I promised last time to write about Ouro Preto, a small but famous town in Minas Gerais, a couple of hours' ride from Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state. Ouro Preto, along with places such as Mariana, Congonhas, Tiradentes and Sao Joao del Rei, are all towns which prospered back in the Portuguese colonial period and are to this day adorned with colourful, picturesque architecture, most notably churches. These can be found spread around the towns, their Portuguese colonial style looking particularly beautiful against the backdrop of the green hills and a variety of other colonial architecture around. Ouro Preto is possibly the most visited of these towns, thanks to its proximity to Belo Horizonte.
I wrote a little bit about Tiradentes and Sao Joao del Rei a while ago, where I went along on a day trip with Saci, the school where I worked in Juiz de Fora. Ouro Preto (literally, 'black gold' - it was one of the mining centers back in the industrial period of Minas) is probably around the same size as Tiradentes, but as far as I know (or rather, have seen), can boast of more churches adorning its steep hills - and those hills are certainly steeper than in Tiradentes! Nowadays, Ouro Preto is actually known as a hippie/student town, and from my own observations, I can testify to that!
Beautiful Ouro Preto, the city of 'Black Gold'We arrived in Ouro Preto in the middle of the day and at that point the skies looked like they were about to open up and spill out on our heads. Luckily, despite the dark clouds still hanging around in the sky, the sun rays managed to break through a little later and make our photos brighter and much happier looking. Indeed, the first photos on our cameras are quite dark, with menacing clouds above.. and much brighter and nicer later that same afternoon!
In Ouro Preto, we stayed in a hostel of the same owners as those running our hostel in Belo Horizonte (it's not really a coincidence, we booked our hostel in Ouro Preto through them), whose logo has a cute little green alligator. Luckily, the town is small and we didn't need to go far to get to and from the hostel - walking around on the old stones and cobbles of Ouro Preto requires good shoes, and is potentially lethal to shabby suitcase wheels.
On the steep streets of Ouro Preto
Spread around its green hills are the many (twelve? thirteen?) colonial churches, usually seating proudly at the peak of the actual hill, from which you can admire the view of the town from a whole variety of viewing points, as we have. Being prepared to climb the afore-mentioned steep cobbles of the city comes with the visiting ;-)
I won't describe every church we went to take a closer look at, because even in the less than 2 days we had there we still managed to check out quite a few (though many were closed at the time, so we just admired the outside part), or every other architectural high-point of the city, because basically the whole of Ouro Preto is very beautiful and therefore worth visiting. What did catch my eye right away though, and has remained with me throughout our stay, is the strange combination of this old colonial city architecture, with the steep streets paved with cobbles, and... the many cars around, either parked or driving (sometimes blocking good photo opportunities). Really, traffic congestion in Ouro Preto is pretty astonishing - something you would imagine in a city like Sao Paulo or Rio, sure, but not in this small historic city, surrounded by mountains on all sides. But I guess that's how modernity goes.
Our first afternoon in the city, we explored the main square, with its important-looking buildings and the mountains forming the impressive background landscape (don't forget the dark menacing clouds! haha); cute and colourful little streets around the center, with the artesanato shops selling all kinds of hand-made artifacts, clothes, and jewellery (of course, we couldn't quite stay away from those), restaurants and the locals' and tourists' homes (aka hostels and such). We also had lunch at a rather expensive restaurant (my bad! didn't look at the menu properly) whose expenses obviously mainly went out on the great location and image, rather than cuisine.. oh well. At least Bryley got to hang out of the window and take more pictures of the cute little street.
One of the cute streets of Ouro Preto: judging by all the nametags and notices, a busy one!We were also lucky to catch some beautiful views of the town lit by the rays of the setting sun, starting with the church on top of the hill, down to the streets below. We caught some amazing views from atop one of the higher points in Ouro Preto, next to a local museum. From here, we could see the hills with the houses built around them (I think, that was a kind of local favela, actually), a number of beautiful colonial churches, the central square and the steep streets and corners. Ouro Preto bathed in the golden rays of the setting sun.. how romantic! ;-)
Among our great discoveries in Ouro Preto was also the awesome market next to one of the churches (well, everything is nearby a church in this town.. but this one really was next to it), where we spent almost a couple of hours searching out little souvenirs, gifts and jewellery. Really, they had so much stuff, including things you could also buy in BH (and I did), but here they were a lot cheaper!! There was a lot of choice in particular of all kinds of souvenirs made out of stone, polished, carved and painted into numerous beautiful things, such as jewellery boxes. Apparently, a Minas/Ouro Preto specialty.
We (that is, I mostly) also bargained with a few sellers for a number of cute earrings for us, too. That must have been funny: two gringas, one speaking English to her gringa friend and consequently bargaining in Portuguese to the seller. But we got our way :)
After all that effort, we sat down for our deserved evening meal of the typical mineira food: salsicha (a kind of sausage that mineiros claim isn't actually sausage) and mandioca (I think it translates as 'yam'.. and I always thought tastes a bit like potato), washed down with some Brazilian beer of course. We were sitting at this cute cafe at a street corner of the main square, if I remember it well, decorated inside with photos of Ouro Preto and Minas Gerais, with a terrace outside, and some good live music by (probably) one of the local musicians, for whom we clapped enthusiastically. I remember the place must have had a rather European atmosphere, because Bryley and I were discussing that this kind of European-style cafe life is still of course the best :) How great that you can find it all the way in Brazil, too.
The next morning we started our sight-seeing down a different street from our hostel, exploring a few other shopping and photo-taking opportunities. Later that afternoon, we were leaving back to BH to set off on our trip to Cabo Frio (in Rio state) to meet our friend Fernanda, from Saci. So, we didn't have much more time to enjoy Ouro Preto, and we had to make sure to do it all! And so we put our most sturdy shoes on (hmm, All Stars in my case) and headed up all those cobbled streets.
It's funny to note that with the multitude of churches in Ouro Preto, it's difficult to say which the most famous or beautiful are, as they are similar in style, and each one is very nice. There is a well-known image of the city: a church on a hill, surrounded by red-roofed houses all around, and I think that's the one we saw in the city center the night before.. but who knows, maybe not. In any case, we headed to one of the churches on top of another hill we haven't seen up close yet, and that was quite a walk up indeed! Luckily, it was along the streets with many more cute little shops, restaurants, and a multitude of soft colors as everywhere else in Our Preto.
Yep, that was quite a walk up to the beautiful old church! And parked just nearby, a Beetle car, one of the many in Ouro Preto.
On our way there, we also encountered a large hostel with a veranda and great photo opportunities (though I didn't have the sense to put my sunglasses on on this bright day so I'm squinting like an idiot in all the pictures). And on our way back, we stopped by a small restaurant run by a sweet local lady who provided us with some lovely simple lunch (and much cheaper than the day before) and great hospitality. With the place almost empty at that time of day, we could eat out on their small cozy balcony, with the view of one of the biggest churches and the houses around right before us. And the lady even helped us by trying to take a good photo (but it was too bright to get a really good one).
Well, that's about it for now about our journey to Ouro Preto - we didn't have much time there, but as the town is so small (but still takes enough effort to see, trust me, with all that climbing), we got a pretty good idea of it, I'd say :) But hopefully, I can still go back again when I'm the area once more. As I said, that night we were back in Belo Horizonte, and got on the night bus to drive for nine hours back to the south, to the summer resort of Cabo Frio to be exact. What happened in Cabo Frio and Buzios is going to be up next! :)
Thanks to all of you still reading! It's been a long journey... but I hope you've enjoyed reading my blog to this point. We're almost there, at the end of this particular adventure.. ^^
Beijo!
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