In our last week in Salvador we pretty much continued going out, drinking lots of caipirinha and cerveja(beer),school and of course planning the next few bits of our trip.

Marisha´s birthday was on the Wednesday, but Tuesday is a big night out in Pelourinho, so we headed there with Bryan and Gregor from school, and ended up just sitting listening to the bands in the square and drinking fresh fruit cocktails and chatting to the various friends we had made along the way. As you´ll see from the pictures, Bryan managed to find himself both a wife and a child in the space of just a few hours, but she´s a hustler babyyyyy, because all she did was skank drinks off us all night and got Rakhee to buy milk for her baby (which by the way she kept on dumping on us so that she could mingle with other people, namely Bryan), however she did buy us all quail eggs, so I guess we can´t complain (not!).

On Marisha´s birthday we had a mini party in break-time at school, with the most AMAZING cake ever and we learnt to sing happy birthday in Portuguese. In the afternoon we had a 2 hour samba lesson, great fun, but very hot and sweaty, but hopefully we are now all set for carnaval! That evening we decided to treat ourselves to sushi in a Chinese/Japanese restaurant by the beach again with Gregor and Bryan. Aside from the fact that the waiter kept trying to sell us a R$20 set menu dinner, it was a good laugh, but the sushi was DREADFUL! Then we went to a posh bar for cocktails (again not that great, apart from Rakhee´s which looked like an ice cream sundae!), kind of straying from our backpacking, but it was a special occasion and that´s the last time we will be doing that now!

Thursday was our last day in school, after which we went to see the historical centre in Pelourinho. Rakhee had a motorbike ride with Leonardo from the pousada, literally around the whole of Salvador and got to see the sunset over the harbour. That evening we had our ´leaving do´(haha!) and the gang from school, including our teacher went out for dinner, drinks and a bit of dancing in this amazing bar/club with a live band and millions of people doing crazy samba.

Friday was our last day in Salvador and was spent at the beach in Rio Vermilho for the ceremony of Iemanja, the goddess of the sea from the African religion Candomble. The whole school went, and we had to wear white or blue and take offerings of flowers, perfumes and soaps to give to Iemanja. The story goes that as you throw your gifts into the sea you must make a wish and then come back the next day to the same place to see if the tide has washed your offering away. If so, your wish will come true, if not then Iemanja has not granted your wish. The beach was CRAZY, it was such a hot day and there were literally thousands of people, all queuing in the heat to make their offerings to the goddess. We saw some ritual ceremonies on the beach, in which people were getting possessed and put into a trance which was really interesting and we watched the many boats carrying out gifts and offerings into the sea. We said our final farewells some time in the afternoon and headed back to the pousada to pack.

Leaving Salvador was pretty emotional, as we have had such a great time out there and met some fantastic people. We were even sad to leave our pousada, because we got used to seeing Leonardo, Manuel and Bacca (the pousada workers) everyday and practising our portuguese after class. Hopefully we will return to Salvador as it is definitely a happening place!