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.