Still Alive!

Sorry for such a long gap between posts, no excuse really so instead I will try and make up with an incredibly informative and interesting whiste-stop tour of the last few weeks and our activities!

So. Carnival. Salvador. Where to begin?! It was an incredible week that seemed like a lifetime- had the most amazing experiences and met incredible people and if we got the chance to do it again, we would and do it in exactly the same way. Enough gushing! We arrived on a bus with no clue where Pelourinho (the area of Salvador where we were staying) was- we asked a few people but the best we heard was ´´Upstairs!´´. Thinking that something was being lost in translation, we kept asking about until one helpful man literally pointed upwards where we could see a huge elevator and lights that seemed to be floating in the sky! Magical. Found the hostel very easily, just off the main square- nice location but after 6 nights of incessant drumming and mike testing at 5am and music blaring, it was wearing us down. It was also pleasing to discover that our 16 bed mixed dorm really wasn´t that bad- two points of silver lining: making friends required very little when living so close (very important to go out in a big group so no chance of getting lost in the crowds) and no sight of cockroaches! (Since they were hidden so well....)

The first night ended with a bit of downer- Bee fell down some stairs and ended up needing six stitches in her chin and tongue, so maybe not the best start but definitely an experience! There also just so happened to be two Canadian medics in the dorm who were on hand to give lots of helpful advice, so all was fine, especially since the on-site hospital was just around the corner and Bee got said stitches within minutes.
The following days were spent in a whirlwind of drum corps, samba beats, colourful costumes and relentless loud music playing 24 hours a day, so very little sleep was had. On top of that a man in our dorm insisted on playing the guitar in the afternoon which was designated nap time, and it was almost too tempting to cut the wires of his guitar. Or better still throw it off the balcony...Highlights included getting into a ´bloco´ ( a roped off area around a huge truck with speakers and samba dancers which drove along the main street in Barra by the beach) for free, spending hours dancing alongside people who had payed hundreds), meat on a stick- chicken, beef, sausage, all juicy and sizzling and perfect for the meat munchies, plentiful hamburgers everyday and night, engaging in a water fight of epic proportions with a parade of transvestites dressed as Cleopatra, all of them shouting ´GRINGOOOO´at us and drenching us with their huge water guns...there was also of course the fact that we were not once pickpocketed, mugged or molested which was the icing on the cake!

Will continue as soon as possible (internet session timing out) but stay tuned!

xxxxxxxJen