When we returned to Manaus we had a day to look around before catching our bus to Venezuela. Manaus is a strange place that boomed during the early 20th century when the extract from the local rubber trees was harvested to keep up the demand for the nerw motor car tyre. Americans and many Europeans settled here to run their business and make extortionate amounts of money exploiting the local trade and harvesting the rubber. Whilst they were in Manaus they built ...

We arrived in Manaus after a long plane journey. No ordinary journey though as this was more like a sky bus than a plane as it took off and landed 7 times between us getting on it a Salvador and getting off in Manaus. This meant a free drink with complementary peanuts, dry crackers and chewy bar for sustenance every time we took off. During the journey we had the spawn of Satan himself sat behind us in the shape of a small child around 5 years old who did not kn...

Our first day in Salvador passed in a daze, having not yet recovered sleep or proper mobility. We set about a gentle orientaion of the Old Town or Citade Alto (High city) as it sits apon the highest point in the city. It´s hilly going and the streets are roughly cobbled but it´s very pretty and has understandably become the centre for tourism in Salvador. Many of the old colonial buildings have been, or are in the process of, being resored and make amazing Hot...

We have arrived in Salvador after a grueling bus journey.. Leaving Recife bus sation at 10am after a quick homemade egg roll we board our Luxury?!! coach/bus... We hit the road and within seconds the road hits us back. The condition of Brazils main roads are atrocious at the best of times and this journey was about to push our tolerance levels and spines to breaking point. After 10 minutes of being bumped around, the air conditioning packs up and the temperatur...

Sleepless in Olinda... We arrived on Thursday afternoon in Recife after a nice and comfortable bus trip from Natal. During the journay Katie struck up a conversation with two Swedish girls behind us who were also looking to stay in Olinda. We decided that it would be a good idea to share a cab and thier knowledge of the cheapest hostal to stay in. We jumped in the cab but our cab driver thought he knew best and started to take us around all the differen pousadd...