Fly to El Salvador, I Don’t Know Why and I Don’t Know What for

Wednesday 10 February
Foz do Iguaçu – Curitiba – Salvador

So now it’s time to get into the carnaval spirit. Today was mostly travelling, catching the flight from Iguaçu to Curitiba and then to Salvador. There’s only a 25 minute gap between the two flights at Curitiba but surprisingly everything runs on time and there are no problems. I also experience my first few bits of Portuguese pronunciation, mainly that ‘t’s are pronounced as ‘ch’s, so Curitiba is Ku-ri-CHI-ba. Later I find that ‘r’s are a very light ‘h’ sound, so Rio is something like HE-oh. And ‘j’ is ‘zh’ and so on.

I arrive in Salvador after dark and there’s a long ride in the taxi to the hotel. As I get out the first thing I hear is the sound of drums. Oh yeah, it’s carnaval time.

I have a slight problem in that I only know the address of the hotel and it’s not in the guidebook so I’ve no idea where I am. But luckily there’s internet and through a slow process of deduction I get a general idea of where I am. I find a restaurant and end up sitting next to a German-Brazilian couple who are in the same hotel as me. I also meet some random fellow travellers from England and Australia and we all end up going for a drink, firstly to a random place only full of locals and fluorescent lighting, and then to a street bar with plastic chairs which also doubles up as a convenience store.

We are in the old town part of Salvador and it has a combination of colonial charm and colourful, African vibrancy. It is the African heart of Brazil after all, and the population is noticeably darker than other areas of the country.

Anyway the time is getting on and I don’t want to be late for Alain and his mate Ryan arriving, as I have the room key. As it turns out they get there literally a minute or two before I do, and the hotel lets them in the room anyway.

It’s great to see Alain again after so long and it’s not long before things are exactly like they were before. Ryan’s great as well and has a great sense of humour so it’s all good. We head out for a brief drink before the town shuts down for the night and we hit up carnaval proper the next day.