Thursday: Fantastic festival of Bom Fim or Bonfim, basically Jesus Christ. Spent the day watching people in white and driving in traffic.
Friday: FIELD TRIP TO THE ZOO!!!!!!!!!!!! See pictures for more details!
Friday - Sunday: Well, as weekends go, mine could have been worse, but only if I wasn't in Brazil on an island. We went to this fantastic little island off the coast of Salvador, and everyone told us not to worry, the trip would be very easy and wouldn't require any planning. Oh how wrong they were....
The boat ride there was not direct, because the direct boat was full, so we got put on a "connection" which means we took a boat to an island, then drove across the whole island, then took another boat to Morro de Sao Paulo. We got there after 4 or so hours, and it was sunset, so it was beautiful. BUT, we hadn't booked a place to stay, and there were 7 of us. YIKES. We walked around for about 2 more hours trying to find somewhere to stay that was in our budget (everyone told us not to bring a lot, everything is very cheap) and eventually settled on a place that would work. The next day (saturday) was awesome, got up early, went on the beach, walked, etc. Kelly, Erin and I found this guy who wanted to take us horseback riding, so we went to a waterfall on horseback. It was fantastic and very surreal. The rest of saturday was pretty chill, nothing tooo big happened (the power went out on the island and Ashley got shocked in the shower), and it was good. I got pretty bad sunburn on my shoulderblades, and in a few random spots i missed, and so did a few other girls, so we decided to leave on the early boat back. SUNDAY is where the real adventure begins. We got up at 8, to leave, and found out that there was no money in the ATM machine, so we all had just enough to get back home. We went to go buy boat tickets so that we wouldn't get stuck on a connection, and went to the dock to buy them. Well, they only sell the tax slips you need to use the dock on the dock, not tickets. After a quick fiasco regarding money, tickets and a lack of portuguese, we found out we had to walk all the way back into town with our luggage (up a huge hill) to find the place where we buy tickets. SOOO, we find the place, and the guy says that all the boats are full until Monday at 2:30 pm. OH SHIT!!!!!! so, we were freaking out about money and how to get off the damn island when we found another tourism place that sold boat tickets. They told us we could take a connection boad at 4:30, that would take another 4-5 hours. And then, this other guy said we could take a direct boat at 1, and as soon as we agreed to that, the guy from the other store said that he had 4 places on an 11:30 direct boat. So we took that one. BUT, it was a very rocky ride, and lots or people got seasick. Unfortunatley, I was around those seasick people, so I had to leave and go outside. Going outside in the front = getting really really wet. I was soaked when I got off the boat, and I had pruny hands and toes. It was quite uncomfortable, especially because I was out there for about 3 hours. I still feel a little wobbly. But, to top it all off, when we got off, I was waiting against a wall for a friend, and a bird pooped on my head. Yep, runny, brown poop on my head. Supposedly, its good luck, so hopefully that is a sign. Overall the lesson we learned was DON'T ASSUME THAT IT WILL BE EASY IF IT IS SUMMER! Everyone and their brother is on vacation right now trying to go all over the country.
The horse I rode was named Bob Dylan. ha.
More later