Hoy from Salvador! Welcome to the Carnaval!!!
 
We stayed at a great apartment for 10 days. By we I mean the 8 of us - Avi, Adam, Assaf, Oren, Yotam, Hadar, Reut (which were later replaced by Libbi and Tania) and myself. Not too expensive but definately not cheap. Not too close to the Carnaval street but not too far either...
 
The Carnaval in Salvador... A yearly event where there are close to 3 million people dancing in the streets. It's different from the Carnaval in Rio, for good and for bad.
First of all - Salvador doesn't have the show of the triumphant bands (the famous final show in Rio). Secondly, most of the carnaval revolves around huge trucks. These trucks are called "Trio electrico" and each one has a different artist on. Those trucks drive slowly on one of 3 different carnaval roads, The entire ride takes 4 hours. During their ride there are ropes in front of them and behind them. Each rope is held by dozens of people, wearing specific clothes and gloves. They let people get inside the ropes area only if they wear a specific shirt. Those shirts can be bought anywhere in Salvador, and they cost between 60 Reals (about 120nis) and 350 Reals (about 700nis) each for a specific day (!!!!). Yes, it's a very expansive shirt!!!
Of course you can always do what we did and simply dance next to the trucks without paying anything... It's safer in the ropes, but who pays hundreds of Shekels just to dance in front of a truck for 4 hours???

There's another way to experience the carnaval and that is through being in one of the Camarotas. Camarotas are elevated stages that were build specifically for the carnaval. They are located on both sides of the roads in which the Trio electricos drive and they act as a bar/nightclub where you can dance, drink and eat while watching the street from up close. The cost of a decent Camarote is about 400Reals (about 800nis) for a night and it includes food and drinks. Once again - VERY expansive...

Other than that it's quite straight forward - millions of people dancing around, most of them are Brazilian. Hundreds of stands selling beer, dozens of stands selling food and lots and lots of pee on the streets. We actually called it the "Pipifest". Everybody peed on the pavement and there was a constant aroma of urine everywhere... There's also a lot of violence going on, despite the nasty cops that are roaming around armed with a tough bat and armor. Luckily we didn't experience violence first hand except for one small incident in which I was pickpocketed. I was walking next to a truck and it was incredibly crowded. Then I suddenly felt a hand deep inside my left pocket. I immediately grabbed the hand and turned around to see a dark skinned person attached to that hand trying to run away into the crowd. As our eyes met I felt a powerful blow to the back of my head (I guess it was a friend of him). I let go of the hand and turned around to see who hit me. I saw 3 Brazilian guys staring at me... They backed away a bit because from what I heard later - I turned around with a furius look on my face and moved as if i'm going to hit someone. Luckyli, my friend Avi was nearby and saw the whole thing, so he immediately pulled me away to the other side of the street, before anyone could react.
And that's how I lost the 2 Reals bill (about 4nis) that was in my pocket... Oh well :)

After the Carnaval the city was completely dead... We tried to go out but there was nothing to do... so off we go, after cleaning our shoes from all the pee - on to Itacare!