Black Gold

6/25/14

Before we said goodbye to Sam, who was heading to the Portugal v. Ghana game in Brasília, Nick picked up our rental car and we headed south of the city to check out the municipal park and a scenic overlook. Belo Horizonte is a spectacularly sprawling city – more impressive (if that’s the right word) than L.A. because of all its tall apartment buildings. So far this seems, for us, to be the most livable city in Brazil.

Belo Horizonte

Cat & Nick above BH

Hummingbird

Grey-necked Wood Rail

We said goodbye to Sam and drove south towards Ouro Preto. We had a few days before we had to be back in Recife to see the next Costa Rica game, so we decided to do a little sightseeing in one of Brazil’s oldest, best preserved cities. The two hour drive wasn’t a problem, as we thankfully had borrowed a cell phone from Fe, and were able to use Google Maps to get us there. And thank goodness we did! There is no way we would be able to drive around Brazil without it. We could find no Brazil atlases or road maps that were detailed enough to get us in between cities. Only small city maps to help you navigate popular areas and public transportation. As a tourist, I’m not sure how anyone is able to get around the country without the use of technology. It’s rather scary how dependent upon it we were since the beater rental car we received had a broken USB port and could not charge the phone, which only seemed able to hold a battery charge of up to 1 hour. Ugh. But we made it! And oh my god, I am in love!

Driving to Ouro Preto

Hills of Ouro Preto

Hills of Ouro Preto

Ouro Preto is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen! It rivals Cusco in its timeless charm and colonial beauty. I was seriously gushing upon our arrival. [Nick: It is amazing that the city is so uniformly well preserved. Unlike the other historical areas of Brazil or Panama that we have visited, there were no dilapidated buildings standing next to the ones that have been restored. All were in great shape with fresh, colorful paint and obviously in use by bustling stores and restaurants.] Nick – brilliant travel agent that he is – had booked us into the city’s only five star hotel – not our usual splurge by any means but it was well worth it. We slept like babies for the next two nights (a welcome change from the constant noise of Savassi) on the softest, coziest bed yet! [Nick: Ahh, quite sleep in a soft bed with the first down pillows we have encountered. I think we slept 10 hours the first night.]

Ouro Preto, which means “black gold”, was founded in 1711 after the Portuguese found gold (in 1698) in the surrounding hills. The town quickly grew (twice the size of New York at the time), becoming an important seat of government, a wealthy slave state and the site of much political unrest. In the early 18^th century, over half the world’s entire supply of gold was coming out of Brazil. Such wealth afforded the town the luxury of building incredibly rich Baroque cathedrals, studded with silver and gold leaf. (Since silver was not present in Ouro Preto, it had to be imported and, at the time, was worth four times as much as gold.) But the gold boom only lasted until 1755 and, by the late 18^th century (similar to the U.S.), the colonial Portuguese eventually tired of the oppressive taxes the Portuguese crown was placing on their gold and started a rebellion. [Nick: Our guide said that the crown expected the same amount of gold to be handed to them every year, not considering that the gold mines were not producing as much as before.] The colonial rebellion started in Ouro Preto, the first in Portuguese history, was crushed and in the late 19^th century, the seat of government was moved north to Belo Horizonte. As a result, the colonial buildings of Ouro Preto remained untouched by modernization and urban sprawl. The original cobblestone streets and colonial buildings have all been restored and preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The town was beyond beautiful, with colorful store fronts and wrought iron balconies. (Aside from gold, this region of Minas Gerais is sitting on huge stocks of iron ore. Iron is now the main industry of the town, aside from the local university.) It was like walking through a time capsule. It is by far my favorite city that we traveled to in Brazil so far. [Nick: In other colonial World Heritage site towns in Brazil or Panama Viejo, there are some restored important buildings and hotels amid a lot of dilapidated, graffiti tagged or crumbling buildings; not so in Ouro Preto. Every building from the Governor’s Palace to the humble corner store was in great shape, with new paint like it had just been built. Also, the town was not a tourist trap with businesses only catering to tourists (souvenir stores, tours, bars, etc.); it was obvious the town had a real economy. We saw zero homeless people; I guess the iron business is booming.] We headed out for a stroll through the streets, beautifully lit at night, and found a crepe place for dinner to watch the France v. Ecuador game. Crepes in Brazil are very different than the typical French crepes we have in the U.S. Here, they’re more like fat calzones made with crepes instead of pizza dough. I had three small ones (another “rodizio” meal) and could barely breathe afterwards. But the pièce de résistance of this restaurant was its fresh juices – a full three pages of their menu. We kept trying juice after juice to the point where half our bill was just for drinks and the cashier looked at us with uncertainty as if there had been an error in the bill. It was worth it though!