17-19.11.10 Belo Horizonte & Ouro Preto

We arrived at Belo Horizonte (the largest city in the Minas Gerais region) on the overnight bus, and to our delight the sun was shining.  We dropped our bags off at the Pousada (which turned out to be a bed in someone’s house) and head off for a day of exploring. 

Our hosts had recommended that we start our visit with a walk around two of the main parks Parc Municipal and Praca de Liberdade.  Next stop was the Mercado Municipal – the central market.  We had timed it well as the heavens had opened (sound familiar) and we took a leisurely stroll amongst the stalls.  This market sold everything you could imagine.  The usual cheese stalls, butchers alley, chilli and spices, budgies (yes, the pet bird type), live poultry and other live creatures.  (Jane, this has nothing on Kirgate Market I can tell you!)  We scuppered past as it was a bit un-nerving to bar/restaurant area and chilled with a couple of chopp’s (draught lager) to watch the world go by.

Our first impressions of the city was that we were in another concrete ‘sprawl’ like Sao Paulo but after some digging we found some ‘interesting’ architectural finds.

Concrete sprawl of Belo Horizonte

Unknown building, Belo Horizonte

Arts Centre, Belo Horizonte

The mountains and hills of Minas Gerias ‘General Mines’ contain the richest mineral deposits in the whole of Brazil including gold and diamonds found at the end of the 17^th century.

The main draw to the region of Minas Gerias was a small town called Ouro Preto approx 100km south-east of Belo Horizonte.  Frankly, the town was beautiful and we had a really relaxing day wandering through the winding streets and viewing the Baroque and Rocco architecture – a real contrast to the recent cities we had visited.  At lunch, we visited an all-you-can-eat buffet of the comida mineira (local cuisine) which was pretty incredible for the price of R$15 (£5.40) each and stuffed ourselves so full we could hardly walk out of the restaurant. 

The streets of Ouro Preto

Most of the churches have facades which have been sculptured by a chap called Antonio Fancisco Lisboa who was a prolific young sculpture in the region.  Unfortunatley in the latter years of his life he suffered from a debilitating disease which causes his fingers and toes to drop off.  This didn’t prevent him from working and he tied his tools to his wrists and ankles, producing some of his best works.  He was later nicknamed Aleijadinho which translates as ‘little cripple’

We took a rare visit (for us) inside one of the attractions - the Matriz de Nossa Senhora do Pilar church which has an interior literally covered in gold.  We’re not ones for entrance fees and museums in general but this one was actually worth the visit.  The sculpture inside was amazing and although it wasn’t undertaken by Aleijadinho it was heavily influenced by him.

Matriz de Nossa Senhora do Pilar, Ouro Preto

 

After some deliberation we decided that it was best to head north to the Bahia region and chill on the Coconut Coast just north of Salvador before visiting a friend from uni.  Ryan had a full blown conversation in Portuguese with the bloke in the ticket office and impressed me so much. I don’t know why I was so surprised – everyone knows Ryan seems to have a knack of being good at everything!!  We finally feel (2 weeks in) like we were getting somewhere with the language – Ryan doing all the speaking with me translating the response. 

Once back at the Pousada the host dropped a few hints that there was some good night-life in Santa Theresa and many bars to visit, we got the message and headed out for a few quiet ones.

As the bus didn’t leave until 7pm on the last day, we found ourselves with an extra day in Belo with not much left to see.  We dragged breakfast and check out as long as possible and headed for a bus to Pamulha, a wealthy district that was built in the 1940’s around an artificial lake - designed (again) by Oscar Niemeyer.  It was a really hot day so we could only muster up the energy to visit one of the buildings in the area – the Igreja de Sao Francisco de Assis which was built in the 1940’s.  The Catholic church was so radical for it’s time that a huge campaign took place to prevent it from getting inaugurated.  Nineteen years later, the first mass was held there with 100,000 people and the current president of Brazil in attendance.

Igreja de Sao Francisco de Assis, Pamulha

We drifted back to Santa Theresa for a beer in the sun waiting for the departure of our bus.  For some reason I had been exhausted all day, so I went to join the locals for a kip on a park bench.  It sounds a bit ‘trampish’ I know (you can take a girl of our Sheffield…) but everyone seems to just lie down and snooze wherever they fancy.  The power nap did me good and I woke just in time to order some food (and a few drinks) before heading to the Rodoviaria to catch the bus. 

Rach having a (rare) caipirinha

When we were booking the tickets, we were told that the bus would arrive at 1630 the following day (21.5 hours) so we were knew we were in for a long journey.  The buses are really well equipped with large comfy reclining seats, air conditioning and an onboard loo.  They tend to stop every 2.5 hours or so at a service station to allow people to stock up on supplies or use the washroom facilities.  The only downside is the washrooms all have a charge associated with them.  Mostly they are between R$0.5 – 1 each time equating to about 35p each which doesn’t sound a lot.  However, we you have the bladder the size of a peanut, everytime the bus stops I have to use the loo.  Between us over the duration of the bus journey we must have spent at least R$12 just on going to the loo.  To top it off we also got charged about R$7 (£2.5) on water which was making me go even more!!  All in all I flushed £7 of our total £55 per day budget down the loo!

Anyway, the journey wasn’t too painful (we have worse to come) and as 1630 arrived, we were just saying to each other how easy the journey actually was.  We then hit about 1715 having not got to Salvador and I started to get worried – had we passed the stop and didn’t realise, were we asleep and didn’t hear the driver… Then it dawned on me that there was a time difference in Salvador that we hadn’t accounted for.  Phew…or so we thought.  1730 came and passed, so did 1830 and we started to poop.  Ryan checked the guide book to see how long the journey should be from Belo Horizonte to Salvador – 28 hours he read.  28 hours!!!  I won’t write the expletives that came out of my mouth, it wouldn’t be for pleasant reading (mum you know the sort).  I soon got over it and resigned myself to another 4.5 hours on the bus – after all, we are in Bahia, the most chilled out state in Brazil!  Half our later, we pulled into Salvador, 24 hours after we had set off.  Something, somewhere, must have got lost in translation.

Funny piccie of Ryan to make you smile