A week in the mountains of Minas Gerais

We spent the past 6 days wandering through some great towns in the Minas Gerais State of Brazil checking out the cities/towns of Belo Horizonte, Ouro Preto, Sao Joao Del Rie, Tiradantes.  The State is very different then the rest of Brazil we have been in so far.  For starters almost the entire State is covered in huge green covered mountains, second it is not any where near the ocean, third it was significantly cooler (like 20 degrees F cooler).

So we will start Belo Horizonte...
As not only the Lonely Planet told us but also many other travelers there is basically nothing to do in Belo Horizonte and most people only use it as a place to visit other towns in the same region.  Because we had a 16 hour bus ride from Porto Segure (the town next to Arrial D'ajuda) to B.H. we decided not to take another bus the same day even if it was only going to be 2 hours and spend the day in B.H. seeing the little there is to see.  Well exactly like I said there is little to see.  Right after we got to out hostel we ran in to a Aussie who invited us to come along with him to Mercado Centro (Central Market).  There we enjoyed the first of two pretty great meals with him and another Aussie.  He introduced us to the Large Pastels, which are basically large rectangle sized fried pastries which can be stuffed with basically anything from the traditional beef or chicken to the untraditional like salmon or hearts of palm.  All for the great price R$4 ($2.20)  The one thing we were excited for, the Municipal Park, was suppose to close at 6pm.  Between 3 and 4pm it decided to rain pretty heavy and when we showed up to the park after the rain closed they said they were closing it for the day because of the heavy rains.  So we decided to walk around and see a few cool buildings and a nice plaza area with some fountains.

Emily trying (not succesfully because of her height) to smell the roses in B.H.

After all this we went back to the hostel and the Aussie invited us out to one of the "All You Can Eat Amazing Brazilian Steak Houses."  The funny thing about this is I really wanted to go to one of these but for obvious reasons Emily didn't.  And I told Emily a few days earlier I was just going to have to wait to meet some guys at a hostel who want to go.  And low and behold, I did.  At these places they basically come around and serve you large quantities of Beef, Lamb, Pork (the lamb was ok, the Arabs know how to prepare it better, and the pork was also not so good), and Chicken Hearts (which I had around 30 I think).  The Beef was amazing though.  Emily kind of just watched slightly amused at the three of us guys chomping down on meat while she enjoyed her all you can eat salad bar.

The next morning we took a short 2 hour (I say it was short because compared to our previous bus rides of 16 and 12 hours this one was pretty short) the former Regional Capital of Minas Gerais, Ouro Preto.  The town came highly recommended and it lived up to the hype.  The town, like the region of Minas Gerais, became really famous in the 1700s because of the discovery of gold in the region.  Because this was the regional capital at the time the town is filled with great architecture.  There are literally amazing churches throughout this town both architecturally and interior decorating filled with gold leaf.  One of the most famous designers from this time was Aleijadinho, who followed both his father and uncle in to the field of design.  One of the most interesting things about him (besides the fact that he was born in to slavery) was the fact that in his adulthood he lost use of his hands and continued sculpting things with tools strapped on to his wrists.

 

Overlook of the city and mountains of Ouro Preto (it means Black Gold)

Arriving in to Ouro Preto

Snack time for grown-ups

The other major thing that Ouro Preto is now for (besides its absolute beauty in the middle of the mountains) was a failed rebellion at the Portuguese that began in the town (this rebellion was pretty much seen as the first calls for the independence of Brazil).  The Inconfidência Mineira (Mine Rebellion) was a short lived rebellion, in 1789,  by a group of miners who felt that the Portuguese Crown was attempting to take to much tax on the gold mining industry.  One of the main leaders (who was the only one executed, the rest were exiled to Africa) was a man named Tiradentes (which means tooth-puller in English, he got this nickname because he was a Dentist actually by trade).  An interesting thing I found while going through a museum about the Rebellion was that in their decree to the Portuguese Crown for Independence they actually attached the U.S. Constitution to their list of complaints, even though all books about the American Revolution were previously banned in the colony of Brazil.  Besides seeing all of the church architecture and history about the region Emily and I enjoyed the several days of cooler fresh mountain air and the unbelievable views.

The final towns we visited during a visit to Minas Gerias were the towns of São João del-Rei and Tiradentes.  We spent very little time in Sao Joao del-Rei (minus sleeping there) except for my favorite part of the trip so far...The Train Museum!  Which included a great collection of classic trains from the 1800 and 1900s and a history of the railroad in the region.  We then took a beautiful 40 minute train ride to the town of Tiradentes (named after the revolutionary leader, because he was born in a farm nearby).  Tiradentes was a small but very exciting tourist town just filled with a great main street and town square.  During this period there was also a major film festival going on in this town so everything even seemed a little more alive.  There was not much to truly see besides enjoying the town and watching a great sunset over the mountains.

BRETT LOVES TRAINS!

NO, REALLY HE LOVES THEM!  HIS BAR MITZVAH THEME WAS TRAINS.

A view of the scenic train ride

The sunset over Tiradantes

Well that ended our trip to Minas Gerais and now we are enjoying Rio de Janeiro...which basically means beautiful beaches, great parties, and trying to give that huge Jesus statue a high-five. 

-Brett

Things Brett left out...

Our mothers will be happy to know that we are being good about using sunscreen. In fact, we have nearly run out of it. But don't worry, they sell sunscreen in Brazil.

Also, we made a wonderful Shabbat dinner at the hostel. We had a salmon fillet with mango lime salsa, potatoes, and green beans. Although prices in Brazil are not cheap compared to the rest of South America, groceries are not bad and this meal only cost approx 6-7 dollars.

love,

em

The Beaches of Araial D'ajuda

Ahhhh...The Beaches of Brazil!

So the laziness of sitting on the great beaches of Brazil has begun.  After an amazing 12 hour bus ride from Salvador to the beach resort town of Araial D'ajuda, Bahia. Yes I truly do mean it was great I am not being sarcastic, full reclining chairs (like in Business Class on International Flights), great AC, a movie (in Porteguese though).  The town of Araial D'ajuda is this little coastal town in the same State as Salvador (Bahia) but significantly more south.  It seems to us that tourism is kind of a new thing here, that it has always been a coastal getaway but it seems in recent years it has become the new hotspots for both Brazilians from other parts of the country and also Argentinians to come and relax on the beach.  So basically what started as one day here has now turned in to three and a half days here.  Just waking up and spending the better part of the day on the beach enjoying fruit shakes, coconut milk straight from the coconut, grilled cheese on a stick sold from beach vendors, etc.

Emily reading in a hammick in our first posada

One of the many pictures of the beach we have (it was hard to choose which one to upload)

How the town operates has been kind of strange to us.  The first day we got in and checked in to our posada (guesthouse) we wanted to go in to town and get a quick bite to eat before heading to the beach.  But literally everything on the main street is closed during the day.  Almost nothing was open, the entire town both tourists and locals spend all day at the beach in the summer.  Then by 5pm the shops on the main street start opening and by the time everyone showers from their long stay at the beach they can go downtown and shop and eat dinner at a variety of places from nice meat resturants to cheapo burger joints.  And the opposite was true at night, as Emily and I wanted a drink on the beach no beach bars were open after like 7pm.   It's just kind of a weird dynamic but definatly is nice.

The small church in the middle of town

Tomorrow afternoon we are heading to Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerais, to use as a launching point for several other smaller towns in the same region.  We have heard the area is up in the mountains and cooler then the 90F we have been having for some great beach weather the last few days.  We also decided to save a little money and try a little less nice of a bus (we had two options either a bus similar to our previous bus ride or a bus which I have been told is more like riding in Economy class on a plane instead of First Class).

-Brett

P.S. Oh and by the way the long awaited menus in both Porteguese and Hebrew, actually because we were able to read the Hebrew we knew they had Whole Wheat Bread as an option for Emily's sandwich (they also have one sandwich title 'Tel Aviv.'

Salvador

Like I said we are now in Salvador, Brazil (not El Salvador).  We flew here Monday afternoon from Sao Paulo, it is one of only two flights we are planning on making in South America (the other being in about 5 weeks when we fly from Buenos Aires, Argentina to the South tip of South America).  We decided to fly here because of the price/time ratio and from here on out we are heading south until we have to end up in Florianopolis for Carnival.  The flight was pretty nice, great airline (TAM-Brazil).  On a domestic flight of only 2.5 hours we received a hot meal and they also had the new touch screens on every seat where you can choose from loads of movies and tv shows.  It was great for a domestic flight, i think the only US based airline comparable is JetBlue. 

After landing in Salvador we took a bus in town and watched the beautiful beaches the entire time until we got in to the city center.  Salvador is in a state known as Bahia (click on the link to see where it is on a map of Brazil).  The State is mainly known for being the heartland of Afro-Brazilian culture as Salvador was the main location for importing slaves into Brazil.    It seems like a completely different country compared to Sao Paulo.  The buildings are all built in a classic colonial style and the streets are filled with African influenced music. 

Great Colonial Architecture (the street leading to our hostel)

More Colonial Architecture

Yesterday, we went to the Afro-Brazilian Musuem and learned about how the African god structure has all influenced the descendents of the slaves today.  That even though most Brazilians in this region of African descent might consider themselves "catholic" overall they truly still follow and worship in different ways the African gods there descendents brought over during the colonial period.  The museum has a treasure of both African and Afro-Brazilian relics.  Even though this area still has a strong influence of the African heritage of mosts of its residence you can`t go anywhere without seeing the influence that Catholicism and  Portugal had here.  There are beautiful churches everywhere including one  that almost the entire church is painted in gold leaf. 

Inside of Gold Leafed Church

Besides that Emily and I just enjoyed the great weather on the coast here and walked around.  Tuesday night is also the big party night here where the city hosts two major parties one was kind of near our hostel and the entire party was held on a large/wide staircase leading upto one of the churches in town.  The music was great and the whole atmosphere was amazing where both locals and tourists (many Brazilians from other areas included) just join in and dance (sorry no pictures of it, it was to crowded of an area to bring my camera). 

View of the Upper City of Salvador from the Lower City

View of the Lower City and Marina (the yellowish looking building is this huge `tourisy` market

On a complete side note, I know running in to Israelis was going to happen everywhere throughout South America but my first run-in was kind of weird.  Yesterday I was wearing a shirt from the end of my medics course in the army.  A girl who was sleeping in the same room as Emily and I asked me in English where I got the shirt.  So I replied in Hebrew that I was in the IDF.  So confused she asked why I was speaking English all the time.  So I told her my story.  In the end she was also a medic in the army and actually taught at the medics base new medics.  She was in the same exact course as my teacher when they were becoming medics and knew each other well.  The odd part of the whole story was about 30 minutes before this conversation happened my teacher from my medics course who I haven`t talked to since the course ended randomly IMed me on facebook to talk.

Tonight we are taking an overnight bus ride about 12 hours south of here to a beach town called Arraial da Ajuda (still in the State of Bahia).  Probably won`t be much to update, we are just planning on sitting on the beach all day and enjoying the small town.

2 Days in Sao Paolo

Emily and I had a great time in Sao Paulo, thanks partially to her friend Jose.  He drove us all around on Saturday showing us all the highlights of Sao Paulo finishing with a futbol game at his favorite local team Palmeiras which is one of the top 5 teams in Brazil.  They demolished a lower level team 5-1 but it was great to witness the fans going crazy everytime there was one of the goals.  And emily found it amazing that the hard core hooligans can literally spend not only the 90 minutes of the game non-stop screaming but also an hour before the game and during half time without any breaks. 

above is the team logo and below is Emily, me, and Jose at the game

On sunday emily and i decided to try the city ourselves.  We went to this great japanese market in a neighborhood called Libredade (also known as JapanTown) held every sunday morning and had some delicious street food (i chose the stand that seemed to have the most asians at it).  We also were looking through a japanese supermarket and i was thirsty so i bought a can of gourd juice.  Lets just say it was the most delicious drink ever (after irn-bru. which if you dont know is a scottish soda).  Next we did evidentally what every paulistian (a native a sao paulo) does on Sundays and went to one of the major parks in sao paulo (Parque Ibirapuera) which was recommended to us by the hostel we stayed at and emilys friend Jose.  It was a great enjoying time where you can spend hours walking around just like in central park.

The goard juice bought randomly in Japan Town in Sao Paulo...it was delicious

Ugly duck we found in the park

Emily in the Park

Besides that we are now in Salvador (not the country El Salvador, but a city in the Bahia State of Brazil).  We will update about the city later.

10 Hours in Mexico City and Shabbat in Sao Paulo

After about 24 hours of traveling Emily and I arrived in Sao Paulo, Brazil this afternoon.  After flying to through Mexico city, Emily and I found ways to entertain ourselves in the airport in Mexico City, which was hard to do for 10+ hours.  This included a pretty intense game of Scrabble (which Emily won 256-251), several well played games of backgammon (which I won 7-4), walking around a museum display of Mexican archeology (funny photos will be uploaded eventually), and a kind of depressing photo show of Mexican´s with disabilities. 

Trying to waste time in the Mexico City Airport

We finally arrived in Sao Paulo around 12:20pm today (the time difference is +3 hours, so around 9:30am EST).  We are staying at a very nice hostel in a pretty good neighborhood of Sao Paulo.  Emily`s friend from her program in Israel last year came and picked us up and he showed us around the area and the jewish area of sao paulo.  We then had shabbat dinner at his parent`s apartment with another american friend of his and a bunch of his family (which although originally from Bolivia and Uruguay now all lives in Sao Paulo).  It was for sure a very nice introduction to the country and continued to prove my point no matter where you go (NJ, Cleveland, Israel, Brazil) you will always be treated the same by a Jewish mother, one that just wants to constantly feed you and feed you.

View of one of the main Avenues in Sao Paulo from Emily`s friend Jose`s parents apartment (in the way distance is one of the main Municipal Futbol Stadiums

So hopefully this blog will be Emily and my way to send mass emails to everyone and you can just check this instead (I hate mass emails by the way).  But we will try and update photos via the blog also.

Shabbat Shalom,
Brett