Our Little Black Book

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Some backstory:

On the flight from Atlanta to Rio de Janeiro, we encountered a friendly Brazilian man named Plinio. We didn't say much to him, other than we were visiting Rio (which should have been at least a little obvious given our plane was scheduled to land there), but before too long he had invited us to a birthday barbecue at his house that Friday. We called him Friday and told him we were on our way, but if you read this blog, you'll know that we didn't go to his barbecue. We went out taunting fully armed military officers that night.

Some more backstory:

Yesterday as we were departing Lavras Novas on our way to Belo Horizonte, we stumbled onto a couple of tourists walking into town. They were almost as obvious as we were, except that it was Friday, so they actually belonged here. Nathan was an American from "SoCal," and his girlfriend Livia was a native of Belo Horizonte. They gave us their number and we agreed to hang out today when they returned to Belo.

Some brand new story:

Guess who we didn't call today? We're thinking about a new hobby of collecting phone numbers. Phone numbers of really nice people, phone numbers we never call. Or, if we call, execute bald-faced lies along the lines of "Yeah, we'll be at your barbecue" and hopefully also in the near future "You're stranded? We'll come get you right now." That's our new plan.

Instead of calling people, we walked around Belo Horizonte. As our stellar Global Freeloaders host Ulisses explained (at least, if my memory serves), Belo Horizonte was South America's first planned city. Unlike the haphazard, wacky Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte has streets that run parallel. And some of them even come to distinctively perpendicular right angles at their intersections. And, perpetually according to Ulisses, the city was modeled after Washington, DC, which lended a very weird air of familiarity to the place.

So we walked. We walked around the city about six hundred times. I had blisters underneath blisters I'd acquired the day before. Finally I sat down for some more Saturday feijoada (which this time was served in a more reasonably-sized portion at only six liters per bucket of feetmeat), I went to a market and bought a mug made out of some poor creature's hoof, and later I watched a man juggle fire in the middle of the street for no reason.

Yep, just like Washington, DC.

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Photos

Some Random Street Corner in the Middle of Belo Horizonte
Moments after a torrential downpour. But that's not why the streets are glistening and reflective. Rather, Brazil just passed a mandate requiring all cities to wax their roads as part of their "Keep Our Country Shiny!" compaign.

Some Fountain-Clad Art Museum in Belo Horizonte
We don't remember the name of this place because it's not on our map, but rest assured it exists.

Comments

[drae j namaste-rose]

not quite like d.c..
well, people did invite you places and seemed to be nice anyway.. but you didn't bite.. how rude.. (kidding)