After seven delirious hours in a tiny airport, we finally got our flight to Belo Horizonte, a modern city in the middle of Brazil. We had originally planned to go straight from Belo Horizonte to the quiet picturesque town of Ouro Preto, however after making friends with Tomaz in Rio, he offered that we stay at his home in Belo Horizonte, and since we are such polite ladies, we found it hard to resist such an offer.
It is amazing how trusting people in South America are. We had only met Tomaz briefly in Rio during Carnival, but he not only invited us to stay with him in his family home, but he also left a key at the front desk for us, since he and his family were out all morning. And so Sara and I found ourselves letting ourselves into a lovely modern apartment on the 14th floor of a grand block in Belo Horizonte, inside breakfast had been set for us and there was a note telling us to make ourselves at home and to eat whatever we wanted in the fridge! What a host – and he wasn’t even there!
I caught up on some sleep while Sara used the computer (which had been left for us to use, yes we could have robbed the place!). When Tomaz came home he drove us out to take a look at the city.
Overlooking the city of Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte is one of the youngest cities (constructed in the 1890’s) in Brazil but it feels older, and had a very European vibe to it. With it’s tree lined streets and cobbled pavements it reminded me of Buenos Aires, but it is like Buenos Aires on a slope (or after a heavy night), since all of Belo Horizonte seems to be on hills. Walking anywhere is very hard work and some of the roads give you vertigo, but luckily for us Tomaz had a car and so we cruised up and down hills, which felt like we were on a rollercoaster.
We met many of Tomaz’s friends in Belo Horizonte, we ate fantastic Brazilian food (Muecaca - a spicy fish stew, and Brazilian empanadas from the market) and we even samba’d down the street at their carnival. We felt like locals by the end of the weekend. It had been a lovely taste of home life.
Sara and I with our terrific host Tomaz
Black Gold – Ouro Preto
After Belo Horizonte we took a three hour bus to Ouro Preto, a small arty town perched on some pretty hills. We were staying in an old brick Poussada (bed and breakfast) at the top of a cobbled hill, which looked more like a cliff face. There was a technique to walking in flip-flops on this hill, and it was a technique I didn’t have, and so I looked like a toddler every time I ventured out of the Poussada. The town of Ouro Preto is covered in hills and the Brazilians say that the girls with the best bums in Brazil come from this town, because of all the hill walking they do!
One of the many churches we intended to look inside, but our religion of Shopping took over
We thought we would be spending a couple of quiet and relaxing days in this charming town, but little did we know… it was shopping heaven! The first day we arrived, Sara had to visit the bank twice to fund her purchases, and I spend about three times my budgeted daily allowance, oops. Still it was well worth it, after all it’s not every day you get the chance to own original Ouro Preto stone soap dishes! That evening we were the only ones at a pasta restaurant with a singer on the stage. Every song was for our benefit until, at last more customers arrived to save us. By the way, this was probably day 12 of our “Cairpirinha a day” diet.
Saint Christopher grants me a wish
That evening, Sara realized she had lost her St Christopher bracelet. Now, any men reading this will probably think “so what?”. But any girls out there who have ever been given a present “for good luck”, will know that this is a bad thing. Earlier in my trip, when I took off my St Christopher for one day, all kinds of bad things started to happen and so I knew how important it was to get Sara a new lucky charm. Since Ouro Preto is a very catholic town and there is religious merchandise hanging from every corner, we thought that finding a new St Christopher would be easy, and so we headed out early the next day, before God could strike us down (he gets up late right?).
So, a question for you… how many saints are there in Ouro Preto? I can tell you… millions! And how many of those are St Christopher? One! It took us all day to find a new St Christopher, and during this time things had already started going wrong for us; the bank wouldn’t give me any money, we couldn’t buy bus tickets back to Rio and had to make an emergency dash to the bus station, I was unable to buy my next flight ticket using debit or credit card and I had no cash, a thunder storm arrived and the little charm I really wanted for my bracelet was just too damn expensive. We were desperate to find a new Saint Christopher, and scoured all the shops, poking our heads into their doorways, imploring them “do you have a Saint Christopher?”, before leaving abruptly. We were girls on a mission, a religious mission, we were missionaries! After hours of searching in every shop, Saint Christopher finally emerged! By this point I think Sara would have paid a months wages for the tiny pendant, but luckily it was only a few pounds. We left the shop with big smiles on our faces and as soon as we did, we walked into the lady selling the pendant I wanted. “You can have it for 60” she said to me; the price I wanted to pay. It was like a miracle granted by St Christopher! Or at least that’s what Sara and I thought.
The story of Saint Christopher doesn’t end there. Sara’s original bracelet turned up by the weekend in one of her wash bags!
Sara’s first night bus
That evening at 10pm, we boarded our overnight bus to Rio. We got cosy in our warm socks and blankets and settled down for the night.
Night night Sara, Mind the bugs don’t bite
Unlike the buses in other South American countries, Brazilian buses do not show films, play bingo or serve food, but they are still a step up from National Express. Despite the comfort I find it really hard to sleep in buses and so I spent the next eight hours pretty bored and restless, and accidentally knocking Sara awake! At Rio, we breakfasted on a couple of cheese monstrosities (that messed with both our stomachs) and boarded a three hour bus to Buzios, the beach resort where Cariocas (people from Rio) holiday.
At last – the beach! Not quite.
Our time together in Brazil had been a real adventure for Sara and I, and we were really looking forward to some peaceful beach time to finish our trip. However the adventure continued! Sara and I had both been bitten over a hundred times by mosquitoes, and whilst my bites were recovering, Sara’s were getting a lot worse. Some of them had really swollen and turned an angry colour, in fact the one on the side of her leg looked as though she had grown an extra knee. She was advised by our hotel owner to go to hospital and so our first afternoon at the beach was spent at the hospital; she was being examined by a hunky doctor (like the ones out of the Brazilian soap operas – so they do exist!) whilst I sat in the waiting room. The doctor diagnosed an allergic reaction to the bites and she was pumped full of drugs, both orally and by injection. Just to note, these drugs did nothing for the bites and when Sara and I went our separate ways she was still looking as though she had been bitten by a monster, not a mosquitoe. But you will be glad to know she has recovered now.
After our visit to the hospital (which we were very impressed by) we jumped on the nearest bus, that looked vaguely like the one we had arrived in. I noted when we stepped onto the bus that there seemed to be a very different passenger on this bus, poorer and darker. As the bus turned off the asphalt road and onto mud tracks, we realized we had most definitely got on the wrong bus. As we bumped along the mud we passed shacks, chickens and poverty. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the favelas of Rio, but it still gave us a real insight into the two ways of life in Buzios; the life that the tourists see, and the life that the majority live.
At last the beach!
On one of our last days together, Sara and I headed to the beach. The beaches of Buzios are stretches of sand dotted around the coast between cliffs and it really feels as though you are on an island, not one of the largest countries in the world.
We chose a pretty bay with a short stretch of sand and… at last we lay in the sun, mosquito bites and all. The sea was lovely to swim in, the people were great to watch, and the sun was shining. It had taken two and a half weeks, but eventually Sara and I were relaxing. Just so you know, the stereotype of beautiful Brazilian bodies is only really true in Rio, where muscle gyms abound, and men and women parade in swim wear you could floss your teeth with. Here in Buzios, the people were all shapes and sizes, in fact just behind us was a woman the size of a whale (who was giving us some shade – sorry, so mean!).
That evening, Sara and I enjoyed a free caipirinha (definitely tasted better than the ones you have to pay for) with a seafood dinner and a view of the sea (Brigittes restaurant), it was very romantic! We then went to watch some locals dancing fantastic salsa, together with an embarrassing drunk tourist doing a chicken impression. We obviously assumed he was English, and were relieved to find out he was in fact American; perfectly acceptable to laugh at. We joined him and his friends at a club and continued to laugh at him until the early hours whilst he did his chicken impression.
So long, farewell
After an early morning bus back to Rio, it was time for yet another goodbye. One of the sad things about travelling is the number of goodbyes. At Rio bus station, Sara and I went our separate ways; Sara to get her flight back to the UK where she could wean herself off caipirinhas and fully recover from her allergic reaction, and me onwards to Sao Paolo.
Not only had Sara been a fantastic Portuguese interpreter for me, she had also been a really fun travel partner. For a girl who doesn’t own a pair of shoes without heels in the UK, and who had never slept in a sleeping bag before, she had been a real adventurer. Chica – it was a hoot!
Adios!
A hungry man is an angry man.
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