Date of Entry:  August 7th-9th 2016

Date of Writing:  November 24th 2016

The morning  of the 7th I head down to the  ferry port near pelourinho where the boats to and from morro do sao paulo cast off to meet Annie fresh off her couple of beach days.  We’ve decided to share a uber (best mode of transport in most Brazilian cities) to the airport to save some money so we do so and catch up as we go.  Long story short she highly recommends Morro do Sao paulo and I will have to come back to Bahia to make that trip.

Eventually we say our goodbyes at the airport and I hang around an hour or two dizzy with anticipation, way too excited to see Renata considering I’ve only been away a week or so.  Still, she’s pretty incredible and I’m a hopeless romantic so it’s sort of understandable.

Eventually she arrives and we happily greet each other in the airport.  I’ll admit that after more than 3 years of solo travel it’s pretty damn cool to meet someone you love at the airport.  We head back to town and check into a lovely air bnb in Bara blessedly with air conditioning and after a quick little exploration of the area we watch the olympic opening ceremonies and then fall asleep together.  Remember what I said about airports, yeah it’s nice not to sleep alone in a dorm bed too.

The next morning we wake up and make the 5 minute walk to the other air bnb where Dona Ana, Felipe and Vinny are staying and we head down to the beautiful urban beaches of Barra, where I immediately go swimming to beat the heat and Vinny, Renata’s oldest sun, fearlessly gets on the paddleboard and paddles effortless around the calm bay.  One of the great things about Barra is on one side of the lighthouse you have calm waters, on the other you have big waves great for surfing and body surfing.

We spend most of the day wandering together through Salvador together, having a relaxing day as Renata has just come out of her hectic work schedule in Sao paulo for a short weekend break.

We do make one more journey out of town to get some ice cream though at a very famous place in a very crowded uber.  The ice cream is very delicious though I’ll admit I think i found abetter place in pelourinho just up from the square where Michael jackson shot his music video.  Still it’s well worth the trip and we enjoy the ice cream as a local musician manages to sell us his cd as we eat entirely more ice cream than is healthy and I snap some pictures of the nearby bay.

The next day we wake up and spend the morning cruising barra with our family before saying goodbye to them as they head back to Sao Paulo.

Renata and I then head into Pelourinho for the evening enjoying an early dinner of a truly delicious moceca (the best Brazilian dish ever)  from Zulu bar in the heart of the old town before wandering through the colourful narrow streets which help to make Salvador so famous.

Later that night Renata’s friend from Gertz rent a car arrives and we welcome her into our air bnb for her first night of solo travel.  All together we head down to the beach late at night and end up eating another moceca at a cheaper but still delicious restaurant near the main wavy beach in barra.

After a super late second dinner (like 1130)  we head down onto the totally abandoned beach.  it’s still warm and somehow before long Renata and I are swimming in the cool wavy ocean in the inky blackness of the night. She wades in with me most of the way which only makes me love her more and I end up fully swimming before climbing out and joining Renata and Vivi in a walk back to our nearby Air Bnb.  Tomorrow morning we’ll fly back to Sao Paulo and I’ll spend almost two months without any travels.  Which in the life I’m living is downright crazy to think about.