Fio Dental - Chapter 6: Ouro Prêto

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The Portuguese accomplished their greatest feat of architectural and artistic splendor in all of Brazil when they created Ouro Prêto. The colonial mother ship to which all roads lead, Ouro Prêto is the epicenter of Brazil’s historic and academic identity. Nestled in valleys and climbing distant hills, it embodies all the best a traveler from abroad could expect. Ouro Prêto ranks among the top historic cities in the entire Western hemisphere. “Beautiful” doesn’t begin to describe it. The city has it all: The cobblestone alleyways, glowing incandescent street lanterns, rectangular squares laden with fountains, colorful shutters that frame painted wooden doorways, and a feel that you are truly in, or have never left Portugal. Volumes have been written about Minas’ pièce de résistance. It behooves any who come to Brazil to see it with his or her own eyes.
“I’ll meet you by the Baroque church.” It is a bad idea to tell someone this for you may as well tell that same person to join you for a drink in Venice along the canal. After being a first-class UNESCO landmark, it is home to the country’s most recognized university. Scores of students carrying backpacks and closed plastic notebooks dart across the Praça Tiradentes to get a quick, cheap meal at the university cantina. If not in shape by the time you arrive, the city’s steep streets and alleyways will help shed those pounds. Ouro Prêto knows very little flat ground. Roll a soccer ball down any staircase and it may come to a stop at Ipanema beach.
As in Portugal, many students make their second homes in cramped dormitories called Repúblicas, which are little more than Spartan communal accommodations. Dozens of them abound in Ouro Prêto with various names that lend to each a sense of community. Sofas become makeshift beds. As I peer through an open window across from my guesthouse, a bundled-up student intently sways his body to the latest game on Playstation 2. At an advanced level, he thrusts his shoulders toward the screen, but for courtesy’s sake has the sound coming through a set of earphones. Within arms length, another turns the sofa into his bed for the evening. Having lived in one myself, I smile at the memories these veritable prison cells evoke, and then admit that I would not want to relive the experience.
If nothing else, Ouro Prêto harbors the best collection of bookstores in Brazil. They are a rare commodity outside a university town. Shelves display literary standards by Becket, Elliot, Dostoyevsky, and Cervantes.

Students are drawn in nightly to Barroco, a popular pub on the Rua Direita. Over the years, love-stricken couples have scratched messages to each other on the drywall and picnic tables. Management encourages it. I decided to pop in and belly up to the counter, as the tables had already spilled over, overflowing with college-aged patrons. Topics of conversation range from who is the most favorable professor in physics to which student has the notes for next exam. They mostly involve anything else but academia. These are my kind of students, the type that go out on a Monday evening, consume copious amounts of beer without ever contemplating the pain required to get to tomorrow morning’s class. It brings me back to the dorm parties in Storrs. In order to break the ice, very easy in Brazil, I bought a 600ml bottle of Antárctica beer and started pouring indiscriminately into the beckoning glasses all around me. Empty bottles are encased in an insulated plastic tube to keep the contents frigid. Brazil may be well behind the times in countless areas, but they have mastered the art of prolonging the pleasure of cold beer. In no time, seven in the evening, I was in with a bunch of very outgoing mathematics majors. Who knew people who determine the value of abstract formulas symbolized by Greek letters could actually be fun? A chubby girl with braces started to carve an inscription into the table. Cute enough as she was in spite of her girth and addiction to cigarettes, I chimed in.
“Why don’t you write ‘I love Richard’ in the table?” And so it was done with a fifty centavo coin. My imprint in Ouro Prêto will forever remain as long as Barroco does not burn down. A dark-skinned girl arrived at our table sat down for a chat and sold us chocolate treats, a pasty ball covered in sprinkles, not quite the best marriage with beer. They were overly sweet. Her friendly demeanor gets her many sales. In the matter of the fifteen minutes I had been in Barroco, six hours had passed. I departed to handshakes and hugs. So many had crowded in that the overflow spilled out into the street.

Late night Brazilian television is nothing to brag about. Dressed for bed and buried under woolen blankets, I flipped through the entire five stations available to me. Programming at such an hour comprises of reruns of the day’s more attractive lowlights. A toxin-spewing moderator of a talk show led the tirade against the failure of the national soccer team. “What should we do with the coach? Stone him to death, or drown him in the Amazon among a school of piranha? Better yet, how about disemboweling him while dragging him through the streets of Recife? You the viewer can decide! Call now with your ideas: 1-800-K-I-L-L-H-I-M.” Or that’s what it seemed like. These people just cannot let it go.

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Photos

Quiet Plaza
Colonial and Tropical...

Brazil...
or Portugal?

Parking Regulations
Well, sort of...