In Salvador the daylight times are a little different from what I am used to, so I was up at 05:30am despite not getting to bed and to sleep until about 2am the previous night, but then with bright sunshine bursting through the windows despite the shutters best efforts what else could I do.
I logged on to the internet, updated my blog, downloaded a few photos and then tried to organise and plan the next few days. The main problem with this was that neither airport that I had passed through, nor the hotel, had a proper map of the region including road names and so trying to make plans to visit anywhere on my own with no way of being sure where I was or how to get back made me a little edgy, especially with how dangerous Brazil is, and Brazil must be dangerous cos everyone I meet or talk to keep telling me that it is.
In the full light of day I could see that the naked lady on the hotel reception was actually a naked mermaid and the city seemed to have plenty of them about if you pay enough attention to the side streets and artwork around.
I would say that from my hotel room balcony the place looks run down, like the Dominican Republic, and I am wondering whether the sun and coastal wind have a way of demolishing at a faster rate than expected or just whether they weren't properly built to completion in the first places.
There is very little graffiti tagging here, but then why bother when the cost of a spray can is more than most people could afford to throw away and the sun would only bleach it back to a dull greyish rock colour in a matter of years if not sooner.
For some reason my lower lip has partially exploded in a series of mini blisters, which is causing me some concern, but then I have not especially been anywhere or done anything to warrant infection or disease, and all my jabs and pills are up to date, so I am just keeping an eye on them and if they get an worse over the next two days I will go to the chemist and ask advice.
After one of the best breakfasts I have had in ages, being meat, cheese, fresh pineapple and mango, plus chocolate cake and orange juice I set about packing up my stuff and heading off for the hostel which according to google maps should be close by just along the coast.
Sadly the place does not have proper street names on many of the street corners, the locals do not even know which road they are on let alone where they need to get to ( I guess they use old fashioned directions like the nearest corner shop, the beach, the church, the police station, to guide them around) and so after a walk of only five minutes I knew that I was getting lost and in this heat, with a rucksack on my back would be the most stupid thing that I could do, ok apart from taking my wallet out and trying to juggle with it and my cellphone and digital camera in front of the local children !
So without a map to guide me, I went back to the hotel of the previous night and asked about getting a taxi, which he grudgingly accepted. He walked to the window, whistled a few times and then failing to get a reply he came back and instead gave me directions to it, saying that it was a quick walk but down the hill not up like I had thought and went off at first. I am reminded that Google maps are NOT infallible, especially when it comes to South America, and it required people to give it directions and addresses in the first place when it is created and further when it is updating its maps.
After a nice short stroll downhill and along the beach I made it to my hostel and was very much relieved when I was able to take my rucksack off my back and check in. Despite being reassured that people here do speak English I would have to argue that, as I am being given directions and information in first Portuguese and then in broken Spanish despite my telling everyone that I am from England.
In fact, saying Britain and England does not even register with most people, as they all know it as Inglaterra but drop in London and they get the gist and try their best to speak English.
Anyway, as I had my printout reservation I knew that I was meant to be in a six room dorm, but after a bit of a chat I was shown to a room that was a private double bed, and so I was more than happy. The room had a walk in shower / toilet that had a very funny smell, a ceiling fan and a nice view overlooking the er ... street below ... but then I was not overly impressed with the facilities of the last hotel and with Hotel Ibis 2 star being 40 minutes away and 4 times the price I was content to take the added bonus of a private room and not complain.
It is especially hard to complain or feel hard done by when you go past the buildings and see what the locals are living like, that many have just holes in their walls for windows and broken wooden homemade ladders as entrances to their homes. The fact that are all a bunch of sun crazed football addicts is just part of what makes up their pride and the worst that the weather can do is break their homes but never their spirits.
The bed had pillows but not sheet cover, but then I thought that it as so very hot that I would probably end up having to sleep with the ceiling fan on all night anyway so what use are sheets and duvets when I would just be lying on top of them.
After getting changed into more suitable hot weather clothes I went down to the reception to ask for a map and was given out at the same time as being talked into taking the local sight seeing bus tour of the region. This was something that I had considered doing anyway, but as I didn't know the timetable I was caught on the hop that it left in about five minutes and luckily from right outside the hotel, as it was more accurate to call it a cheap hotel than a hostel.
The tour was on a modern open topped double decker bus, with a roll back roof to protect from the suns blasting heat and a audio track that alternated between between Portuguese and English but never seemed to be loud enough to hear clearly except when it was playing the music in between its monologue guide.
The cost of five trips throughout the day, starting at 10:30am and returning at 16:30 was only BR $30 and as this is only works out to be about £10 if not less it is a real bargain and I suggest that everyone takes it even if they are just using it to get from A to B and not wanting to wait at a bus stop and take the gamble that they wont be pickpocketted or held up, not to mention that they might end up in the wrong direction or stopping in the middle of nowhere.
Everyone says that the Brazilian women are the sexiest in all the world, and though I did see plenty that caught my eye, I say that plenty that had good bodies with average faces or vice versa, and I still prefer the average Colombian woman to the average Brazilian women.
The bus stopped at plenty of places that looked like old fashioned town houses and you could tell the typical Portuguese architects designs and styles in many of them, if you like Architecture that is, but this is hardly surprising as it was the Portuguese who occupied Brazil and built most of them in the late 1700's to mid 1900's.
I must have made a real impression with the few other tourists who were on the bus, as I was jumping around from side of side as I saw something worthy trying to take a photo of, although being on a moving bus meant that I had to delete at least half once I was back at my hotel as they were out of focus or slightly blurred.
All along the coast the winds were strong enough to blow the palm trees around like they were toys and the noise totally drowned out the quiet tour audio monologue so I didn't even both with it in the end and just kept rubber necking at every chance I got. Many of the locals would smile and wave up at the bus and I was surprised how many of the locals I managed to make proper eye contact with as it was almost as if the tour bus, being new, attracted them and then me being white kept them interested.
I did have to switch buses from time to time, as one tour ended and another began and I do have to confess that I missed one connection but it was totally not my fault. I can tell the time, and I understood that they told me I had a break of forty five minutes before the next trip started, but what I didn't understand was that I had to leave the bus, cross the square, take a short elevator trip down ( that only cost BR $0.05 but they don't have much change so don't even try with a BR $20 note ! ) and then along the road, past another square and then go behind the big mustard yellow building where I would find the next bus waiting !!!
I did miss the bus, but as the old bus didn't leave I talked to the driver, who got in touch with the guide, who phoned the other guide on the other bus and explained it all to me again in better English and then phoned back the other bus to tell them to wait for me. Even running all the way from the elevator I did not manage to catch the next bus, but thankfully the other passengers who recognised the photo crazy Brit, did and they began slapping the side of the bus in order to let the driver know and it was the last time that I went far from the bus again.
The other tourists on the bus at first were a bit mad at me for keeping them waiting, and then later felt a bit sorry for me as I never wandered far form the bus and must have thought that I was upset or afraid to leave the bus, but the truth was that without a map, with only a few minutes, alone and in the middle of nowhere I had no real desire or need to leave the bus for any reason and so I just stayed within sight of the bus and waited til we could all board again.
By the end of the final tour a couple of women from Sao Paolo had sort of decided to take me under their wing and so when the bus stopped and I went to look at the boats they bought me back an Icecream cone, possibly they didn't like the cone and just wanted the ice cream and possibly they realised that I wouldn't have understood the guide saying in Portuguese ,"And here is a great place to stop for fifteen minutes. Feel free to stretch your legs, take some photos and if you like ice cream then I strongly suggest trying some from the local shop here it's extra delicious and very reasonably priced!"
The lighthouse tour with my Brazilian buddies was the last stop before a long bus ride home and it must have gone off the normal path, as try as I might I could not see the same things that I had seen on the way here and the day went to night around 17:30 when it went from brilliant sunlight to pitch blackness in moments.
The weather had been 26 degrees all day and overcast for most of it, which explains why I didn't get burned all over, but I timed myself to have ten minutes in the sun when it did come out and ten minutes was all it took to redden my arms and face to a shade that would take an hour back in England.
As it had been a long day, the sky was pitch black, I had no map and no friend to meet me I decided not to go for a late night stroll around the neighbourhood and just chilled in my room before I fell asleep no later than 20:00.
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