The Beautiful North
We have just spent the most relaxing ten days of our trip so far in and around Salvador in the north of Brazil. The relative pricing structures of Brazils transport infrastructure left us with an impossible decision; should we get to Salvador on a 30 hour bus, or for the same price take a 2 hour flight ?! We got off the plane and found a city full of music, dance, colour and finally somewhere with some decent spicy food!
Salvador
Terreiro de Jesus, Salvador
Salvador
The centre of Salvador has an amazing atmosphere, completely different to elsewhere in Brazil. There were street artists performing Capoeira, samba drummers in the cobbled squares, and endless live music in the open air restaurants. In amongst it all were women in traditional dress serving acaraje (a tasty snack of peeled brown beans and dried shrimp) and men with polystyrene cool boxes over their shoulder selling cheap ice cold beer.
Getting out of the city we moved inland to Lençois where we messed around jumping into rivers, swimming under waterfalls and exploring impressive caves. Feeling in danger of being too active we headed to the beautiful beaches of Arembepe and Imbassai on the Linha Verde noth of Salvador. There we lounged around eating more acaraje and drinking more ice cold beer.
Messing about on the river!
Lençois
Stalagtites, Lençois
Underground river, Lençois
Lençois village
Arembepe beach
Lunch in the river, Imbassai
Imbassai beach
Imbassai
I spent 6 weeks in and around Salvador, Lencois (I had forgotten the name until you reminded me) and Morro do Sao Paolo. Get out to the island if you are still there, though this was 12 years ago and maybe it’s a bit different these days. Some of my favourite times….
The bus from Salvador to Rio was fun, the Brazilians made sure to introduce themselves to each other and me, and it was a party for the 24hrs+ !
Would like to have seen Forteleza and Recife, be nice to hear what you think if you make it up to those places…
Hey JZ, funny to think you were in Lencois 12 years ago! We really wanted to go up as far as Recife, but sadly didnt really have quiet enough time.
Glad you are still having a great time but I expect you are now wanting to be home to watch the six nations. England had a good start beating Wales. Scrappy game but one good thing was that Ugo Wasn’t at full back, think I will cry if I ever see that again.