Salvador: Day 1

Ok so I have had a lapse from writing here recently but I am jumping back on the bandwagon and am going to try very hard to stay on it! I have been super busy trying to catch up with English lessons and stuff that I missed during my week away, while trying to catch up with everyone and have also vaguely been starting to think about my year abroad essay, which is obviously not going well. How on earth do you find the motivation to write a boring essay when you're in a city with as much going on as São Paulo?!

Last Saturday I woke up at 4:30 to take the metro and then the bus to meet my mum at São Paulo airport. It felt like Christmas morning I was so excited and when my alarm went off I was already awake! However when I got up it was still dark...I still get confused by the seasons here! I looked online where it said that the sun wasn't due to rise until 5:30. Walking to the metro in the dark alone laden down with luggage is not the best idea in any big city in the world let alone São Paulo so I begrudgingly caught up on some TV for an hour! 

At 5:30 I took the metro across São Paulo to the largest bus terminal in Latin America, Rodoviária do Tietê. From their I took the outrageously priced executive coach to Guarulhos Airport. Even my thrifty tendencies thought better than taking the normal city bus at that time in the morning.

I was reunited with my mother in the glamourous location that is Sao Paulo international airport. They seriously need to invest in refurbishments, it looks like how I would imagine a prison in the sixties. I am working in the transport sector in the consulate so have become rather opinionated about these things!

We had 7 hours to wait in Guarulhos before our flight to Salvador, Bahia. After chatting about every possible topic and generally putting the world to rights we realised we still had 4 hours to wait. My mum then noticed there was an earlier flight and came up with the ingenious idea of trying to switch on to it. 

Within an hour we had taken off. We realised the reason why we had probably been able to get the last two seats on the plane; I was sat next to a man that took up more of my seat than I did. I had go on to my mum's seat to avoid being engulfed in his rolls of fat. Fortunately he moved into an empty row once we had taken off. After whispering that people like that really should pay for two seats we rather awfully realised that he was American when he answered his phone on the bus to the terminal. I guess you can never be too careful, he was probably the only other English speaker on the plane!

Flying over São Paulo state

Landing in Salvador

We paid our R$1,20 (33p) and boarded the bus along with what seemed like the rest of the city, it was heaving with people even climbing in through the windows in attempt to get a seat! After an hour of stopping every 500 metres and being offered every type of food under the sun (in Salvador food sellers come on to the bus!) we finally arrived at our stop and took a short taxi to the hotel.

The hotel was just as I had hoped, a beautiful colonia-style building, restored but not over-done, with a few necessary luxuries like air-con! After a much needed nap we headed out to explore and more importantly find dinner.

Home for the next three days

More to come soon...

Attempting to be a bit more cultured today...The plan is go to two of the most important museums in Brazil; the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and the Museu da Língua Portuguesa, which I am embarassed to say I still haven't visited after living here for over 2 months. Then later, I am going out for belated birthday celebrations with the guys from work, a much more important type of culture! Have a great weekend x