A sad day for Brazil

The Holland v. Brazil match of course left the country silent....you
can see the sadness in everyone...including this man passed out on the
sidewalk...

Salvador

The streets in the historic centre of Salvador during and after the
Brazil v. Chile game. Everyone watched the game on a giant screen that
was setup outdoors.

Updates

Arrived in Salvador, already doubting whether or not I had made the
right decision to leave Lencois in the Chapada da Diamantina. Nearly
all the travellers I had met had come to the conclusion that Salvador
received more hype than it deserved. However, my thirst for beach and
curiosity to see capoeira eventually led to me purchasing a ticket out
of Lencois on Friday, right after Brazil played Portugual.

And so, Thursday night I danced forro until 5am, headed back to my
place only to wake up a few hours later for breakfast, packed my bags
and headed to my friend´s house to watch the Brazil match. The match
wasnt particularly exciting...ending in a tie. Caught my bus and
headed to Salvador sleeping for the entire 7 hour trip.

Upon my arrival in Salvador, my doubts as to whether or not I should
have left Lencois only increased. I was greeted by showers and heavy
rains. The place where I was couch surfing (www.couchsurfing.org)
seemed to be far from everything.

Yet, my stay in Salvador was a blast. Saturday I spent the day in the
historic centre of Salvador...and when I found out that it was the
last night for Sao Joao festivals I found myself a cheap hostel in the
centre so that I could join the party. Saw children doing amazing
square dance routines at a competition, drank some licor de jenipapo.
A sweet tasting liqueur made from cachasa and a fruit called jenipapo.
Then danced forro and samba before passing out at the hostel.

The next day proved to be beach weather, so went out and spent the day
at the beach. Finally, Monday, with Brazil´s match against Chile was
no doubt an amazing day despite the grey clouds. I spent an awesome
evening with Liane, my host in Salvador, her friend Jorgia, as well as
a couple from Uruguay. Jorgia became my samba teacher for the
night...and I started working on my Samba dancing.

Finally tuesday was spent up in Praia do Forte, where I visited the
TAMAR project, an NGO dedicated to protecting the 5 different turtle
species (out of a total of 7 in the world) found in Brazil
(http://www.tamar.org.br/).

Wednesday, caught a plane (which I had nearly missed, I arrived at the
airport 27 minutes before departure) to Belo Horizonte, where I am
currently staying with family.

p.s. Happy Canada Day! ....A day which passes like any other here in
Brazil. I think the closest im getting to comemorating is by eating a
Canadian-style pizza. Cheers!

Chapada da Diamantina 2

Here is a group from France I had met up in the Chapada. The next
photo is me and a group of girls from Israel I had met (and will
probably see again in Rio). My head was going crazy, speaking french
then english then portuguese. But it was a lot of fun! The more tired
I was, the more likely I was to start mixing up languages.

Chapada da Diamantina

One of the many waterfalls in Chapada da Diamantina. I visited this
waterfall twice. There was a nice ledge some 10 meters high to jump
into the dark pool of water below.