Salvador, Brazil Day 5 - Bahia! Bahia!

Saturday, February 9th 23:15 (5:15cst)

So the place where our ship docks isn't exactly the best neighborhood. Both for crime and for places to go out at night. If we want to go to a street with a bunch of bars or something we have to take a taxi somewhere for at least $20R both ways. Last night we didn't really feel like going that far so we ended up drinking right outside of our port with some local that had a cart full of beer and also gourmet hot dogs. And by gourmet I mean awesome. It consisted of salsa, ketchup, mustard, mayo, Parmesan, and crispy potato shreds. At least that's what I think all of the stuff was, it could have been something totally different but all I know is that it was delicious. She's been posting up right outside one of the entrances to our port since we got there, so she is well known by everyone now. There was probably about 15 of us that stayed there then people would join for a while before they got a taxi and once they came back. It was a good time to say the least.

I would say almost everything that the street vendors sell in terms of food or drink costs $2R, including the big cans of Skol beer. It's universal, and great since a regular can of beer on the ship costs a ridiculous $3.50.

All in all, Salvador was really fun. There was always music playing in the streets, mostly live but sometimes it was also like a CD or something. One of Sean Paul's songs is really big around here. I can't think of the name right now but I've heard it in both English and Portuguese versions quite a bit. One thing that I really wanted but didn't get was this fried cheese on a stick. It looks delicious and I really really wanted some but you can only buy it on the beach and we didn't go to the beach the last two days. It sounded/looked SO good though. I should have just gotten some the first time I saw it even though I wasn't hungry.

Tonight they threw us a huge BBQ up on the 7th deck. Grilled ribs, chicken, corn, ice cream, and other goodness was served. A group of 4 Brazilians walking around playing music also accompanied us. A good way to end Brazil. We departed an hour and a half earlier than originally projected. This is the part of the journey where the ship is going to get up to it's full speed of 31knots.

Next stop: Cape Town, South Africa in 10 days (Feb 19th). I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the first day, but I have a flight at 9pm the first day to go on a Kruger Safari the second day. Then after that I'm going to check out Cape Winelands and the last day will be some shark diving