Salvador and a change in plans

Salvador, I am staying in a lovely hostel in the oldest area of the city. The hostel serves a great breakfast, from 8 till 12 so both mornings it has been possible to have an early breakfast head out to see parts of the city and return for lunch. The first day I headed down to the beach with various members of my dorm, two Swiss living in Switzerland and a Swiss girl living in Brazil from Canada, strange people to meet but cool none the less. I felt like a needed to relax from the bus trip to be honest, the change in prices from copacabana was huge, a parasol was only 3 reols compared to 20. Hopefully that is a good sign of things to come. Got a little burnt whoops....

Next day I headed out on a walking tour of the old town, the tour was organised by the hostel and a Brazilian history teacher took us around the oldest parts of the town, quickly flipping from Portuguese to Spanish to German to English, just in case someone asked a question. Basically Salvador was the first place that the Portuguese settled in Brazil, they liked a tree that had a red dye here and its colour gave rise to the name Brazil. Various boom and bust economies have brought wealth and then destroyed it leaving a very strange mix of high rise building s next to run down 1700 buildings.

I had planned to stay in Salvador and see the area a bit more but I have seen something that I cannot pass without going to see, I have to get on another bus for a few hours but hopefully this should be well worth it.

Beach and the 28 hour bus ride......

So last day in Rio, we headed to the beach not just any beach, but Copacobana beach. Now you'll have to excuse the lack of photos of the wonderful white sand and the many fine ladies that were on the beach as I forgot my camera. But you can Google for some nice ones and imagine me there amount the people I'm sure. The waves were quite good and we ended up getting wiped out as we got caught in two waves at the same time andi ended up doing a handstand In the shallows as I tried vainly to right myself. As we were leaving I decided that I would head out to the beach gym that I had heard off between copacobana and ipenenama beach. I only know this from googling but it was a 5km beach walk there and back. Needless to say my legs were killing me just after that torment. Let alone a beach gym workout :) after which i headed back to arrange the next part of the trip, having been recommended a hostel called galleria 13. So I expect great things.

So now to book the bus to Salvador in the morning, one catch, you need Brazilian ID to book a bus online, even on the foreigner tab. So I have to be at the bus station in the morning before the bus leaves at 915 and get a space of which only 2 remain. Luckily there is another company, also have to buy at the station but this one leaves at 11 but takes 28 hours, decided on the latter. The bus its self was not uncomfortable, but due to a lack of any timekeeping in Brazil the trip took a total of 33 hours so now a full 39 hours later I'm safely in the hostel.