From Salvador we took a 6 hr coach drive inland to Lencois. Although this is a main road to the capital it is a single lane road with twists and turns and bumpy and full of large slow lorries which the driver did his best to overtake approaching the top of a hill on a blind curve and if possible when on his mobile phone. The town is on the edge of a national park, the chapada diamantina where diamonds were discovered in the early 19th century and prospectors move...

We spent a couple of days exploring the historic centre of Salvador, the Pelourinho, which was the centre of the slave trade where slaves were brought from Africa and sold and possibly also punished on a steeply sloping cobbled square. The city was the capital of Brazil for 200 yrs til the bottom fell out of the sugar market in the mid 17 century when the British started to grow it in the west indies. The British also scuppered the later rubber industry when a Br...

We arrived in Salvador about 10pm sunday night after a 7 hr flight from Manaus with a touchdown in Brasilia. Unfortunately our pick up failed to materialize. As is the way with Brazilians someone stopped to help us when they saw us waiting and in the end the help desk got the local tour agent on the phone who didnt have us on the list but was very apologetic and told us to take a taxi and they would sort it out in the morning. Had this been England I suspect we w...

We had a Sunday morning in Manaus and explored the most enormous street market i hve seen with locals out having breakfast on tables set up in the closed off roads. Bought some Amazon flower honey as the honey here tastes of a thousand flowers and sunshine, just hope it doesnt burst during the rest of our travels! Finally the curious mixture of dehydration and cerebral oedema is settling as instead of water we have started to drink more juice and the local equiv...

We are now back in Manaus after 3 days in an eco lodge on a small branch of the Amazon near here and i will never take air conditioning for granted again or a fan for that matter. We had a room in a thatched wooden lodge with a hammock on the verandah outside for resting where it was cooler than the room. There was no electricity and 2 dim lights on a battery and no lights when the battery went flat apart from candles. No fear of burning down the lodge due to the...