After a nights stop over in campo grande, next morning we started the first of 2 24 hour bus journeys to salvador. We broke these up with half a day in the capital, Brasilia, which was built in the shape of a plane and very difficult to find your way around! We spent a few hours looking around the eixo monumental, a road filled with unique buildings designed by one famous architect. These included a spiky cathedral, a giant peg and a bowl and ball for the senate and congress offices. There didnt seem much else to do so we filled the time window shopping in the mall.

Another 24 hours sat on a bus bought us to Salvador. We instantly felt a different vibe in this city as we got off the bus to colourful streets, music and crowds of people around market stalls, and we could definitely notice the african influences. We caught a bus to Pelourinho, the historical area, to search for a hostel and after 10 minutes struggling up and down the steep cobbled streets we happened to bump into an English speaking man with a hostel 5 metres away. Being his only guests we were spoilt with our own room, a much needed hot shower, a vegetarian meal and a pet dog called spartan (cute at first but after a few minutes we´d both found out how sharp his teeth were).

On Thursday we set off to explore the area. The unrestored buildings, cobbled streets and the influence of the candomble religion seemed to craete a unique character in the city. Sounds of samba, reggae and robbie williams? filled the air making it really enjoybale to walk around. The local people seemed quite friendly, offering us free souvenir bracelets for good luck, although in return they expected us to buy one of their necklaces. It wasnt easy to just walk away when you already had 3 strings of beads tied round your neck and Leanna almost got stangled as she turned to leave with the guy still holding onto the other end! We visited one of the 300 churches in salvador, a museum on the candomble religion and then caught the elevator down to the lower city where we walked around the indoor market and saw the art of capoeira being performed in the street.

In the afternoon we sat in hammocks with a jug of sangria and then headed out to watch some samba in the square. A friendly local boy offered to show us the way to a free samba show with cheap drinks on offer but as it turned out not even kindness comes for free and after sitting with him for 5 minutes he expected R$2 for his busfare home. Feeling disappointed and a little bit stupid we argued with him before realising it´d be easier to pay just to get rid of him! We didnt stick around for the show but found our own elsewhere in a busy local bar with live musicians, dancing and very strong Caiprinhas! We learnt for the 2nd time that night that free stuff comes with a pricetag when a brazilian guy bought us drinks and then seemed to think we were his property for the rest of the night. Given that we couldnt even communicate with the guy we were having none of it so we carried on enjoying our night without him, although we still gratefully accepted the drinks and watched him storm off 10 minutes later! It turns out this is common behaviour of men in Brazil so be careful who you accept drinks from, it might mean so much more! Heading back to our hostel we were enticed by the sounds of samba so decided to follow the music, ending up at a party with a band playing to loads of young samba-ing locals. We soon found ourselves swept onto the dancefloor and after enjoying a few dances we ended up samba-ing back down the cobbled streets to bed.

Next day we were beach bound so caught a bus to Praia do Forte, north of salvador. We arrived to a cute holiday town with a strip of restaurants bars and shops, leading down to a white sandy palm fringed beach. We did our usual bargain hunt for a cheap place to stay and felt satisfied with our bartering skills until we realised leanna would have to deal with ants in her bed every night, we would almost electrocute ourselves everytime we showered and the toilet would never flush! On saturday we visited Projet Tomar, a turtle protection project and then found a spot on the beach to start work on our tans. We met a beach bar-man who let us shelter from a quick downpour under the umbrella of his bar. It felt rude not to buy a drink in return so we settled with a beer while he entertained us with bottle juggling and stories of his life. We were intrigued by his name ´miau´thinking it may have an interesting brazilian meaning but we were disappointed and amused when he told us it just related to his love of cats! We were treated to a tour of the town pointing out cheap restaurants and the best bars for later. We spent most of the night in Beach house bar, run by a young english guy called andy. Excited by the english football shirts hanging from the ceiling we were soon climbing on the bar to have our photos taken and making arrangements to take them down for wednesdays champions league final. A few drinks later we were back on the dancefloor practising our samba skills and spent the next few hours getting to know the locals. It seemed we had met almost everyone in the town as the next day we were stopped several times for double kisses and hellos. We did start to feel a bit paranoid that the whole town had been talking about us when people we dont even remember meeting seemed to know our names.

That morning we watched a surf competition at the beach but rain disturbed out sunbathing plans for that day so we spent the afternoon souvenir hunting. On Monday we had a full day in the sun in front of Miaus bar and that evening back to beach house for more lime induced drinks- we both vow never to drink caiprinhas or capribeers again! Leanna had an amusing conversation with a psychic energy reader who suggested saying í love you´to a glass of water and explained how he could tell the cows state of mind when it died by reading the negative energy from a piece of meat! While Nikki struggled to keep a straight face Leanna was maybe a little over enthusiastic as she soon had us enrolling on a shakra activation course in rio. Leannas aura must´ve been very present that night as a local craftsman made her a rose out of bamboo leaf because she had such good energy in her eyes! Miau joined us with his new brazilian friend, Marcus, who spoke no English but had bought us 2 drinks within 5 minutes of sitting down. A case of deja vu from salvador and alarm bells started to ring so we made our excuses and escaped to talk to andy at the bar. For the rest of the night we were treated to evil looks and insults from across the room but strangely the drinks kept arriving! Thankfully they eventually got the message and left although sadly we think we lost our new friend Miau who made a point of ignoring us next day at the beach. Leanna charmed a gorgeous local with a familiar name, although this Lucas is a little older than the one she already adores!

Nikki spent the next day struggling with a 24 hour virus so we took it easy on the beach and had a quiet night to recover. On Wednesday we caught a few hours of sun before taking our front row seats in Andys bar for the football. We both became temporary man u fans for the day and Andy kindly leant us his shirts so we could show our support. We´d thought that we were the only english people in this town but turns out all you need is a game of football and they all come out of hiding! We really enjoyed the match and getting to have a decent english conversation so we carried on into the night celebrating the victory with the locals.

On Friday we head to rio. we have upgraded from our regular transport of choice, the bus, saving ourselves 30 hours and 60 pounds by getting a cheap flight. Look forward to our final blog entry from Copacabana....