Ouro Preto - the town of old gold, salsa and winter festivals

Arriving in town

Ouro Preto may look close to Rio on the map, but in reality it’s about an 8 hour bus ride Northward. It’s the main attraction of Minas Gerais – the area of gold mining towns. (Ouro means gold in Portugese. Not too sure what Preto means – maybe a Brazilian can help me out there). Hidden in the mountains, Ouro Preto is an old style colonial town which (obviously) began as a gold mining town. If I recall my facts correctly (bit of a challenge at the moment as I have heard far too many facts to hold onto), this was one of the largest areas of gold production in the world at one stage. Now (without slave labour) there is deemed to be too little gold in the rock to warrant the effort of retrieval. But in the age of slaves, this was a booming gold mining town. 

This tiny town is literally built on the slopes of mountains and in the valley. This means that the winding cobbled streets go in one of two directions – up or down (and decisively so!). It’s really steep! The houses are quaint and colourful. Generally well-maintained but no longer the richest area in Brazil.

Typical view

The streets are interesting to navigate as on top of the steepness, the cobblestones have shifted over the years and now one travels over the corners of the stones rather than the flat surface. This makes for an especially slippery passageway in the rain. Of course, carrying a large backpack over the terrain made life interesting, but not as interesting as those people who tried to wheel bags up and down the hill. The cobble stones made that virtually impossible. So, I have to say that while the effort of carrying a backpack can be large, at least I can go anywhere my much improved fitness levels allow.   

Ouro Preto has a number of barouche style churches that stand on the various hills in the town, overlooking the town. The churches make a rather haunting skyline. Slightly peeling paint and unkept grass surround most of them. It gives the town a beautiful and a slightly abandoned wild look. This town could really be a movie set for a different era. (The town is a World Heritage Site)

Down town

 

I have to say I battled in my hostel a bit. I arrived in a “hostel international” accredited hostel to find that they spoke absolutely no English. I mean none! Not even “Hello”. I also found out that the WIFI was broken and so no contact home and no chance to use Google translate. I was a little distraught at all this. The room was in the basement and the bathrooms were just adequate. 

 I think at this point I need to explain that the sanitation in Brazil is not like what we expect in South Africa. All over Brazil, the toilet system cannot handle loo paper. So, you cannot flush paper for fear of blocking the system. There is a bin provided next door for your convenience. Mmmm…. (Sorry to my Brazilian friends, but I have to say this was an educational experience).

I then tried to ask the hostel staff what time breakfast was. This took me about 10 minutes, and to prevent me from completely losing it, they phoned a friend who could speak a little English and could translate. It was a dreary, cold and half rainy day so I resigned myself to sleeping off the flu I had developed and wondering around the town a bit by myself. I have to say I expected nothing to happen here. But I was SO wrong!

 Walking into town, I found the tourist information and they happily spoke a little English. I am so grateful to those amazing ladies for helping me out! They told me about an internet café and where I could find nice food. Contacting home and being fed are the essentials for my happy travelling!

Locals and their dogs

Walking around town the day I took my lead from the Lonely Planet and visited a couple of the churches. I was a bit nervous about some of the areas, but it all seemed to be ok. There were a number of locals peering out of windows talking to each other, generally with a little dog peering out the window with them – really gorgeous. Quaint and a little surreal.  

Market

The children seemed to be on holiday and there were lots of kids playing football on the side of the road but mostly flying hand-made kites. Plastic and sticks and of course a long tail. The town was full of old kites tangled in wires and in trees. I loved that. It reminded me how children everywhere from every background love to play.

Getting back to the hostel early, I started antibiotics, got into bed and occupied myself on the computer. But about 9pm the rest of my roommates arrived. They were Brazilians from other areas in Brazil – my saving grace as they spoke a little English. They explained that there was a winter festival going on in Ouro Preto – Samba music, drama, local bands and tons of stuff in Portuguese. They also successfully persuaded me to go out for beer! It was freezing outside and a really steep hill before getting to anything – so good persuading skills there!

"Paralelepípedos"

Women waiting for love / flirting 

 

 

Town square samba

We had a really fun night out – drinking freezing beer (literally) in a tiny café style bar and some good conversation. This group was amazing, in including other tourists! Thanks everyone. I made good friends that night and spent lots of time talking to Ivana and Gabrielle. They decided that I had to learn at least one word in Portuguese that wasn’t “please”, “thank you” or “excuse me”. So, they taught me “paralelepípedos”. Probably one of the most complex words they could think of that means – of all things, “cobblestones!” There were some good giggles over that.

There was a Samba show that night which I chickened out of last minute (I do have valid reasons). 1. The girls that I was friends with couldn’t get in as they didn’t have their ID’s with them. 2. The Samba concert started at 2am. Yes, started! My body refused to allow me to keep that time. So at 1am I trundled back through the steep streets to my basement dwelling. Luckily I caught some Samba on the street another day. Stunning rythyms!

Gabrielle

The next day was one of my ultimate highlights of the trip so far Gabrielle invited me to her home with her family for lunch. We wondered streets searching for churches and talking, finding out about our different lives, about our countries, linguistics, language, culture. Then she introduced me to some of her family, her grandmother of 103 years (I’m about right – it was certainly over 100). She introduced me in Portuguese, I understood “South African”, “Can’t speak Portuguese, speaks English.” There seemed to be some amazement at that, but then again I only had body language to interpret what was going on. This family was so incredibly kind driving me around and bringing me into their homes, trying to make some conversation. 

Marianna's churches

Her parents then drove us through to Mariana where most of the family lived. As we walked around Mariana, we kept bumping into an Aunt or Uncle etc. Gabrielle showed me around the town and then introduced me to her God-daughter of 2 years. That family extended their lunch to the two of us. I was treated to some amazing beans (I normally am hesitant of beans, but I went back for seconds of this), egg omelette-type somethings, some chicken and for sweets we had two puddings both made with condense milk. Coffee to top off. Wow Gabrielle. Please thank your family SO much. I had a truly amazing day. What was so precious is that I got to meet and see a side of Brazil that I would never have otherwise. I loved chatting, becoming friends and finding out all sorts of little pieces of information. Like when my family has an event, it’s either the immediate 7 of us or if extended family is included, about 50 – 60 of us. But you mentioned a family event where over 400 people were there! What an amazing thing. 

The next day, my new friends had left, but I met more Brazilians from all over the country and re-met a Spanish lady, Maria, who had done a tour with me in Rio. Small travelling world! Maria and I teamed up the next day and wondered around to visit a number of the churches of Ouro  Preto. They were made of carved wood inside and were Catholic in symbolism. Really beautiful and old. You could tell which churches were “rich” by who had fully carved figurines vs people having to make physical clothes for the statues. Also there was a church for the Black people there, the Church “de Negro” which I believe had Jesus depicted as black. Although, sadly that church was closed and I never got to see inside. Still, very interesting. There were lots of children playing with kites around this church! It was also on top of what I think was the longest steepest hill in town. The fact that I climbed there twice over shifted “paralelepípedos” for me was rather impressive! 

The steep hills! And this wasn't the steepest!

Maria and I also explored a gold mine together. It wasn’t very long or deep, but I think it was owned eventually by a free black man who tried to free other slaves from the profits of the mine. I think Gold Reef City (in South Africa) was a more impressive visit, but I was still in an underground gold mine in the middle of Brazil in a hard hat!!

The view from the hostel

That evening we met up with the other Brazilian crowd who had mud on their faces like war paint. They had visited a different mine and had had a bit of fun which involved some mud decoration! Before I left South Africa, I always held that playing games bridges all gaps. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy games evenings so much. It includes everyone. No-one is a stranger when playing a game. And I have to say my belief has proved to be completely true! Some of the Brazilian crowd could not speak much English. But we had SO much fun sitting on the upstairs veranda in the freezing weather overlooking this stunning town lit up at night playing Uno until 1am. Uno, with some unusual rules!

  I had so much fun that night! It was lovely to meet such a wonderful crowd of people and to have so much in common by the end of the evening. For once, language did not matter that much. There was a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese and English being spoken and we all enjoyed it. That for me is what travelling is all about. People from everywhere, speaking lots of languages but still communicating in some way, learning from each other and having fun. Many thanks everyone!

The Brazilians and Maria - the Uno crowd!

The mines

So all in all yes, the weather was cold and often raining. Yes, the hostel didn’t speak English and the WIFI was broken, the bathrooms were “toilet-paper goes in the bin” and I was in the dark dorm in the basement. But I really had so much fun and met such amazing people that none of that matters. I can’t properly describe the feeling of being invited into a day-old friend’s house for a family dinner or playing Uno while freezing on a balcony overlooking the town and talking in English and sign language until 1am. How amazing. Ouro Preto was a stunning stop in my trip. One well worth making.