October 31 - 3:15PM - Flight to Rio de Janeiro

Let the madness begin. Kevin and I are once again setting out on an epic journey, this time to Brazil. Deciding to travel to Brazil had something to do with satisfying an urge to conquer South America and come closer to setting foot on every continent. It's an effort to fully experience alternatives to US culture, ideas, and visions rather than just the desire to sit on a nice beach and relax. I want to be surprised and experience the unexperienced!

We are an hour or so into our first flight out of San Francisco, we’ll soon land in Houston and then catch a connecting flight to Rio de Janeiro from there. We should arrive tomorrow. We’ve decided to immediately book out from Rio soon after landing and head up to the North-East coast of Brazil to Salvador da Bahia, a historic city that was the first colonial capital of Brazil with a rich cultural, culinary and musical tradition. We’ll spend a few days there and then travel to the center of the Amazon Jungle to a city called Manaus on the Amazon River. Once in the jungle well try and book a jungle tour or Amazon boat tour for several days. After the jungle we'll then head back down to Rio for the final days of our time in Brazil where we will most likely hang out, take in the sites and get a little partying done as well.

From experience I have learned not to try and guess what this trip is going to be like. We’ve got a general idea of what we want to do but I know that I can read and research and try to imagine what’s ahead but it will always be totally different from what I was expecting. That’s the best part about it and it’s the reason I travel. What I do know is that the blank pages in this journal are going to be filled with some interesting, exciting, crazy and unimaginable experiences. It’s going to be life changing.

I’ve got my iPod, my travel watch, my guidebook, my backpack that’s been around the world with me and my journal. I’m ready for anything.

November 1 - 11:50AM - Rio Airport (GIG)

We have touched down in the lovely Rio de Janeiro airport. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened as of yet except for the fact that we are thousands of miles from home in a strange foreign country. The flights here were pretty easy this time as opposed to the 20 hours to Thailand last year. Slept most of the way. We aren’t done yet with planes yet though.

Going to hang out at the airport for five or so hours and then catch a plane to Salvador. According to Peter Robb, author of the book A Death in Brazil, Salvador is the most African city in the western hemisphere. This is because it was the slave trading capital of Brazil, supplying workers to the sugar cane plantations until slavery was outlawed in 1888.

So far, just from hanging out and ordering beers in the airport, we have learned that people don’t speak a lot of English here so it is very important to learn some Portuguese. I have learned “Queria Cerveja” or “I’d like a beer.” I got a beer called Brahma.

First impressions of Brazil? Probably shouldn’t base them on the airport, but so far I know the beer tastes good, malty, light, and very carbonated. Haven’t seen very many muy bonita senoritas yet but we’ll see how it goes.

November 2 - 12:45PM - Bon Fin Neighborhood, Salvador

Today is our first full day in Brazil with no traveling. We arrived in Salvador last night by plane and took a cab into the historical/touristy area of town. The city of Salvador has a lot of old buildings and looks very colonial with cobblestone streets and many old churches.

The cab we arrived in had to drive very slowly through the district that we are staying in because the streets are very narrow and the buildings are built so close to the road. This part of town was definitely laid out before the car was even an idea in anybody’s head. As I said, Salvador was the slave trading capital of Brazil so it has a very Caribbean feel with whitewashed buildings and things like that. Also saw some cracky people hanging out on the streets. We would later learn not to cross a certain boundary drawn on our map by a hostel owner into an area called Cracklandia. Sounds nice.

Kevin and I checked into Hostel Galleria 13 at around 8:00PM in the Pelourinho District and then went out to see the town. The main thing to do at night in this area is sit on plastic chairs at street cafes, drink Skol beers and listen to guys playing guitar and singing. It’s pretty relaxing, the main goal here seems to be to relax and just enjoy doing nothing. Can do. The musicians in Salvador are very good and you can tell that music is very important here. We saw a couple guys sitting playing guitar and singing but there is supposed to be all types of other kinds of music and art going on.

After sitting for a while at various cafes we got the urge to migrate and decided to stumble around town. After midnight we came upon a large crowd and a parade with marching bands noisily playing their instruments through the streets. There was a ton of local Brazilians watching… not a lot of tourists here. I ate some pretty sketchy street food at the parade. Had some soggy peanuts in the shell, some stale popcorn, a starchy deep fried biscuit thing with spicy creamy filling inside made by a woman in traditional African clothing and of course some beer. It was a good time. I later learned that the biscuit thing is called acaraje. It’s actually black eyed peas peeled, ground, formed into a ball, deep fried in palm oil and then stuffed with your choice of fillings like dried shrimp.

We woke up in our hostel today and had breakfast that was included with our stay. Ham and cheese sandwiches. The hostel owner, Paulo, gave us some suggestions on what to see so right now we are sitting in a restaurant/café type thing having a Brahma beer, planning our trip to the beach.

We are now actually halfway to our destination already after riding the bus for a while. We are just regrouping, trying to take in Brazil, not get lost, not get killed by speeding cars that don’t stop for you and trying to figure out how to get to the beach from here. Kevin was a little sketched out about riding the bus at first and I have to say I was a little also but from what our guide books say the buses are safe so I wasn’t that worried.

For the rest of the day we’ll make it to the beach, have some dinner, see what happens and then take it from there.

November 2 - 6:15PM - Pelourinho

Alright, back at home base in the hostel area. Actually we’re having a coffee down the street but today was a very interesting day. Took Paulo’s recommendation and headed to the beach. After a bus ride there we got lost for a while, walked around in circles for a bit and then actually found the beach. Once we did we also found thousands and thousands of Brazilians hanging out at the beach as well. Today is a bank holiday here in Brazil, whatever that means, so every Brazilian in town seemed to be at the beach. Kevin and I were the only white people for miles and miles. It is an interesting feeling to be such a minority and is a feeling that I haven’t ever felt before. The beach was completely full, every square inch of sand taken and people sitting back just taking in the rays. Every vendor and small street kiosk is busy and people are spilling over into the sidewalks and plazas. Some are dancing in the street.

We walked down the beach, got heckled for having such white legs and then found a restaurant that Paulo had recommended to us on a point at the end of the beach. It was called La Boca. We drank some beers before ordering and busted out our Brazilian Portuguese phrase book and found the useful term “O que voce recomenda?” That means, “What can you recommend?”

Our waiter brought us a fish stew curry type thing and some mashed manioc and also some cornmeal on the side. From my research I have found that this is a traditional North Eastern Coast of Brazil meal. Authentic and also very popular in the restaurant from the looks of how many other people ordered it around us. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to eat the entire bowl of cornmeal that came on the side but we, or actually I, did. This may have been like a Brazilian coming to the USA and ordering a burger and then eating the entire bowl of mustard or relish that comes as a condiment. Not sure. There are hamburgers here by the way.

So the price of the meal came to exactly sixty Real which also happened to be exactly the amount of money that Kevin and I had between the two of us to the cent. This was good because we covered the price of the meal and wouldn’t be doing dishes but this also meant that we didn’t have enough money for the bus ride home.

An interesting thing to know about Salvador is that it is really hard to find an ATM. What this amounted to was me and Kevin walking around, AKA sweating around, an area with not a lot of tourist traffic looking for an ATM. We didn’t find one. Didn’t see the bus that would take us back either. Ended up catching a cab and having a hell of a time trying to communicate with the driver that we wanted to go to the famous big elevator by our hostel and also that we needed to go to the ATM before we could pay him.

Cab driver took us to various banks in the central banking area of Salvador which is a combination of multistory modern buildings and very old, some abandoned, buildings that are made of adobe looking cement. Bank holiday also makes it hard to find an open bank plus the fact that if you as an American want to use an ATM you have to find one that has a Visa symbol which not all of them have. Cabby wasn’t happy. A note about the famous elevator by our hostel is that it is just a big elevator that takes you up and down the cliffs that separate the town of Salvador from the beaches below.

There are only a couple of places where you can get up a down the cliffs and this is one of them along with another escalator type thing that we haven’t seen. Made it back, good day, exciting. That’s it for now. Ciao!

November 3 - 8:15AM - Galleria 13 Hostel

Last night we went out and sat in plastic chairs once again, drank beers once again and listened to music, also once again. Pretty much the same as the first night we arrived. Mellow. A quick observance that may be due to our cluelessness but Salvador seems a little dangerous when you leave the tourist area, lots of homeless kids begging for change, etc. Kevin and I roll with authority though and things are good.

After our adventure to the beach and La Boca yesterday we went to a small bar on the central square and drank some Skol beers. The central square is an old historic looking area with two huge churches on both sides and a big cross in the middle. From my guidebook I can tell you that slaves built the churches but were not allowed to set foot in them after they were completed. Kinda messed up. Drinking a beer and contemplating this. Perhaps now is a good time to describe the cerveja.

First of all, it may be because it is a three day weekend but everyone here drinks beer. You go into a bar or sit down at a restaurant or walk down the street and everyone will be drinking a beer, men, women, seems like children too. Second, due to good marketing or racketeering or something, everyone drinks Skol beer, Skol being the brand name. Every single person, say of twenty-five people in a bar, about twenty four will be drinking Skol. Why I don’t know because all the brands taste the same so far to me. Maybe it’s the cheapest. Also, side note, you drink it out of tiny 4oz glasses from a large twenty-four ounce bottle that stays in a large beer cozy. The small glasses don’t get your beer warm I guess.

So we walked around the historic district for the night, according to locals Michael Jackson shot a video here, we drank some beers, got fucked with by the homeless kids and fucked with them back and called it a night at about 1:30AM.

This morning I couldn’t sleep so I got up at around 7:00AM even though I think they changed the clocks back so it was really 6:00AM. I took a walk down to the elevator and to a small café at the bottom of the elevator for a coffee. It was a locals type place and I tried to order a grilled ham and cheese sandwich which seems to be the breakfast of choice in Salvador but I couldn’t communicate with the cashier so I just ordered a coffee. Called a "café" in Portuguese.

For the moment I am sitting on the patio of Galleria 13 reading and obviously writing and waiting for Kevin to wake up. No idea about what we plan to do today. A Spanish girl that we met last night recommended a boat trip to an island called Itparica. We’ll see what happens.

P.S. Having trouble spotting hot Brazilian women. Everyone is a bit chubby. Maybe it’s because everyone drinks a lot of beer and eats ham and cheese.

November 3 - 4:15PM - Hostel café down the road from Galleria 13

Today was a day of forts. Kevin and I first walked to a fort that is situated about 200 or 300 feet offshore so that it makes up its own island in the water. It was near the “famous” Elevador Lacerda. We took a three minute boat ride out to the fort and walked around and checked it out even though all of the plaques were in Portuguese and we couldn’t understand them. Out of thousands of signatures in the forts guest book only about two were American. The view on the boat back to town was very nice.



Back on the mainland we tried to catch a bus to another bigger fort called Forte Sao Antonio that has a lighthouse within its walls. This fort is in an area called Barra which is apparently and area that the younger hipper crowd lives and hangs out in. The Barra neighborhood is very unique because it sits on a peninsula and you can see both the sunrise and the sunset over the ocean. Supposedly it’s the only place in Brazil that you can catch the sunset over the water. Kevin won’ t stop talking to me right now so this might be a crappy journal entry. I will not tell you what he is talking about as it is very inappropriate. Anyways, we couldn’t find a bus so we started to walk toward the fort and the Barra area down a road that goes along the beach.

The views as we traveled up the side of the cliffs was beautiful. Houses along a blue ocean, rocky beaches, red tile roofs. After traveling for a mile or so we interestingly started to smell the heavy stench of human feces. We then started to see several bummy looking people with crack rocks in their hands and then a nine year old kid smoking said crack. At this point we were walking pretty quickly, both because we didn’t want to have a run in with the crackies and also because the smell was so horrible. It stuck in my nose for an hour or so after this experience. Next, a very cracked out woman came up to us and yelled “my friends, my friends!” in our faces. Kevin’s spidy sense was off the charts at this point and I was ready to either punch or run. Our guide book told us to practice common sense and you will not get robbed. This was definitely far from common sense. Fortunately we made it to a less sketchy area by a nice looking residential high rise with a security guard out front and took a breather. Ahead of us was a tunnel filled with garbage and a running liquid that we suspected from experience was most likely human urine. Common sense... we gave up on seeing a bus at this point and hailed a cab.

We made it to Barra Beach and walked along it toward the fort which is known to locals as Barra Lighthouse. Here are some interesting facts about Barra Lighthouse that we learned from the nautical museum inside Fort San Antonio under the lighthouse: The original Barra Lighthouse was the first lighthouse in South America. The Dutch East India Company successfully took the fort from the Portuguese in a 14 day siege. They lost it again, however, later that year. Unfortunately we can’t remember what year the siege was. Forte Sao Antonio was the first fort built in Salvador and is part of a 15 or 16 fort system or chain built by the Portuguese to protect the coast of Salvador. It was first used as a fort in 1582 and has taken on several forms since then. That’s about it for facts.

We left the fort, ate some beef and cornmeal flower at a higher end open air restaurant overlooking the beach, stood waiting for a bus, gave up, tried again in a different location after walking a ways and then gave up again after a half hour because we did not see the bus that we were looking for, one going to Terminal da Franca. We caught a cab to the terminal and then saw all of the same buses that had been passing us by all day once we arrived at the terminal. We are going to get buses down before we leave. That’s it for now. Pretty good entry. Later tonight two-for-one caipirinha happy hour at Zulu Lounge.

November 4 - 8:15AM - Hostel Galleria 13

Once again up early hanging out by myself on the hostel patio drinking coffee, waiting to go inside and grab a ham and cheese sandwich when breakfast is ready. Since I just mentioned food I’ve also remembered that I found out that the cornmeal-like side dish that we had a couple days ago at La Boca is called farofa. It is actually not cornmeal although it closely resembles it and is actually a toasted manioc flour mixture. Manioc is root vegetable similar to the potato in case you don’t know. Fortunately you ARE supposed to eat it straight or use it to soak up the juices from your meal just like you would rice, etc. It is very dry and there is nothing like it in the US that compares to it except of course cornmeal which we don’t eat as a standalone dish. It’s like eating sand or dirt, it sucks the moisture out of your mouth but it is actually not that bad tasting.

Our hostel is very full now, we moved out of our single occupancy room, not by choice I have to mention, and into a dorm two nights ago. The first night it was just Kevin and I in the room and one other dude that we didn’t really see but now the room is filled with eight other people. It kind of sucks because you get no privacy. There are two English couples, two Brazilian dudes and I think also two Belgians. We made friends with everyone in our room and also with an Australian couple across the hall that took our old room and spent the night hanging out with everyone. The Brazilian dudes like Jack Kerouac and one read me some poetry that the he had composed. I’m not a fan of poetry usually but I am a fan of Kerouac so these dudes were cool. He recommended that I check out William S. Burroughs novel, Junky. I think I will.

To get specific about last night we started out with caipirinhas at Zulu Bar down the street. I should describe what a caipirinha is. A caipirinha is the national cocktail of Brazil. It is made with very bad tasting sugar cane rum which is not sweet like sugar but is actually a little bit bitter. The rum, or cachaca as it is called, is mixed with fresh squeezed lime juice and a bunch of sugar stirred in. Last night was the first time that I decided to go all out and fully partake in the national drink and I planned to experiment and experience caipirinhas to the highest level in order to see what the effects would be for science. The problem with this plan was that I found out that I am not really a fan of caipirinhas. It is very sour drink and is definitely something that you “enjoy” with your pinky up. It is also obvious when you drink them that you will be partaking in a very bad hangover if you have too many which to me is any number of drinks more than on one. I had a couple and switched back to beers.

After hanging at Zulu for awhile we walked down the hilly streets of the Pelourinho, or historic district, with the Australians Julian and Natalie to a samba concert on some large outdoor steps. These steps were about one hundred feet long and fifty feet high, big steps, about a foot and a half high each and filled with Brazilians and a band at the bottom. They like music here. We got there a little late and only caught a few songs so when they music ended we traveled to another music club. Outside Kevin was accosted by two women of the night. For some reason they are always attracted to him. One of the hookers was definitely a lady boy. We skillfully ditched them and then went inside the club which was full of people dancing and drinking. I was pretty hammered by this point and the music was really loud and I was having trouble understanding some of the British people from our hostel that we met there, mainly because it was so loud and I was so hammered.

I took off by myself and went back to Zulu bar/restaurant, got a water and a plate of french fries with sausage and talked to the Belgian dudes from our hostel who were sitting outside with me. We of course talked about Belgian beer… what else do you talk to Belgians about? That about did it for the night, I went back to the club to rendezvous with Kevin and then we headed back to the hostel to enjoy some sleep in a room with eight other people who I hardly know sleeping close to me. I slept fine though.

I want to mention that earlier in the night I came upon a scam that I read about in Lonely Planet and that I will describe here so that you can be ready for it if you encounter it. It is a common practice for bar waiters to keep track of your drink tab by simply leaving your empty beer bottles on the table and then counting them when you are ready to leave. That’s normal, that’s not the scam. The thing that you have to do is make sure that when you sit down at a table that all of the bottles from the previous occupants have been cleared and none have been left underneath the table either. If there are any left they will be added to your bill. Basically, if they’re on your table you pay for them whether they are yours or not. If you move to a table and there are empties already on it and your waiter is shady they will try and charge you for beers that are not yours. Lesson is make sure you start with a clean slate because in the shadier areas they will try to make a few extra bucks off of you this way.

That’s about it for now. Today is our last day in Salvador and we leave for Manaus which is a city in the Amazon Jungle today at 4:20PM.