Agua de coco y Suco de acai

Reporting in from Salvador de Bahia. We got here yesterday around lunch time, via plane from Rio, with a stop over in Belo Horizonte.

Our second day in Rio was pretty quiet, we went around travel agencies trying to book our ticket to Salvador. When that was done, we headed down to the beach with Will and some friends,

had our first coconut (you first drink the water- agua de coco-, and then you get them to cut it up for you - which they do by very skillfully swinging around a machete- and you eat the inside, yumm!) For dinner we went to the centre of Rio, in the area of Lapa, and then on to a Samba party in another neighbourhood, after a highly "eventfull" taxi drive, which left me and Maisie quite unsure about getting into taxis in Brazil.

All in all Rio was nice, although it's a very strange city, too big to even begin to fathom how everything works, although it definitely involves a more than healthy amount of corruption...

In Salvador me, Maisie and Omar are all staying at Anderson's (our Mestre from Barcelona who has moved back to Brazil) house in the bario of Cosme, somewhat of a



"dodgy" neighboorhood as you can call it. Salvador has been a mixture of emotions so far, although the vibe is of a more geniune place than Rio. I fell inlove with Pelourinho, the centre of the city, with its colourful Colonial buildings

, the chilled out vibe, the chatty people in the streets.

However we're constantly being warned to be careful, and this brings a rather sinister vibe to it all. What was completely heartbraking was witnessing first hand the horrible reality of street children... Children that are probably orphans, addicted to crack, so skinny you wonder how they're still walking, asking you to buy them something to eat, while you sit there drinking fruit juice and eating cake. We've all heard about them, watched documentaries, but seeing it, was something I clearly was not prepared for...

Yesterday we went to Mestre Morraes roda, which was really interesting to watch, and we also cought a bit of the late Mestre Joao Pequenho's roda. I also met Mestre Boca Rica, another legend of capoeira angola, who is also an incredible singer and berimbau player, and in fact sings one of my favourite capoeira songs, so I was extremely starstruck upon being in his presence, and was too shy to ask for a photo.

Today has been quite chilled, we wanted to go to la isla de Itaparica for the roda of Angoleiro's do Mar, but we got up a bit too late (9:30 on a Sunday is apparently too late) so we didn't make it. Instead we walked arount the center for a bit, and then went down to the beach to meet Anderson.


Then when the tide became so high there was practically no space for our towels anymore we came back to Anderson's, where his family made us yummy food. We'll soon be going to a street roda, and in fact I think we're about to do a little training with Anderson (it's been way too long, and I'm sure we will get kicked in the face a lot!)

We're staying in Salvador until Tuesday probably, and then heading to Permangola near Valenca. Can't wait! Will write soon again x