27/02/2020 – Salvador to Lencois, Brasil

We woke up and got ourselves packed before making cheese and marmite pancakes for breakfast. Pancake mix is so cheap and easy to make! We showered just before we left as it is so hot that doing anything makes us sweaty again. The lady came for the keys and inspected the flat before letting us out of the front door. Josh ordered an Uber but they kept cancelling on us, either due to remaining road blockades or because the road we live on is so narrow and steep and cobbled, so not the easiest. We ended up pretty pushed for time but an Uber picked us up just as we were going to go and find a onventional, but much more expensive taxi. We pulled into the bus station but were in bottleneck traffic so hopped out the car and speedily walked into the crazy bus terminal and up to our bus company. There was a weird computer system to print our tickets out from, which we had been warned about by Joe and Henna. Luckily Josh got some help from some other customers so it didn’t take as long as it could have! Next we had to queue up to pay the £1 bus station tax and receive a card to go through the turnstiles and board the bus. Such a funny system that takes so much time, especially when you are in a rush it seems. We got to the bus with about 5 minutes to spare, without water or supplies to keep us going, but most importantly, we had made it. We got our luggage tagged and chucked under the bus, hopped on and found our seats, at the very back and next to the toilet. The bus left 25 minutes late for no apparent reason so we had no reason to worry in the end! Turns out sitting right near the engine is hot business so we were too uncomfortable to do anything but sit still and breathe. The bus journey was about 8 hours in total, including a few toilet pit stops and a snack stop where Josh found some ketchup flavoured crisps. We pulled into the bus station of Lencois at around 20:00 and found a taxi to take us to our hostel, called Mangamel (translates to ‘mango honey’). As I started to go up the stairs to the hostel I though I saw a rat so screamed, but when it didn’t run off I took a closer look, it was a giant toad the size of my head! It got in the way so much we had to enter the hostel from a different set of steps, even Josh wasn’t up for trying to move it! We checked in to our room, a small double with a toilet and shower, basic but adequate! We briefly unpacked and showered - necessary after the hottest journey ever! Then we strolled into town to meet Joe and Henna. It was dark but still hot outside and the dirt streets were filled with locals sitting outside their colourful houses relaxing, the windows and doors open. Everyone said hello and good evening to us as we walked past, it had a nice safe local feel to it. When we got to the main town it was a couple of narrow cobbled streets with tables and chairs outside and plenty of live music, it felt quite bohemian. We found Joe and Henna sat outside a restaurant called Quilambola. It is Joes 31st birthday today so we had some cocktails to celebrate! Josh and I shared a banana moqueca with rice and beans - so tasty, and some cortada de palma, a side dish made from cactus, which was really unusual and delicious! Joe and Henna had been recommended the restaurant and the dishes by their local guide from today. We walked back via Joe and Hennas air bnb, which we had a quick tour of before heading 2 minutes down the road back to our hostel. Their air bnb is really beautiful, with an outdoor kitchen, hammocks and 2 pet tortoises! The stars on the walk home were amazing, Josh pointed out the Milky way. We had a look out of our bedroom window before settling down for the night with the fan blasting directly on us. At around 0200 something jumped through the window and onto my head, which made me jump so much, my immediate thought was that it might be a giant toad! Luckily it was a gorgeous cat which we cuddled until Josh got worried it might have fleas, so he put it back out on to the roof and battoned our hatches down for the rest of the night.