Looks like the whole town is out to greet us. Once the nation's capital, Porto Seguro is now a remote community where our plane is the big event of the week.

Stranded by Varig we were forced to buy new tickets from Salvador to Rio, and the prices are a nasty surprise. The best we find is a meandering one-way fare of $250 on TAM, Brazil's domestic airline, via Porto Seguro and changing planes at Sao Paolo.

We arrive 90 minutes early for TAM check-in at SSA, where the desks are flight-specific, and there's already a line for our plane. Our heavy bags are checked without comment and we're assigned 18EF by the window on the first flight and 8AB by the window on the second for a good view coming in to Rio.

We have no lounge access in Salvador but there's a wonderful coffee-shop on arrivals-level, always a number of flight-crews there.

Security is perfunctory but we needn't have hurried. Boarding is DIY, that is you walk through the door and across the tarmac to your plane. And as TAM has a number of departures and arrivals around now, we must wait our turn to use the door. Hence our flight departs 30 minutes late, which becomes important later.

It's an A320, comfortable seat pitch rather spoiled by the pilot proudly announcing that TAM is to "improve" its fleet by cramming more rows of seats into its planes. Cheerful FAs but only tme for a quick drink then we are at Porto Seguro.

There's a rush for the exits, leaving only a handful of souls in the cabin for the next leg - oh no, that crowd wasn't here to greet us, they want to leave town, here's a wave of people coming across the tarmac. Somehow they all find seats and we set off for Sao Paolo.