Caiprinhas in Belo Horizonte

---

The next stop was a brief visit to Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais and home of my friend Claudio, who I met nearly 5 years ago in Switzerland. Being one of Brazils new planned cities, Belo Horizonte is not a typical tourist destination as such, more of a sprawling 2 million resident metropolis. So Claudio and his girlfriend Vanessa showed me the main sights - the view of the city surrounded by the mountains of the Serra de Carral, the praça de Papa (built when the pope came to visit) and the pça de liberdade and the Governors palace.

What Belo Horizonte is really famous for is its Botecos - traditional bars - the more run down the better- always with live music. Apparently Belo Horizonte has the best bar to person ratio in the world. Every year the city council runs a competition to find the bar with the best music, atmosphere, food etc So thats what we did!
We went to several botecos and tasted the food, listened to live samba bands and tried the caipirinhas :-)

The next day we visited the district of Pampulha - took in the art museum and then went to a traditional restaurant and sampled Mineiro cuisine, whch was absolutely delicious. Pão de queijo (cheese bread), pumkins stuffed with meat and cheese and farrofa tropeiro. and more live music. That evening Claudio headed of to Cuiaba where he is working and Vanessa and I went to the theatre to watch "Sou pequena, mas não sou pedaço"- a comed about a very short woman (1 M 40).

---