Piracanga-ga-ga-ga-ga!

 We spent the last day in Salvador up in the cobbled streets of Pelourinho, then the market down by the waterfront, which also had Capoeira schools doing demos, so of course we had some well cheesey touristy photos taken (see below). Luis also fancied a go in his new capoeira tracky bottoms, but they are 100% polyester so a bit sweaty for high, free flowing kicks and twirls. Like fly's to the preverbial, we headed back home, grabbed the beach gear and planted ourselves in the same spot as the day before - the owners of the hotel also joined us for a bit, but we stayed til sunset, when everyone cheers and claps, the sun was sleeping night night. Bye bye Salvador.

One short flight later and we were in Ilheus, where we were picked up by the people from our next stop, Eco Village Piracanga. It took us about 2 hours to get here, and we had to switch to a Landrover in Itacare, as the last part of the journey is off road, on a bumpy bumpy track. The place itself, although remote, is beautiful, our wee hoose looks across a river out onto the sea and we have everything here, well, apart from a fridge, but hey-ho (they use too much energy apparently), and the site has a cafe, internet access, stuff for the kids to do, and miles and miles of beaches. Everyone is very friendly as you'd expect, and very organic (Gav - your Organic-o-meter would be jumping!), so we're settling in, getting used to a slightly different way of life.

It was Luis' birthday today, big lad now, 2yrs old, and we had a wee party for him this afternoon with some of the other kids and parents - the kitchen made a beautiful chocolate cake and laid on juices, which the kids hoovered, t'was very nice of them to do that :) We got the cooker up and running today and Maria had done a Saturday morning big shop so we were firing on all cylinders for dinner tonight, including beer, nice.

We're in the wild, so, aye there are insects, bugs, and we have mosquito nets and repellent blah blah,  but today, when playing with Luis this morning in one of the little houses/playschools, we saw a cockroach the size of my thumb (I have an average thumb, thumb fans) in a toy basket, which I subsequently stunned and put in the path of some ants and let mother nature do the rest; but tonight, in our room, we had a spider the size of Maria's hand up high on a wall. Eh, bugger. No change of underwear needed, but nearly. I went to seek advice, with my iphone as a torch, and luckily one of the people who run the place was still up (anyone thinking of setting up a pest control franchise should get themselves over here) but his advice was to swat it with a broom and sweep it out; o-k, and his last words as I headed into the dark with his broom was 'good luck'. Those 60-70 yards or so back to our house were interesting, but no sooner had I set foot on our porch when I heard a whistle and it was him, obviously intrigued as to how big it actually was. His first words when he saw it was 'ooh, big one'. Too bloody right mate, I wasn't jesting. Standing on a chair, he swatted it down by our bed, it started to climb up the side of the mosquito net then he swatted it again, stunning it enough to whisk it outside and flatten it in the dirt. We'll sleep a bit better tonight....