I still have not managed to leave Salvador, but tonight I am goint to the mountain region for sure with an English girl who, I am hoping, will motivate me. I have ventured outside the zoo that is this well-guarded centre of the city and found some quieter and prettier places. (After a few days I realized that the area can be most likened to a strange zoo where they put the spoiled and well-fed cats and dogs (us) together with semi-tamed wild animals, and the only reason the pets are not devoured is that men with huge guns are stationed all around the cages.)

Anyway, I went to the local market, which sold pretty much everything you can imagine, and the meat selection is, to say the least, enough to turn any devoted carnivore into a vegetarian. I hope to god that these cheap pay by kilo places where we keep having meals with my hostel buddies do not purchase their meat from there...Even went to a religious museum but my lack of knowledge (and, to be honest, interest) in catholicism made the visit worthwhile only because being the only visitor I got the undivided attention of about 8 guards who kept chaperoning me around the museum as if I were the First Lady.

When you travel with no plans, it is always difficult to make the decision to take off from a place and get to a new one. Every time I get somewhere I have the same feeling I had when I was 8 and had to find my way to my piano lesson by myself for the first time. Also, I met some people who are actually interesting to hang out with. Last night we went to see a movie (sad to admit that there was a huge storm and it was pissing down so bad there was nothing else to do) at the mall (again!), where we got to see the other side of Salvador: the well-dressed, trendy people. It was like going from one world to another, watching a third (Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton getting it on between two Christie´s auctions in the Hamptons).

I will not write from or about Salvadro again, I promise.

My pictures (hope the link works):

Salvador

Salvador is a very strange place. It has a beautiful, old (relatively) city centre (Pelourinho) with lots of baroque churches and pretty little houses where you can walk around on foot. The rest of the city is less interesting and, in any case, the centre is the only part that is "safe" for tourists. Although it does seem safe because of the heavy presence of the tourist police, I feel much more threatened here than in Rio. That is partly because here, being white, one is way more conspicuous than further south. (I keep seeing these lone tourist walking purposefully and assertively in the streets, as suggested by Lonely Planet, but I have given up on that in this city.) But accroding to a Brazilian guy from somewhere near Brasilia it is also because this area is essentially very poor, all the middle/upper class people live in the suburbs and they would, for example, never even dream about attending the free concert on the main square of Pelourinho that we went to on Sunday. The concert was great fun by the way, super crowded though, and everyone advised me to use my bra and/or panties as a purse,which was probably wise.

Hostel life is fun, if only because it provides you with a constant source of company. As said, it is kind of hit or miss. It is tiring to spend time with someone who thinks that the capital of Hungary is Istanbul (the Norwegian angel) or that the attractive Brazilian prostitutes want him because he is so sexy (a French guy, of course). On the other hand, the Spanish, or rather Basque, woman that I met on the boat, turned out to be very nice and interesting. Last night I talked to her about what it is like to be a Jew in Eastern Europe, in exchange she told me about Basque fight for independence and why it would be better if they had their own country. Good Spanish practice session, I am getting better by the day.

I am trying to immerse myself in local culture as well, but here it seems that the locals here have figured out the tourists quite well and constantly try to sell you something: bracelets, drugs, themselves, whatever. Some of them are really nice and chatty but it is sometimes difficult to be friendly back knowing that there will always be a request in the end that you will not want to satisfy. I had one very long conversation with a very pretty, 28 year-old Brazilian woman, who told me about her fiance, a 65 year old Danish guy, who bought her a house here and a car (even though she does not drive) and who owns 23 thousand books, has two ex-wives and beautiful lips, apparently. She constantly kept talking about how deeply in love she was with this man - all the while stroking the legs of a Norwegian guy sitting next to here in a very sexy manner.

This has become like a diary, I doubt that anyone will read these longs posts, but when you are on your own you pay much more attention to the environment around you it is good for me to write down my impressions.

I have had enough of the decadent beach lifestyle (beach, drinking capirihnas, dinner, drinking more and partying till the early hours of dawn) so decided to come to Salvador yesterday. The boat trip, which takes almost three hours was comparable to an aquapark roller coaster ride but I survived without getting completely sea-sick and got to Salvador safely. I am staying at a youth hostel, I decided to do the real backpacker thing for a few days. In reality, I just followed the Spanish traveller girl that I met on the boat and it looked fun enough for a few days, not to mention extremely cheap. Accordingly, my room mate is an innocent looking 20 year-old Norwegian girl with blonde locks, travelling around on her own in Brazil for a few months. I must say that I am impressed, I do not think I would have gone off to places like Brazil on my own but there seem to be a lot of English, Scottish and Scandinavian girls who do that. It is fun to meet all sorts of people from all over the place, but very often after exchanging tips about where to go and sharing travel stories with each other you kind of run out of topics...still fun.

Last night I went to watch an African religious ceremony called Condomble, it is a ceremony dedicated to various´African spirits and involves a lot of dancing in a circle by women and men dressed up in traditional costumes and then some of them fall into trance and get in touch with the spirits. It was good dancing but I felt more like in a theatre than at a religious ceremony, even though they apparently do it this way every week. I guess I am not very spiritual, but also the sight of a white, middle-aged man, who looked like a German accountant that is into kiddy-porn, falling into trance wearing some bizarre crown was slightly off-putting. Perhaps I am being mean and he was a genuine convert or something. To be fair, the women were actually really great, I enjoyed the dancing.

After the experiencing one aspect of the local culture, I went out for a few drinks on the main square of the centre, which is apparently the only safe area in Salvador. And it probably is, there tourist policemen and women on every other corner but a little kid still managed to took a but of my money anyway. Now I know not to ostentatiously put change in my loose back pocket after buying something on the street.

After the afternoon spent walking around in the old centre of Rio and a nice sushi dinner with Andrea and her husband, I flew to Salvador on Tuesday. I had agreed with a Dutch friend of mine that I would meet them either in Morro de Sao Paolo, or in Boipeia, both small islands close to Salvador, but I did not know where they ended up going because we had not firmly agreed on anything. I took my chances and flew to Morro in a tiny little plane from the Salvador airport. The plane was even smaller than the one in which we flew over the Okavango delta in Botswana last year, so all of us passengers looked slightly disbelieving when the pilot said that we would all fit with our luggage...but fit in we did, and the 20 minute flight was quite beautiful. (Also the Brazilian girl sitting next to me prayed a little before take-off which strangely reassured me. The effect of the American Christians perhaps?)

Morro is a very popular tourist destination, there is no pavement on the streets, only sand, there are no streets even really, only amazing beaches, tons of pousadas and restaurants. After tiny little plane successfully landed on the grass between two beaches I walked into the centre and since the internet connection was down, I could not get in touch with the Dutch guys and went for a walk by myself. Brazilians being very friendly, I found myself another friend, this time it was not Flavio but Mario, a local fisherman/tourist guide/unemployed guy. My Portugues has become so good in these past few days that I am able to carry long conversations and get complimented on how good my Portuguese is...of course, it is actually non-existent, I am talking to them in broken Spanish and twisting the pronounciation of certain words according to what I hear to be the Portuguese accent. He informed me of where the party will be that night and offered to be my guide the next day and so off we went our separate ways. As I walked back to the centre, I ran into the two Duthmen, Chris, the guy I had met before in London and his friend Bart (spelling? that is how it sounds to me). We had a great dinner accompanied by a dance/capoeira show (put on by the waiters and waitresses for tourists and their own entertainment) and a couple of cocktails so we were ready to go to the one party in the village everybody went to. At these parties they play a lot of Brazilian music of various kinds and when they play Western music they usually play Dire Straits or Nirvana mostly - I have yet to get to the bottom of this. We had a nice time, got tipsy, talked to various people, danced and then the most "exciting", thing happened as we were leaving, stumbling down the sandy street: a very short Brazilian local guy ran up behind us and punched Bart, who was walking next to me, in the face completely out of the blue. He then tried to go after Chris who was faster and more prepared, and basically knocked the guy out. He would have had a go at the crazy guy again but I stopped him, which meant that while I was struggling to keep Chris away, I almost got hit by a stone that the crazy guy was throwing at us (unpleasant). Finally a couple of Brazilian guys stopped the crazy little man and we were all shaken but unhurt, except for Bart who lost half of his front tooth. It was a strange experience, of course, such things can happen anywhere and you do expect it in big cities, but in this tropical paradise of an island you would not. There was no apparent reason for the attack (unless being Dutch, tall, and very blond is enought to deserve a beating), although I later remembered that the crazy person was mumbling to himself (and me perhaps? Akh, it is all my fault then) about how my friend should buy his cocain, or if not that, then at least buy him a beer.

The next day Mario, my guide/fisherman came and took me on a hike to a waterfall up in the hills and then down to the beaches in the next village, which is the one of the few tours you can do on this island. It also includes a trip to a place on the beach where you can exfoliate by covering your body in clay, letting it dry and taking a swim in the sea. It was quite fun, the large group of middle-aged French people pretended to have clay fights for the camera and I played with adorable little children too. I also got invited into Mario´s parents´house on the beach. During our long conversations in Portuguese I found out that his father is a fisherman, his mother works for rich foreigners as a maid, and he has 5 borthers and one sister. Some of them are married and have loads of kids themselves, others live in that house still with the parents. These people live on so little it is very hard to imagine how it is possible. I guess they fish to make a living but if they cannot selll it or there is not enough then that is their dinner. I can only rely on my impressions, because, obviously, despite my great languege abilities, most of my conversations are necessarily pretty limited in depth. It was interesting, I took a boat back to Morro and we had a much quieter evening with the Dutch boys, who seemed to have got over the previous night´s incident.

Off to the beach now. I constantly feel like I am in a postcard or tourist info leaflet on these beaches, but the nice ones so cannot complain. Hope all is well with all.

akkor ez szinte semmiben nem kulonbozik a gombaszezontol. szerintem ez kicsit hulyeseg.

most erre mi ugyanugy tudunk irni mint te? ez fura.

I am flying up to Salvador in the northeast of Brazil tomorrow. Not that I've had enough of Rio, I could easily spend much more time here. I was wondering about how people do work here...well, apparently they don't really. On my way up to Christ the Redeemer two days ago, I met a Brazilian woman who explained to me that she has been unemployed for 5 years and gets quite upset about how difficult it is to find a job but then goes to the beach and things don't seem as bad anymore. I also almost got redeemed on the way up thanks to a bunch of American Christians, traveling with a charitable organization that helps children by organizing American "adoptive parents" for them. We started chatting and then somehow I the conversation took an uncomfortable turn and I almost had to apologize for not believing in Jesus...On the upside, there is still hope apparently, even for me. The view from the hill with the famous statue was, again, amazing. The hill is now called Corcovado (Hunchback) but I found out that the Portuguese first called it "temptation", and the name was only changed later, which seems more appropriate.

On Saturday night I ditched my older friend and met up with a really nice couple that a friend of mine, Robin, from London put me in touch with: Andrea, a Brazilian woman and Tom, her English husband, ex-banker and ex-consultant, respectively. They traveled around the world for a year and have been in Rio for the past couple of months so they gave me really good tips on what to do and where to go. Another friend of Robin's also joined us for dinner, Barbara, a pretty amazing Italian woman who works with children in the largest favela in Rio (Rochina), lives there and is engaged to a Brazilian guy, Julio from the favela (he was also there). These past few weeks it has been especially dangerous to be in Rochina because the various drug gangs started a fight with each other so a thousand policemen were sent in to raid the place and they shot lots of people, many others fled from the area. (Julio worked as a bodyguard for one of the guys who was shot. Didn't ask more.) I had a great time with them, and they spoke Portuguese lots, which is good because when my ear gets used to the accent I might be able to understand more. My strategy is to speak Spanish and they usually understand what I want, but it is more difficult the other way round because of all those weird sounds that these people replaced the Spanish sounds with.

Sunday was a good day, too. Encouraged by the success of our bike ride over the Golden Gate bridge (and, as suggested by Andrea), I rented a bike and rode all the way down to Leblon (a nice neighborhood) by the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. I also rode a bit around the lake (yes, they even have a lake, which is in a very pretty setting) and then ran into hordes of young Brazilian men shouting and jumping up and down because their team won the Rio championship, which, it would seem is a big deal.

Now I am going to venture into the old, historic centre, which can be unsafe so I was told not to take my camera, or anything of value. Will probably write from Salvador.

(Oh, and I am getting a tan! I think I will be black by the time I finish the trips.)

Hello, I arrived in Rio yesterday morning after an extremely long flight from LA via Miami. The very friendly Brazilian older man sitting next to me offered to take me to my hotel, which was very nice of him. We left the airport and because the highway leading to the centre looked worse than the worst traffic jams on the LA freeway he decided to drive through the northern part of the city and make a circle. Rio is divided into north and south and the northern part of the city is basically a huge shantytown (favela, as they call it). It was the less scenic but more interesting way to get to Copacabana, I would probably not have set foot in that area otherwise. My new friend´s driving style - which I found out later is the driving style of pretty much everyone in Rio - consists in pushing the gas pedal as much as it is physically possible interrupted by violent stops resulting from a sudden push on the break. This seems especially dangerous in areas where everyone, including kids and pregnant women, run across 60 m wide highways as a matter of course.

After making it into the southern bit of the city, Rio turns into a beach. Beautiful and less beautiful young men and women hang out on the some 40km stretch of sandy beaches. The men wear speedos, but I am told that it doesn´t mean that they are gay. And those sixpacks...mmm. I don´t understand how anyone can ever do any work in a city like this. Despite the intense tiredness I felt after the sleepless flight, I decided to start the tourist thing. I went up to watch the sunset from the Sugarloaf (Pao de Acucar), a mountain from which the view of the city is just stunning. From the ground I wasn´t that impressed with Copacabana, the famous beach where I am staying but from up there that, and everything else looked amazing. I think I have been convinced that Rio is the most beautiful city in the world. Even better than Cape Town from the Table mountain I dare say.

After surviving the bus ride back to the hotel (yes, bus drivers also seem to be on crack) I went out to dinner with my new friend. He took me to a Brazilianr steak house, I tought about Aron all the time while I was there and was eating those steaks for him too. It was simply the best food: best steaks, best sushi, best seafood, best (Argentinian) wine, etc. Much better than Rodizio Rico in London - perhaps unsurprisingly. Afterwards I got to experience some of Rio´s nightlife in a very curious looking place: a club converted from an antique shop. Apparently, the antiques were not selling and the owner decided that Brazilians may not like antiques but they sure love to dance so tuned his business into something more lucrative and fun. He left all the "antiques" as the decor though: old and beautiful tables, cupboards, etc. similar to those my grandmother used to have, together with crappy repros and carnival costumes, and much more. The place was unbelievably cool, cocktails were good and what I loved most about it is that here it seems that older people are perfectly comfortable going to the same clubs as younger ones and they all just hang out dancing and drinking way into the night.

Now I am off to the beach. It´s the fall already but still 33C and blazing sunshine. Later.

All in all, it's really great (I know I'm over-using this word) here in LA, but I still miss San Francisco an the hospitality of Bence, my old friend.
This is the last post from North America, but stay tuned, more to come, once I hit the ground in Rio.

I love America in general, and Kinko's in particular. At 9 pm I was able to print out documents, fax, copy and even download my pictures with the help of a friendly older employee of the store. It only took 40 minutes and 15 dollars and the man thought I looked like a fashion designer from New York. Only in America can you get things done so easily and painlessly.

Naturally, I got lost on my way to Santa Monica from Hollywood but one has to get lost at least once in LA. I went to see my father's old friend who lives in a beautiful area of Santa Monica in a really nice house. His wife (I think wife number 5 but perhaps even 6) is lovely and I had a great time driving around checking out how the wealthy people live. Afterwards I went to see the Diane Arbus photo exhibition at the LACMA, which is definitely worth seeing (should anyone come to this corner of the world).


You can see pretty much all of her photographs and she really knew how to pick her subjects. And she was a fascinating woman who had interesting things to say.

Tomorrow I am going to hit the road for real. Next stop: Rio de Janeiro.

For the record, the previous post was written by my friend, Bence, who is, indeed, great, if not modest...

Travelling around California for a week was great. We flew to LA from New York with my brother, Aron and our friend, Miki and rented a huge car. We drove up (or, rather, they drove, I sat in the back like a kid) on the Pacific Coast highway to San Fransisco, which was beautiful, I can definitely recommend it. On the way we stopped at a great motel, which had HBO (that was Aron's precondition for agreeing to stay there) and arrived in SF two days after we left LA. SF is just so beautiful. We biked across the Golden Gate bridge, walked around and ate a lot. So much so that after our huge Mexican meal on Thursday night Aron became violently ill so we had to change plans and stay in SF instead of going to Las Vegas. I was a bit sad because this way I didn't get the chance to meet up with my good friend and fellow unemployed former corporate lawyer, Mark. On the upside though, we got to spend half a day in the Yosemite National Park, which was great (too many "great"s. I could use awesome but that would make me too American. hmm. maybe say: impressive, or, better yet, awe-inspiring. that's guidebook language. anyway.) We got back to LA on Sunday night and the boys left yesterday.

Now that Aron, and Miki have left me I will start my solo trip. The first adventure was to drive back to Hollywood in the rental car. This is a cute little red car (I wouldn't be able to identify what make it is but it is so difficult with these American cars. Or that's my excuse anyway). I have never driven in the US before and LA is definitely a prime example of the elaborate US highway system. I managed to get back though in safety to the house of our friends (Aron's friends really) Matyi and Bori, who are kind enough to let me stay with them for a couple of days. Matyi is a camera man, who is studying cinematography here and they are both so cool and lovely. And Bori is a great cook too. I am planning on checking out this city in my little red car today and tomorrow. Will report on how it goes.

My San Francisco trip was excellent, mainly because of the amazing hospitality of my old friend, Bence, who is really great.
More from LA.

This is my test post. I will write more soon.