the hills are alive with slave-built churches.

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this morning we arrived in ouro preto via an extremely misleading bus. see, when i got on the bus at 11pm last night from rio, i thought heeeeeey this looks like a really comfortable bus, which is awesome, because it's an overnight bus ride. it had pull-out, la-z-boy style footrests and everything. but oh man. i don't know why but it was so uncomfortable. we both barely slept.

anyway, we stumble down this huge hill to a hostel and manage, in our half-asleep stupors, to ask for a room. the man was so very nice and he showed us to this room with a BEAUTIFUL view of ouro preto (roughly translated as "land of 1000 churches". or was that "black gold"?) in what i imagine to be an angelic fashion, he tells us to rest before registering our room. ahhhh. so we sleep for a couple of hours and then take a walk.

so there aren't 1000 churches. there are only 23. the SAME number, incidentally as the number of wesleyan colleges/universities in the u.s. coincidence?? regardless, we can't see them all. so we have to pick. we choose a igreja da santa efegenia...which was built by and for the slaves who worked in the gold mines surrounding ouro preto. they paid for the church by smuggling gold in their fillings and shaking the dust out of their hair. and let me tell you. i'm not really the oogly-boogly type, but there was something seriously powerful inside this church. i felt it outside, with the church looming over me, and once we were inside, it was so overwhelming that i was holding back tears. when i held onto the back of a pew to rest, the feeling made my head swim, until i let go, and then i felt better. it was crazy.

we found out later that i guess in the 18th century, people in ouro preto were being terrorized by spirits that escaped from the walls of the church and stole their gold. to ward off the spirits, they build little glass-encasements with saints inside them. apparently it worked.

i should also mention that this town has no buildings built in the 20th century. i should also also mention that there are no flat streets. you're always either going up or down. and i mean UP. and DOWN. i couldn't wear my flipflops!

we met a couple of snooty french dudes, who, upon hearing that we don't own a car or tv or eat fast food decided they liked us. we drank some beers. we did our laundry. life is delicious.

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Photos

O Hea'enly Hostel
Half-asleep at six in the morning, the proprietor of Albergue de Juventude Brumas Hostel let us sleep *before* registering. Incidentally, Lonely Planet's "Brazil" book says this area of town is dangerous. That's a big lie and it's probably hurting business for this hostel. So anyone who's looking at this now should immediately leave this site, buy a ticket to Brasil, bus for seven hours to Ouro Preto and give this place your patronage. It's only the right thing to do.

A Room With a View
The view from our room at the hostel was so beautiful, there was no point in leaving. We decided to spend our days in bed playing cards.

Short Walk to Church, part one.
The road into Ouro Preto from the hostel is one on which you'll want to look both ways before luging.

Short Walk to Church, part two.
The road leading up to Igreja de Santa Efigenia dos Pretos is an easy walk, provided you are wearing a robotic exoskeleton with a jetpack.

Igreja de Santa Efigenia dos Pretos
Slaves built this church by shaking gold dust out of their hair after mining all day. Couldn't they have just taken out a loan?

Comments

[Elsie]

Yous guys are gonna have some fierce calves when you get back! And Eden, I think it's awesome that you had such an experience. I remember when visiting certain cathedrals in Europe wishing I could have a powerful experience like that and was sorely disappointed. I'll tell you more about it if you're interested :)

[drae j namaste-rose]

this is a nice medium.
beautiful pictures and nice story. thanks for the updates!