Yesterday I went to visit Ouro Preto, meaning black gold, about an hour outside of Belo Horizonte, where I am staying. Ouro Preto is essentially the first town that was founded in Brazil by the Portuguese in the late 1600s because it is there that they found gold. The ships would land in Rio de Janeiro and make the trip inland to Ouro Preto to mine the ore and take it back to Europe. Today Ouro Preto is a protected UNESCO World Heritage site for it's colonial architecture.
Minas Gerais, the province I am in, has its name because it is a province full of mining. I have not seen so many beautiful precious and semi-precious stones come from one place ever. The main types in the stores are different colour topaz stones that are semi-precious, but imperial topaz, which only comes from this area, is a precious stone like a ruby or a emerald.
This is Jose Maria our guide in Ouro Preto. We stopped to ask him directions for the sites, and instead he made a quick sale to my host and before I knew what was happening he was hopping in the back of our car and introducing himself to me. A very hospitable man who knew a lot about the city. What was more interesting though was his family history. Apparently his father has had two wives in his life, but had a total of 38 children between the two women! Also, Jose Maria's father was born in 1898 which was only five years after slavery was abolished in Brazil - if he was born earlier, he would have been a slave.
Ouro Preto has many beautiful churches dispersed that seem to sit mainly atop the hills dispersed int he town. There are also many single person chapels with different saints to whom you can pray in passing. The town was one of the first to have a water and sewer system in Brazil, and the 75 old water fountains show this well.
Here Gigi and I look out over the city. It is a very complex town with confusing street dynamics. I was glad we had a guide.
The open air windows and balconies of many of the stores were laden with these namoradeira, women who watch at their window for potential boyfriends who may pass in the street.
The drive was an easy one except for the fact that the road is either sliding away or being covered by mud slides in many places. The extreme rainy season has just ended and apparently this year more rain was received than has been in the last 20. The soil is not very solid, which means that the water saturation has allowed for it to move very easily. It was unusual to see that for the most part the caved in roads were only designated by an earth barier built around the crumbling road. On our way back we ever saw that there was a slide that happened on part of the road we had driven on en rout to Ouro Preto.
After a day of museums and history being explained to me in Spanish and Portuguese, I was tired. I was happy to be able to speak some English at a dinner to which I was invited by the sister and husband of my good friend in the city. There Anna, an excellent hostess cook and serve us dinner in their appartment that overlooked the city - from the balcony I was shown which areas are favelas and which were the original boundaries of Belo Horizonte, one of the first planned cities in Brazil, are located.
There were three couples at dinner. Carol, Lu's sister, is an architect and her husband Luca is a lawyer who practices administrative law against the state (he said that probably doesn't exist in Canada because our government isn't as corrupt). Carol and Luca are my kind of people because they are young professionals who like to live and be active outdoors. In fact, Luca is an avid cyclist and owns 19 bikes! When I started to talk to him about his cycling adventures and explained that I have friends in Vancouver who plan cycle transportation professionally, he said that he is often used as a consultant by the city planners of Belo Horizonte for the very same thing.
Then we had our hosts Anna and her husband Daneio. Anna designs clothing and runs her own shop. It was apparent she was very glad to have people over because her hospitality was outstanding. She had platters with proscuitto, nuts, cheese, artisinal breads and sauteed green beans. Then our main was a delightful dish that consists of shredded zucchini, wild rice, white fish simmered in a vegetable stock and served with paremesan cheese. Daneio and the boys love motorcycles so this was a major topic of conversation.
The last couple were Nicole and Eduardo. Nicole works for her family business in concrete and Eduardo works for his family business which is converting waste from one of the largest beer companies in the world into organic fertilizer for agriculture. He also has started his own subsidiary company which is a waste disposal company for all companies.
I drank green wine from Portugal all night and tried to keep up with the conversations. The boys all spoke English well and were not shy. It turns out that the reason they do is because they all watch a lot of television and movies in English; when they watch with their partners they however watch in Portuguese which is why the girls struggled a little more to communicate with me in English. However it was a nice balance - I could hang out with the girls to improve my Portuguese and when I needed a break I hung out with the boys to speak some English.
Music was also a major point of conversation mainly because when I walked in they were playing The XX and then later Chromeo came on which are very popular in Vancouver, but apparently only people who are very into music may know about them here in Brazil.
(clockwise from front left) Daneio, Nicole, Eduardo, Carol, Luca and I - Anna was exhausted and has escaped to bed once we had dessert :)
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