Mar 17, 2013 - Belo Horizonte: The Dress Rehearsal

Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais state, is not strictly on the Estrada Real, but I make a stopover there for another reason that becomes clear when you look at a map of BH, as the locals call it: the perfectly symmetrical pattern of streets betrays that this city was designed from scratch. In fact it was designed in two stages. Mariana was the first capital of Minas Gerais state, but ceded the role in 1720 to nearby Vila Rica (renamed Ouro Preto in 1823), a town which became synonymous with Portuguese colonial power and...

Jul 23, 2008 - Starting the trip to the Panatal

Day 12 - Ouro Preto, Belo Horizonte and bus to Sáo Paulo After a morning reading books etc in O.P, we got the bus to Belo Horizonte (pronounced Horizontch), bought our Sáo Paulo x Campo Grande tickets and set out to see a bit of the city. Before it got dark we checked out a couple of the local markets where nuts, spices, fish and of course red meat were the pedalled wares. These big cities aren´t great after the sun sets, so it was either waiting at the bus terminal for 3 or 4 hours, or finding something else. After agreeing to see a movie,...

Jan 27, 2008 - Maceio

So, now we are in the North East. This is a very different part of Brasil. For one; the people are blacker, for two it is hotter and for three even the food is different. The picture of the pool at Gregory's apartment is for Kris to see the size and the glass barrier as an idea for his own pad. Gregory has a crop dusting business, mainly sugar cane, and a small aircraft repair business. He has his own runway and employs about 40 people; pilots and mechanics. We went out there today to admire. The 'swimming pool in the ocean' or 'piscina...

Apr 7, 2007 - O Fim e o Começo!

Como aconteceu muitas vezes na viagem, o destino brincou com significados. Encerramos nossa viagem na Páscoa. Uma fase se encerra e outra renasce. Assim como Jesus, renascemos marcados, mas não com pregos e espinhos, mas com gratidão e alegria. Depois de visitar tantos lugares e povos, aprendemos que o que realmente importa são as pessoas e não as paisagens. No final de tudo, o que sempre importa, aonde quer que estejamos são a família e os amigos. O resto todo é passageiro. As crenças de cada povo moldam os países para melhor ou pior. Por...

Feb 26, 2007 - Belo Horizonte

A five hour bus ride to Brazil's third largest city led me to a hostel in which I was the only male visitor. My dorm of 14 beds had just me - eerily silent. I think there was one other female guest, but she didn't speak English, nor understood my Spanish so I didn't really have an opportunity to try any other tounges on her. The reason for my visit was it being a stepping stone to Ouro Preto, a goldrush town a further 2 hours away which was the height of wealth during Portugal's colonial period. BH itself proved to be nothing more than a...

Feb 13, 2007 - Belo Horizonte

We spent a grand total of 12 hours in Belo Horizonte and saw nothing of the city apart from the bus station and our small hotel a few blocks away. However, I will always remember Belo Horizonte as the place that I learned the valuable lesson that you should never press a button on a digital camera unless you are absolutely certain as to the consequences. Unfortunately I did not learn this lesson until I had "formatted" (which apparently means "deleted") all our photographs of Emil's farm, Parati and the Pantanal. Whoops. Therefore I must...

Mar 2, 2006 - Carnaval - Only 361 Days Until the Next One

Yesterday was one of the quietest days in Brazil. It was Ash Wednesday, the day after Brazil's many long days of celebration for Carnaval. More than a few Brazilians woke up late, having spent the previous five nights dancing and drinking in the streets, rooting for their favorite samba schools on television or just chalking up a few sins before Lent began. The collective hangover (largely brought on by sugary-sweet caipirinhas) was palpable. In Rio, the sambadromo - a specially built arena designed by famed Brazilian architect Oscar...

Apr 8, 2005 - Ouro Preto (Black Gold ) - Mineral Mining town

We have arrived in Ouro Preto after the usual long bus journey and in the dark so finding our accom. seemed the most important. After a quick stay in the closest pousada available we moved all of 20 ft down the hill to the hostel we needed to stay at. We walked into the town at a 45 degree angle. It would seem that this town changed with the extensive mining that has been going on underneath the hills for 300 years. One of the original gold rush towns there is a huge mineral and precious stone deposit and subseq. all the shops sell...

Feb 16, 2005 - Brasil - Belo Horizonte

We had a day in Belo Horizonte waiting for the bus to take us to Porto Seguro. After checking in our luggage we went to the local shopping centre which had been reccommended for lunch. After a little look around and a bite to eat we decided to go to the cinema. We watched a film about J.M.Barrie (Finding Neverland?), it passed the time. We then took a walk in the park before heading back to the bus station. After a bite to eat we got on the bus.

Jan 1, 2004 - Golden Brazil

Copyright 2004 David Rich 1500 Words with Sidebars jdavidrich@yahoo.com Golden Brazil Once upon a time the world was young and its gold not yet discovered. In the late 1600s on an expedition through unexplored Brazil a Jesuit servant pocketed beads of a blackened metal, of course later discovered to be gold. The only clue to the bonanza's location was a phallic shaped mountain that provided the single clue to its eventual rediscovery in 1698. Zoom, the rush was on for the largest gold deposits in the western hemisphere, dwarfing the gold...