The Last Ticket

There are moments when you're travelling when you just gotta take a gamble. 9pm, no tickets left for the overnight bus you planned to catch and no space at the hostel you're staying in, save the hammock above the restaurant.

I had an irepressable urge to leave town to taste some fresh air and experience some nature. I guess that my mind was made up for me as I found myself in a taxi driving along the motorway to the out of town bus station.

I rocked up at the counter to do my best traveller blag fo any cancellations or no shows. A firm shaked head told me that I wasn't in luck, even when I asked 3 more times.

I perched on the floor to peruse my lonely planet for ideas of where else to head off to when, after a few minutes, the same head appeared knocking at the window and a beaming smile.

Call it fate or what you will, but things really do have a natural way of working theselves out. So onwards and upwards to Lencois and the Chapada Diamantina.

And there was one...

There's a sense of adventure when you find yourself alone in a foreign airport. It's a pit of the stomach feeling that things are about to get interesting...

So the first trial - get a bus cause you can't afford taxis anymore. Sit half an hour in the sunshine with no sign of any public transport. See a taxi driver bartering with some new arrivals, seize the opportunity, and a shared carriage to the Pelorinho awaits via the port.

There's also a certain quietness to being alone on your travels. You listen more and keep your eyes open wider, so i got a bit more of a sense of the portuguese being spoken between driver and passengers about polotics, bahia and music.

Taking a long tour around the bay gave a chance for me to get a different perspective on Salvador, although the long stretches ofbeach are overun by dual carriageways and badly constructed hotels. The city's position is fantastic, but its expansion from the beautiful historic centre seems slapdash and polluted; but perhaps i'm being unfair as it is very hard to live up to the expectations placed by a city like Rio.