Blogs from Minas Gerais, Brazil, South America

Muita gente conhece a história duro que era levado pelos portugueses na época do Brasil colônia, mas o que muito pouca gente sabe é que existia muito diamante no Brasil em especial no estado de Minas Gerais. Esse diamante era encontrado a céu aberto sem grandes dificuldades no início, o que ocasionou uma verdadeira corrida para tal região que depois veio a ser a região e o entorno do município e da cidade de Diamantina. Diamantina gerou histórias mais ou menos famosas com a de Xica da Silva, a escrava que se transformou em senhora após se casar com um rico português, o contratador de diamantes João Fernandes de Oliveira com quem teve 13 filhos. Chica era filha de um português com uma escrava e foi daí que herdou a condição de escrava e foi registrada ... read more

Muitas pessoas conhecem Minas Gerais por uma imagem marcante de sua arte cultura e beleza escultórica. Essa imagem é oriunda de um trabalho de grande vulto empreendido pelo grande Escultor e entalhador Antônio Francisco Lisboa, o Aleijadinho. Antônio Francisco Lisboa, mais conhecido como Aleijadinho, era além de entalhador e escultor, arquiteto de grande competência e construiu diversas igrejas famosas do período barroco Colonial Mineiro. Estudiosos da arte como Carlos Zilio, Mário de Andrade e Gilberto Freyre, entre outros, citam Antônio Francisco Lisboa - o Aleijadinho, como um verdadeiro Gênio do entalhe. E foi em Congonhas que ele construiu uma de suas obras conjunto de profetas da igreja de xyz também acompanhado pelos passos da Paixão Cristo entalhados em pequenas capelas que acompanham o promontório onde se situa o Santuário de Bom Jesus dos Matosinhos. Entusiastas da ... read more

Life as I know it... The last post on this blog has been a while back. After Tatiana and I finished our one year travels I did not consider posting anymore here, as this was for our common journey. Soon it will be 4 years ago that we returned from this amazing trip, and enough time has passed to tell you (or my future self for that matter) about the difficulties of returning. As amazing as everything about travelling is, the last months of a one year long journey get difficult. You fancy leaving the backpack in a corner and not pick it up again for months, you fancy conditioner, putting on lotion all over your mosquito bite-covered body without getting all sticky within minutes because of the heat, you fancy a comfortable bed, good coffee, ... read more

This guesthouse has all mod cons including an iron so am able to leave for Salvador tomorrow with most of my clothes clean and ironed. Have discovered there is only cold water in the two sinks in the kitchen and in my bathroom's washbasin -the only hot water seems to be in the shower. Yet there is a water dispenser which supplies filtered water at iced and room temperature on tap. I suppose that when you are travelling and moving around a lot losing things is inevitable. Am already tired of living out of a suitcase. Did try to unpack here but it's difficult to organise so many toiletries and electronics and medication and there is beach gear that I haven't yet used. This morning I spent half an hour looking for a little bag with ... read more

Am off to Ouro Preto today via a flight to Belo Horizonte and two buses. Ouro is a UNESCO world heritage site, which was founded in 1698 became the centre of Brazil's gold mining rush. Ouro Preto means black gold, and at one time it was the capital of the state of Minas Gerais. As recommended by Sheila, got up before 7 to leave for my flight at 10 am from the downtown airport, Santos Dumont, which is only about 12 km away. Ridiculous, but she was worried about the traffic on a Monday morning and there were also a lot of roadworks. I was going to pick up a cab in the street and was also worried that in a city with hundreds, if not thousands, of cabs there would be none to be seen ... read more