At some point I realized that if I was to stay in Bahia longer, I needed to move somewhere cheaper. I decided to move to a town called Arembepe. Packing my backpack was a trial. I am not the neatest person in the world, and in the one week of staying in my own room at the hostel, I had thrown everything everywhere. I really wonder how everything made it into the backpack - that was nothing short of a miracle. As I waited for my friend to take me to Arembepe, I decided to find a nice quiet place with wifi where I could blog. I found a cafe in Pelourinho called "Cubanos". I wanted to order something cheap to sip on then stay therefor hours and use their wifi. I ordered a drink called "green coconut" and what showed up on my table was a humoungous green coconut, with a straw. Not exactly what I had in mind to while the time away - especially given the coconut could not stand on its own. Finally I left for Arembepe, and my backpack nearly killed me. I had forgotten how heavy that bag was.

On my first day in Arembepe, we walked for half an hour to get to a very beautiful river and went swimming there. At some point I was getting carried away by the euphoria (and maybe the cachaca in my system too), and swam out further. My friends stopped me and told me not to go too far because of the snakes and the plants whose tendrils could entangle someone. I asked, "What? There are snakes in this river?" and my friends responded, "Yeah, but at this time they probably won't bite. They have already eaten." I didn't get the logic of it, but at that point I limited my swimming close to the shore. The day was so hot that at some point we passed a dead frog on the road that must have died from heat exhaustion - at least that's what I think.

In the evening we explored the town and ate the most amazing acaraje in the city center from a lady called "Cachita". She has had her stand there for over 20 years. Yummmy! We then joined some friend's of my friend's friend for drinks.

It was an early night after all the traveling.