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Published: March 25th 2008
We had quite a journey getting to Ouro Preto. In Trancoso we bought bus tickets from an agency from Porto Seguro to Belo Horizonte. The agency was supposed to open at 9am and at 10 the young lady nonchalantly strolled in without neither comment nor apology! She sold us our tickets for the 2pm departure and told us the transfer bus left at 11. That left us 45 minutes to return to our pousada, shower, pack and get to the bus stop. This we managed but there was no 11 o’clock transfer! We had to use the public transport system but at least that is reliable. That meant a bus to Arraial then a ferry over to Porto Seguro. The ferry was free for some reason so that was a bonus. Then we took a taxi to the bus station and arrived with over 90 minutes to spare. But for the agency we wouldn’t have rushed!
18 hours later we arrived in Belo Horizonte and had trouble finding the departures terminal. It is, in fact, a level above and over the road from arrivals! A 2 hour local bus then took us to Ouro Preto where the very helpful Tourist
Information Officer (in his temporary home, a stand, as the bus station is being refurbished) managed to get us into a cheap pousada near the centre. We knew finding a room wasn’t going to be easy as it was Easter, and this is one of THE places to come for Easter in Brazil.
The Pousada Imperatriz (Rua Claudio Manoel 23) was basic but cheap in comparison to everywhere else we looked at afterwards. We were very lucky to get the last room, even if it was next to the bathrooms so we heard a lot of noise during the night that we’d rather have missed!!
Ouro Preto is a beautiful town. For us it seemed like a cross between the bohemian style of Czesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic and the terracotta rooftops of Sucre in Bolivia. It was a very easy town just to wander around getting lost in the maze of cobbled streets and tired too as there are some very steep climbs!
In the previous blog I dealt with our trip to Mariana. This blog focuses on our trip to the
Minas da Passagem Gold Mine which is easily reachable on the bus to Mariana. It wasn’t cheap
at R$23 each to visit, but we enjoyed it. We sat on an open cart and were winched down 300 odd metres of track, 120 metres underground. Then we were shown around by our exclusive English speaking guide. He told us about the silver, gold and arsenic which was mined there but all we saw was quartz and a bit of iron pyrite (fool’s gold). Apparently 3000 men worked there at its peak and 35 tonnes of gold were extracted in total. If you feel the need you can even dive in the flooded lower levels of the mine. There is a proper dive school for this purpose. Back on the surface we viewed the small museum which at least had pictures of some gold miners and some real gold! The visit was short (less than an hour in total) but sweet. Okay, so it wasn’t as good as the Salt Mines of Southern Poland or the Coal Mines of South Wales, but it felt safe and well organised.
Back in Ouro Preto Easter was in full swing, but I’ll have to leave that for another time as there are just too many photos! We enjoyed our aimless wanderings
though, and the artwork around town is pretty good too. A particular highlight was the “Chocolates Ouro Preto” café. In there we had an indescribably wonderful cake consisting of maracuja (passion fruit) mousse on a sponge base accompanied by hot melted dark bitter chocolate.
On Sunday night, after the Easter celebrations had died down, it was like a ghost town. If you are going there, make sure it’s at the weekend otherwise we think it might be a bit on the quiet side! The cinema was good though. It holds about 400 people but it really is quite quaint. “There Will Be Blood” wasn’t bad either but the streets were eerily silent at 11.30 pm when it finished, with the exception of the two student bars we climbed past on the way back to the pousada.
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Luana
non-member comment
"The other side of town"
Olá! I live in THIS side of the town, and i know that tourists prefer to go to another place, i would if i was a tourist. But don't deceive youself. People there are like other ones that you knew here or everywhere. Don't judge for the appearances. And don't let people do that for you. Thanks for the visit!