Salvador is a major Brazillian tourist destination mainly for it's musical roots and hosts the most revered Carnival in the land. Rio is the one all the foreigners know but Salvador's Carnival is known as being more lively and accessible to all than Rio's. We arrived on the 20th three days before it started. It seemed all the world and it's neighbour wanted to come here including travellers.The word was out that Salvador was THE place to come. We thought that too a couple of months ago and started looking at accomodation....then we saw the prices and realised it was a no no. They are truly extortionate plus they require you to make a 7 day package booking which was way out of our budget. Therefore we had to settle on a 3 day stay and get out the day it started. The three day stay turned into two really as Stuart spent day one entirely in bed and on the toilet with a bug of sorts that had him shivering on the flights to get here. Jo got some magic potions to sort it out and we could at least have a wander round our local area on the 2nd day even if he wasn't quite yet 100%. The recovery wasn't entirely helped by the weather which resembled an oven. It was unbearably hot, 36c (mid 90's) and you just wanted to sit down after short periods of walking in that heat. On the plus side, the area we were staying in was called La Barra which was a really cool beach area with some funky looking bars with many more in the process of being set up for the carnival. Despite the conditions, it felt good to feel we were back in the developed world again after a few weeks in rather grotty, third world-ish places. The whole area was wholly geared to setting up for carnival with La Barra being known as the best area for it as it's so accessible. The locals just couldn't wait for the action to start and our last night at the hotel was accompanied by thumping music coming from somewhere and Stuart barely slept. Our last day featured blazing temperatures again but despite this we wanted go visit the historic Pelorinho district in the center of town which we duely did. It's a really funky looking area and it would have been great to have a night out here given the chance but it was fun to see it being set up for Carnival. When we got back to Barra we realised we'd better get out and fast. It was becoming busier and busier as the hordes desended so it was leave early or risk missing our night bus due to traffic. We left, not without a tinge of regret as you could feel the city was on the verge of the biggest knees up ever but in all honesty we were happy to get out. Partying in those temperatures with millions of people really would have been too much and there seemed you would get no respite from it. We left on the 23rd on a night bus to Porto Seguro, a beach town where we would carnival it there.