Iris and her group arrive in Salvador in Brazil.<\/p>\n
What can I say about Salvador? I loved the place. It
\nwasn’t so when I first arrived because we got there quite
\nlate at night, we were all tired and then found we had a
\nhike across a busy main road to a dirty little side street
\nfull of rubbish over spilling on to the street and there
\nwas our hotel! I thought “What sort of a dump have we been
\nbrought to?” but it turned out to be a charming place, very
\nhelpful staff, a beautiful little garden at the rear with a
\nminiature waterfall and a bird in a gilded cage singing its
\nheart out for us, morning and night.<\/p>\n
Salvador is a city of great contrasts. We were housed in
\nthe old city which is reached by climbing steep hills or by
\na lift from the lower level to the top. The lower level has
\nnothing much of interest. It is commercial with docks, but
\nthere is a very interesting market housed in a round
\nbuilding with a restaurant overlooking the harbour. I did
\neventually get to it on the last day we were in Salvador
\nand bought myself a hammock for my stay in the jungle when
\nI shall have to sleep in a hammock on board the ferry, for
\nthe 9 days we are there. But for the most part we stayed in
\nthe old city, as it is far more interesting and has lots of
\nold buildings and narrow streets with fascinating shops and
\nrestaurants. One restaurant we went to had the most
\nbeautiful garden and the most incredible service all for a
\nfew pounds, and it boasted a really good little trio
\nserenading us as we ate.<\/p>\n
We also found, courtesy of our Korean friend (who always
\ngoes off exploring on his own) the most incredible shopping
\ncentre which is about 3 times as big as most types of
\nshopping centre in UK) but this was on our last day, we
\nwere pretty tired by then, and we were only able to explore
\nabout a quarter of it, before deciding we’d had enough and
\nwanted to go back to the hotel!<\/p>\n
The beaches in Salvador were really beautiful and the
\nbus service superb. I’d really love to go back there
\nsometime.<\/p>\n
Since Salvador, we have been to several unspoilt places
\n– Lencois, the centre of an area of outstanding beauty with
\nlots of rivers, waterfalls and lakes to see, besides caves
\nand we did go on a full day’s trip to the countryside to
\nsee the waterfalls, and caves and rock formations, in the
\ncompany of a man called Issy (short for Isadoro) who was a
\nvery enthusiastic fellow who loved talking about his native
\nBrazil and its fauna and flora.<\/p>\n
We are now in a place called Bonito where we are for
\nfive days. We have used this time, Judith and I, to rest
\nand take stock, especially as on the way here our truck
\nbroke down and we had to be rescued by a fellow Exodus
\ntruck which has been shadowing us all the way around South
\nAmerica, normally in second place, and then they came into
\ntheir own as we needed to be given a lift! We spent some
\ntime in a place called Itiquira, but just two nights really
\nand most of that was spent trying to get the truck
\nrecovered and once it was recovered, getting lots of our
\nbaggage off it, as we were probably not going to see the
\ntruck again for a week or two until it is repaired and now
\nin Bonito. We are stuck with no truck, just the extra
\nExodus truck which rescued us and which can’t take us any
\nfurther, and it looks as if we are going to be taking
\npublic transport to our next destination until the truck is
\nrepaired and can catch up with us!<\/p>\n
Bonito is the first place where we have actually stayed
\nin a Youth Hostel and it has some surprising facilities,
\nlike a swimming pool and a really good laundry, and some
\nexcellent staff who cater for our every need. We don’t need
\nmoney here, we just put it all on tick! (Goodness only
\nknows what the final bill will be, it’s amazing how the
\npennies mount up when you don’t have to pay as you go!) And
\nof course it has Internet! Only two machines and I have
\nbeen hogging this machine most of the afternoon, but now I
\nhave to come to a close, read it and send it off to all you
\npeople out there, wondering why I have been up to since I
\nlast wrote.<\/p>\n
Just for completeness, we did call in briefly at
\nBrasilia to look at the city. What a non-event. It is a
\nmanufactured city with its only claim to fame being its
\nPresident Kibutschek whom they revere as a god and have
\nproduced this awful mausoleum which is pitch dark inside
\nexcept for illuminated display cabinets of all his clothes
\nand paraphernalia, books and objets d’arte, including all
\nhis wife’s clothes etc. and it was the most boring exhibit
\nI had even been in. The only highlight was they had a
\ncadaverous member of the Adams family popping out to give
\nus a fright every now and again, and provided a staircase
\nin midnight blue carpet, lit only by ambient light, to
\nprovide a place for people to have fun, falling down it and
\nseeing who can crack their head open in the most
\nspectacular way! One poor lady was carted off to hospital
\nwhile we were there, having done just that, so I suppose
\nshe won first prize!<\/p>\n
Take care, I’ll be in touch again soon, and hopefully by
\nthen we will be back on our truck. By the way, the
\ndiagnosis was a broken crankshaft.<\/p>\n
Iris and her group arrive in Salvador in Brazil. What can I say about Salvador? I loved the place. It wasn’t so when I first arrived because we got there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","css_class_manager_body_classes":"","css_class_manager_use_in_post_loop":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-1503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-main-article","tag-january-2004"],"yoast_head":"\n