Election time in Malta, Spinola to Sliema, Floriana and Birkirkara turns into one big street party and everything stops functioning for a couple of days of crazy celebrations and drinking. Now imagine all this on a much larger scale, all the streets in Salvador adapt to a week of crazy partying by catering for the 3 main circuits, viewing posts camarotes, or to host street vendors where one can buy everything from caipirinhias, beer (Skol gelada), kebabs, carnaval costumes and the 
list goes on. Shops shield windows as if expecting a hurricane. Then the action begins. 2 massive trucks surrounded by people holding a rope to provide "safety" for people wearing the abadas. The first truck leads the way with pumping music coming from the second truck where you have the live performnce either in typical brasilian music or live djs. This is called a bloco. Carnaval in Salvador de Bahia has 3 circuits holding more than 30 blocos on the main 5 days of partying "ending" Ash Wednesday. All this is great. The only detail I am missing is the Julian and I, after a 2 hrs flight from Rio and a good 3 hrs to get to the city from the airport got to Salvador in the middle of the party, great u might say, only that we had nowhere to sleep and were carrying at least 15kg of luggage each. After a good couple of hours looking for a place to stay the situation wasn´t getting any better until we were saved by a mexican guy who got us a hostel, Pousada Cancun, excellent location and decent price for carnaval. Everything got better, much better actually in the 2 days we spent over there, one caipirihia too many, and lots of partying ending all this with a bloco from Fat Boy Slim which was fantastic, and I, after getting lost from Julian being we were popcorn on the streets, even got to enter and stay in the ropes for most of the 5 hrs.
Deciding to chill out after Carnaval, we headed to Morro de Sao Paolo for some tranquility, but after 2 bus rides, a ferry ride and a very rainy and dodgy boat ride we get to Morro only to find that half the people in Salvador had the same bright idea. We found out a day too late that the 5 days after Carnaval are called the resaca and Morro holding 4000 locals and some 5500 beds left us only the option of 2 hamocs on the whole island.
Great location on the main praça, excellent for people watching and 2 minutes walking distance from the first beach. Morro is a tropical paradise where wheelbarrows serve as taxis, donkeys can be found on the beach and caipirinhias taste better here. Beach number4 , a palm studded endeless beach with white sand was my favourite.
Deciding to chill out after Carnaval, we headed to Morro de Sao Paolo for some tranquility, but after 2 bus rides, a ferry ride and a very rainy and dodgy boat ride we get to Morro only to find that half the people in Salvador had the same bright idea. We found out a day too late that the 5 days after Carnaval are called the resaca and Morro holding 4000 locals and some 5500 beds left us only the option of 2 hamocs on the whole island. 
Great location on the main praça, excellent for people watching and 2 minutes walking distance from the first beach. Morro is a tropical paradise where wheelbarrows serve as taxis, donkeys can be found on the beach and caipirinhias taste better here. Beach number4 , a palm studded endeless beach with white sand was my favourite. 
Back in Salvador we spent a couple of days in Pelourinhio, the old part of the city full of churches and museums and cobbled streets on which art, capoeira and of course beats are the never missing. Last night in Pelourinhio, being a Tuesday was a party once again with live performances in various plaças. One caipirinhia too many and it turned out to be a perfect farewell for Carnaval !!
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