We arrived in Salvador at 6am and did not have a great start! First, we gave the taxi driver an address of a hostal we wanted to stay in, but he did the usual trick of driving us round for a while to clock up the meter, then dropped us off in completely the wrong place. So we tried knocking on a couple of hostal doors, during which time a bloke grabbed my backpack and started to run off with it. Luckily it was a bit of a half hearted attempt and i managed to run ...

We stayed in Arraial DÁjuda for a week, partly because our hostal was really good - we had a 2-floor little apartment to ourselves that could fit 6 people in, plus the pool was HUGE and overlooked the beach. We also stayed for that long because when we arrived on the Thurs we found out that the biggest water park in Latin America was here so planned to go there on Sat. But (typical) it was only open on Thurs and Fri cos its out of season now so we decided ...

We took another overnight train from Ouro Preto to arrive here. We only stayed here one night as it was really our base to get to Arrial Dájuda, which we thought was an island cos we were told you had to get a ferry over to it (which we did) but it turns out its not....strange. Porto Seguro was very much like Bonito, but slightly less touristy. The have a street called Ávenue of Alcohol´ so we went down there for dinner and drinks!

After leaving Rio (very begrudgingly) we took an overnight bus to Ouro Preto, described as the ´jewel in the crown of Brazil´. We arrived at 6am in the pissing rain and the cloud and cold the fog. We immediately wanted to go back to Rio! After catching up on some sleep we had a look round the town, which was pretty small and quiet. We had a look at a couple of churches and looked in some shops and that was about it. We decided to leave the next day t...

Rio is AMAZING!!! I've been here for 2 weeks now but i could honestly stay for another few weeks and not get bored. Done so much since i've been here - too much to remember / write about! Basically: - Carnival - pure craziness for 5 days, street parties, samba parades, many capirinahs (the local cocktail), not much sleep! - Sugar Loaf Mountain - amazing views of the whole city - beaches, mountains, high rise buildings and shanty towns all in one place ...