20/02/2020 – Travel day to Salvador, Brasil

We got up and had a really slow morning. We had breakfast and prepared some egg sandwiches for lunch. We packed up the apartment and played some more games. I spoke to dad quickly and Joe to his dad, last check in before we hit carnival tomorrow! We left the apartment and walked down to the port. There is an island ‘Uber’ service on the island which is the locals using wheelbarrows to carry your bags for you, they have Uber written on the front of their t-shirts which we found amusing! We checked in for our ferry and waited about half an hour until we boarded the boat. We had some anti sickness - the ferry is a relatively small boat and we had heard the crossing in this direction is often bad,. We all felt pretty peaky for most of the crossing, it is the quietest the four of us have ever been together! We sat outside and stared at the horizon for the full 2.5 hours. Poor Henna had a vomit over the side of the deck, but felt better for it afterwards! We were all glad to touch down on solid ground back in Salvador. We got our bags and hopped into a taxi, which went on the meter but was pretty cheap. We got to our accommodation called Pousada de Artes. Joe and Henna had booked this place, and it is absolutely stunning, so quirky and colourful. There are a couple of tortoises wandering around reception, which was a nice surprise! We got soft drinks from the bakery over the road and refreshed in our room. We unpacked, chilled, showered for an hour or so. Then we walked through the historical centre to bar Zulu, to meet Joe and Hennas friend. The atmosphere here is wonderful, each street has different live music and dancing, and each street has its own outfit or costume. There is such a friendly happy vibe! There is a lot of police presence, which feels like a good thing, at one point girls and boys had to walk in single file through a police check to get to another part of the town. When we got to bar Zulu there was an African blocco (the name of the street parties) with some incredible drumming. There were some carnival queens in beautiful false lashes, dresses and glitter, men and women alike. We sat at an outside table soaking in the atmosphere. We chatted to the owner of the restaurant, he is from Norfolk and owns a house in Felixstowe would you believe, what a small world! We were soon joined by Rohit, Joe and Hennas friend, and his friends Leo and Lorenzo - two Brazilian guys. We all enjoyed Moqueca for dinner, an African influenced traditional Bahian dish. It was a coconut curry made with dende oil, and was incredibly delicious! I can only compare it to a Thai coconut curry, the kind of food Josh and I have been craving and missing. After dinner we wandered around the area and danced in some bloccos, we made some friends along the way, drunkan friendly people taking photos and joining us dancing. There was a street party outside our Pousada when we got back. When we got in to our room we had to all get into our undies and sit in the air conditioning to cool off. It was past midnight and still so hot, so I am a bit worried about the temperature tomorrow afternoon while we dance in the sunshine! Will have to drink lots of water. Once we had cooled down we tried on our blocco outfits for the next few days. Our bloccos are private, more expensive but also more safe parties, which Rohit had organised for us all. Rohit had picked up our outfits for us, which are our entry tickets for the bloccos. Tomorrows is a sailors outfit, which looks absolutely hilarious. All four of us have the same size outfit, which bearing in mind Joe wears a UK XL, was quite amusing! We tried on our three outfits for the next few parties, all feeling giggly and excited! We showered and got to bed by about 0100, trying to get a good nights sleep before the weekend.