Jeitinho Brasileiro

First of all, I promise that my next post will be exclusively pictures. I am currently on “Spring Break” and exploring the Northeast of Brazil with 2 Americans and 2 Germans. We have found ourselves in a small Brazilian paradise called Chapada Diamantina in Bahia. Getting here was a bit of a struggle. "Jeitinho" literally translates to "little way," but it is a Brazilian cultural aspect so strong an entire book could be written about it (and I'm sure one exists). Anyway, I have employed it several times in the last few days, sometimes successfully, other times not. I am going to have to explain in a list so I can make sure I am clearly recalling my memory. 

-We arrived in Belo Horizonte on a 7 hour overnight bus ride from Rio. BH is awesome; it is safe, fun and has amazing food.
-After a few days at the very cool Samba Rooms hostel, we decided to visit Ouro Preto, a beautiful colonial town near BH. The line to buy a bus ticket to Ouro Preto was 2 hours long. People were bombarding us in the back of the line with offers to take a personal car to Ouro Preto. We didn't think it was safe, so we passed. When we finally got to the front of the line, the ticket we wanted was sold out. One more personal driver heard what happened and ran up to offer us a ride. Fed up and tired, we took it. So Jeitinho. It was very pleasant and the driver was awesome. Sometimes in Brazil you just have to trust people. 
-Ouro Preto was one of the coolest places I have ever seen. A great small town escape full of nice people and beautiful churches. I'll post pictures soon.
-After the lovely visit we returned to BH where we waited for our 24 hour bus ride to Salvador. We arrived at the bus station excited for the long journey through the Brazilian country side. When we went to board the bus, the driver told us that we were supposed to board the bus at the other station (WHAT OTHER STATION!) Long story short, we missed our bus. We complained for a while to the company telling them that nobody explained anything about this "other station." Great Portuguese practice. In the end, they told us all they could do was let us sell the ticket to anybody trying to take the same ride anytime in the next year. We tried to sell it for 2 hours or so. A funny sight, Gringos running around the bus station trying to sell a 24 hour ticket. Obviously, we did not manage to sell it, and we probably never will. At the end of the day, we lost 100 bucks a piece. In the grand scheme of life, having this story to tell is probably more valuable than that 100 bucks. 
-So how did we get here? We found some other small, less official looking company that sold us the same ticket for the same price. The employee working at the stand was about 12 years old, and the company only accepted cash. What's worse, the other big, official company had never heard of it. We didn't have much of a choice, so we just went for it. Very Jeitinho yet again. We boarded the bus in a strange place, not the official terminal. The whole event was extremely unorganized, but that's Brazil!
-16 hours into the bus ride, we found out that we were going to have to get off and transfer to a different bus somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Nobody told us this, but it did not come as a surprise. It worried us for a while, but it worked out just fine in the end.
-We finally arrived in Salvador and stayed for about 24 hours. Currently, Salvador is one of the most dangerous places in Brazil. We are only going back to catch a flight back to Rio.
-Right now we are in paradise. Yesterday we took a guided tour that included a waterfall, a beautiful view from the top of a mountain, a cave, and a natural pool that is as blue as the sky. Some of the best pictures I will have from my whole experience in Brazil probably will come from yesterday's tour.