Brazil - Ouro Preto

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Now this is what i expected when i came to Brazil, Ouro Preto, its a small town in the state of Minas Gerais. After spending a few days in Belo Horizonte, where i was quite sick it was good to see some of the real Brazil.

Ouro Preto is dubbed the Village of the Black Gold. It is a former colonial mining town located in the Serra do Espinhaço mountains and is a designated World Heritage Site because of its outstanding Baroque architecture. It was a focal point in the gold rush in the 18th Century. The village contains well preserved Colonial architecture, with churches decorated with gold.

The weather has been awful though during our stay. Constantly raining, but i can just imagine how beautiful this place is during a hot summers days. We spent 2 nights here, and pretty much saw everything on the first day.

Chilled out few days, didn't really do too much apart from watch a few DVDs and sampled the local cuisine, which was the best food i have had so far in Brazil. It was a buffet service for about 4 quid, which was pretty good. Although they didn't see John "the fat man" Bochan coming.

As it was a week before the carnival, alot of rehearsal parades were going on. The samba band marched from one end of the square to the other, with a hoard of people behind. So much fun! Everyone in high spirits, having fun and dancing to the samba beats. Man do they love their drums. We all participated in the madness, hanging back and letting the locals do what they do best. We got involved and mimicked some of the chants, which they found hilarious.

At the end, we met 2 local lads, with their broken English and our broken Portuguese we managed to cobble a conversation together.... which revolved around football and how Messi is far better than Kaka. They had none of it, but still good banter.

If this was just a rehearsal... cant wait for the real thing..

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Photos

Ouro Preto
Us and our new brazilian friends