I've just arrived in Salvador, after a quick 2 night stop in Porto Seguro. I stopped there to break up the otherwise long trip from Vitória, and had also heard some good things about the beaches party atmosphere.

I stayed at Hotel Terra, which was recommended by Wikitravel for having a good breakfast … I’m gonna be honest and say that that was mainly what sold me on it. They had a lady there making tapioca and it was delicious, definitely a recipe to bring home!

I only had two full days here, so on the first day I spent some time walked around the beach and the famous Passarela do Alcool - pretty much a big street full of alcohol, food and souvenir stalls.

The highlight of my stop here being the day trip to Recife do Fora. We took a boat out to a reef that you can walk around during low tide, and we spent the next hour snorkelling around and appreciating the reef and sea life.

In the end, I learnt the hard way not to choose a hotel purely based on it’s breakfast - on Saturday night my room became infested with some sort of flying ant. After swatting about 100 ants with my thongs and still not getting them all, I was able to convince the hotel staff to change my room and got a decent night’s sleep.

And what was supposed to be a 12 hour bus from Porto Seguro to Salvador ended up being more like 15 hours, due to heavy traffic caused by the storms. Also, considering I was sat directly in front of a sick and crying baby all night, I did well to get a good sleep! The joys of travel...