Aussie Aussie Aussi OI! Oi! Oi!

A quick inland scarper, 6 hours west of Salvadore landed us in Lençois, the old diamond prospecting capital of Brazil. Not looking for a ring this time we busied ourselves with more childish pursuits. We got wind of a slippery waterslide reachable with a bit of a hike out of town. Knew we were close to the action when we heard the screams of locals hurtling down the smooth (fingers crossed!) rocky slide. No way we would have risked the skin on our backsides on this one without seeing the locals do it first. It took a scramble up the dry side and a shimmy across the mossy rocks and then lots of courage to let yourself fly down the bumpy slope at a serious pace, no steering possible to land in the deep, refreshing pool below.After all that excitment, flopped onto a sunbaked rock to enjoy a cold one (bless the enterprising Brazilian who carried the esky) and watched the other gringos nervously inch their way across the top of the ¨slide¨in an all too familiar way. Great craik! Spent longer than we thought at this lovely spot.

For a small town there was plenty of excitment. A screeching man in the square greeting the new backpackers, a local drum band and their aerobic dancing sisters, vampiros (bats) flying out of the first room we looked at (how about the one with the dog curled up at the foot of the bed instead - we can cope with dogs), a gecko to keep away the mosquitos and possibly the big green grasshoppers, firecrackers being tossed around by the local kids and last but certainly not lest a loud man with a loud speaker system reciting vowels until the wee small hours punctuated by spurts of music so loud we thought the band was sitting at the end of the bed (even with earplugs in). Lençois was anything but dull.

Kaz and Stu xox

Sight of the week: 3-1 to the Aussies, even if we were the only ones clapping and cheering at a little cafe at 10 in the morning :-)

Meal of the week: real pasta not from the packet!