Heading north to Salvador

Heading north to Salvador

Salvador, Brazil, South America

I got up this morning, packed up all my stuff, and was ready to go by 10am. Since I hadn’t seen Janine for the last few days, I had no idea what time I was supposed to check out. I also didn’t know the best way to get to the airport from here during carnaval, and Janine wasn’t there to answer any questions, so I had to figure it out myself. Luckily there is a nice hotel across the street from the apartment, so I went over there and asked if they have an airport shuttle. They didn’t have one that left every hour or anything, but they could arrange one for me, so that’s what I did.

I had to text Janine and ask what I should do with the keys and then I took off at 1pm. I went to the hotel, they had my transfer waiting there for me, and it was a very friendly guy who actually spoke English. The airport transfer normally costs R$80, but because of carnaval it was bumped up to R$100. They said it could take up to an hour to get there, but it ended up being a pretty quick half hour ride. It was definitely better than trying to figure it out by bus though, because so many roads were closed due to blocos. This driver knew exactly what was going on though, so it took no time at all to get there.

I arrived at the airport around 1:30pm and my flight wasn’t till 4:40pm, so I had more than enough time. I was actually too early to even drop off my bag, so I went up to the food court and grabbed a bite to eat. I checked in at 2:45pm and had plenty of time to wait around before my flight took off. Everything went as planned and I got to Salvador right on time at about 5:45pm. As soon as I came out to baggage claim I saw a kiosk for First Class Bus, which is what I had been recommended to take to the apartment. I bought my ticket for R$30 (£7.50), and waited about 30 minutes for the bus to come.

I got on the bus and had to ask the driver to drop me off at a supermarket that was near the apartment instead of taking it all the way to the end. Somehow, without speaking a word of Portuguese, I managed to get this point across to him, and I got on the nice new coach bus to the city. Much to my surprise, I was the only one on the bus. I’m sure it was not cost effective for this big bus to be driving one person into the city, but I wasn’t complaining. About a half hour later we arrived at the Bom Preco supermarket where Maria was supposed to meet me.

I was there about ten minutes early and I noticed there was a Subway next to the supermarket so I grabbed a bite to eat while I waited. I noticed that this is not a nice area that I’m in. Judging solely by the people who were milling around the sidewalks, it was not a very comfortable vibe I was getting, and didn’t really like waiting out there for Maria for about a half hour. Luckily I was able to text her daughter to find out what was going on and she was just late because she was on the phone. Not the best start to the stay, but eventually she turned up.

Maria seems very nice, even though she doesn’t speak a word of English. We walked up to the apartment, which was about ten minutes away, and at night this doesn’t look like the nicest neighborhood. There are quite a few homeless people lying in the streets, which is never a great sign. But much to my surprise, the apartment is really nice. I have my own room with a fan, but no A/C, and I don’t have my own bathroom, but it’s still a pretty nice place.

Even better was the fact that Maria’s 17 year old nephew Rafael was at the apartment to greet me and he speaks english very well. He was able to explain the apartment layout to me and let me know what’s going on in the city for carnaval and whatnot. He’ll be around tomorrow as well, so if I have any questions, at least I know there’ll be one person here who can speak english.

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