Gringos and it still burnt like crazy), salad, and prawns still in their shells. Which brought back great memories of going out for dinner one night in Peckham (!) to an all you can eat Chinese with this bubbly African lady from church who crunched her way through millions of prawns with shells and tails and chastised me for being wastful when i carefully pealed them. I dont believe that the rough shells clense your body on the way through.

Upon uploading these pictures i realised that we dont take many, and they are often on random things. We stayed in Pelourinho, which is a lovely old town area. Our Rough Guide told us not to go out of sight of the policemen at night, which made for a fun game the first night as the police wander around a lot and it ends up almost like you are watching and stalking a policeman. Luckily we chilled out the second night, ignored the guide and had a great evening watching a samba band with the locals. Did you know that people play music that has no words and is all on percusion? If so, did you know that people who are not primary school teachers also own ´rain sticks´(you know the poles that you turn upside down and the beads run down and sound like the rain) and think it is ok to use them in public. I did not really enjoy the ´music´.

Pelorinho was easy to get around on foot and a good base to explore all the architecture and museums with no hassle. The most unique feature was ´the elevator´which is simply an elevator which costs 60 cents to ride and goes vertically down to the bottom of the hill. Its a very quick way as the cliff is shear and takes a long winding road to go by car. At the bottom was a nice market.

An old burnt out church that Xss particularly liked, however someone ruined the photo by sitting in the way. I think they are pretending not to itch a mosquito bite on their leg, but really have probably rubbed it raw.

Below is a picture of Xss enjoying the lovely hostel we stayed in in Pelourinho. It had hamocks hanging in doors, lots of little balcony´s and quirks, and tiles that look like comic books. It made me wonder if i wanted to be a hostel or boutique hotel manager one day? Seriously.