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 quite
late at night, we were all tired and then found we had a
hike across a busy main road to a dirty little side street
full of rubbish over spilling on to the street and there
was our hotel! I thought “What sort of a dump have we been
brought to?” but it turned out to be a charming place, very
helpful staff, a beautiful little garden at the rear with a
miniature waterfall and a bird in a gilded cage singing its
heart out for us, morning and night.
Salvador is a city of great contrasts. We were housed in
the old city which is reached by climbing steep hills or by
a lift from the lower level to the top. The lower level has
nothing much of interest. It is commercial with docks, but
there is a very interesting market housed in a round
building with a restaurant overlooking the harbour. I did
eventually get to it on the last day we were in Salvador
and bought myself a hammock for my stay in the jungle when
I shall have to sleep in a hammock on board the ferry, for
the 9 days we are there. But for the most part we stayed in
the old city, as it is far more interesting and has lots of
old buildings and narrow streets with fascinating shops and
restaurants. One restaurant we went to had the most
beautiful garden and the most incredible service all for a
few pounds, and it boasted a really good little trio
serenading us as we ate.
We also found, courtesy of our Korean friend (who always
goes off exploring on his own) the most incredible shopping
centre which is about 3 times as big as most types of
shopping centre in UK) but this was on our last day, we
were pretty tired by then, and we were only able to explore
about a quarter of it, before deciding we’d had enough and
wanted to go back to the hotel!
The beaches in Salvador were really beautiful and the
bus service superb. I’d really love to go back there
sometime.
Since Salvador, we have been to several unspoilt places
– Lencois, the centre of an area of outstanding beauty with
lots of rivers, waterfalls and lakes to see, besides caves
and we did go on a full day’s trip to the countryside to
see the waterfalls, and caves and rock formations, in the
company of a man called Issy (short for Isadoro) who was a
very enthusiastic fellow who loved talking about his native
Brazil and its fauna and flora.
We are now in a place called Bonito where we are for
five days. We have used this time, Judith and I, to rest
and take stock, especially as on the way here our truck
broke down and we had to be rescued by a fellow Exodus
truck which has been shadowing us all the way around South
America, normally in second place, and then they came into
their own as we needed to be given a lift! We spent some
time in a place called Itiquira, but just two nights really
and most of that was spent trying to get the truck
recovered and once it was recovered, getting lots of our
baggage off it, as we were probably not going to see the
truck again for a week or two until it is repaired and now
in Bonito. We are stuck with no truck, just the extra
Exodus truck which rescued us and which can’t take us any
further, and it looks as if we are going to be taking
public transport to our next destination until the truck is
repaired and can catch up with us!
Bonito is the first place where we have actually stayed
in a Youth Hostel and it has some surprising facilities,
like a swimming pool and a really good laundry, and some
excellent staff who cater for our every need. We don’t need
money here, we just put it all on tick! (Goodness only
knows what the final bill will be, it’s amazing how the
pennies mount up when you don’t have to pay as you go!) And
of course it has Internet! Only two machines and I have
been hogging this machine most of the afternoon, but now I
have to come to a close, read it and send it off to all you
people out there, wondering why I have been up to since I
last wrote.
Just for completeness, we did call in briefly at
Brasilia to look at the city. What a non-event. It is a
manufactured city with its only claim to fame being its
President Kibutschek whom they revere as a god and have
produced this awful mausoleum which is pitch dark inside
except for illuminated display cabinets of all his clothes
and paraphernalia, books and objets d’arte, including all
his wife’s clothes etc. and it was the most boring exhibit
I had even been in. The only highlight was they had a
cadaverous member of the Adams family popping out to give
us a fright every now and again, and provided a staircase
in midnight blue carpet, lit only by ambient light, to
provide a place for people to have fun, falling down it and
seeing who can crack their head open in the most
spectacular way! One poor lady was carted off to hospital
while we were there, having done just that, so I suppose
she won first prize!
Take care, I’ll be in touch again soon, and hopefully by
then we will be back on our truck. By the way, the
diagnosis was a broken crankshaft.
