Belo Horizonte - or Bay-Haga (Minas#1)

A holiday allows me a long weekend. The trip goes to Minas Gerais - the region of the gold mines, of the golden rush and the historical colonial towns. A region of food as well, of warm and welcoming people.

BH, its hilly topography, its rock quarries and condominios

Landing at the airport of BH (Bay-Haga is the short name for Belo Horizonte, given by its people), it is a brise of warm air. Coming from a cold and rainy city as Curitiba, it is a pure pleasure! The airport is like an open street where arriving passengers almost land on the side-walk where the busses accost, where leaving passengers take a coffee before moving on.

The bus to downtown drives right before Pampulha, the administrative city of Oscar Niemeyer. This guy has worked in most of Brasilian cities, it seems. Same pure, white, neat architecture here as well - slightly dramatic in the evening lights.

Lá em casa

From the center, I grab a cab to the pousada Lá em casa - the cutest, homiest, nicest place you could dream of. Not long before I get chatting with the receptionist Lidiane and an other visitor Prissila, finding out that we are all CouchSurfers.

1: Prissila in the hamac corner | 2: Lidiane making pop-corn

Friendly people! Lidiane have been travelling in Europe, CS for some time already - Prissila travels the world with her boyfriend Fabrice. They have just started their trip some days ago. I leave for the evening entertainement - Couchsurfing meeting in BH. At Maletta a bar downtown - great night with fun people there!

Saterday, has a dense program. An early start with a good breakfast...with doce de leite! And on I go to walk the city, down Santa Teresa's streets, the district where I am staying - a bohemian district, I was told - and reaching the center. BH's center is easy to situate: the plan is typical squarred with big avenues, that the smaller streets meet at an angle of 45°, the whole ensemble is delimited by avenida do Contorno - an inner ring beyond which develops the other city districts and where lives the rest of the 3 mi. inhabitants of BH.

First impressions of BH
- the skyscrapers, architectural surprises, the viaduct and the rail-way, the aging concrete facades -

The Parque Municipal is full of life: passers-by, teenager on school excursion, kids riding monkeys, rollercoasters, pipoca sellers, turists, cops, homeless, lovers... The walk is agreable under the shadow of the trees and palmeiras, in some 28 degree's morning temperature.

Down to the rodoviaria, along a main axe, up another one, passing the Praça Raul Soares - a hot and huge round-about/square next to the Mercado Central - cheio, cheio, cheio! full of people, colours and smells - and the Minascentro - some kind of culture and convention center. Dwelling in the streets of BH, you get quickly tired of the heat combined with the hilly town - subi e desce!

Hilly BH! Coloured and contrasting...

Various facade styles...

Underground BH: the gallery Maletta and a shopping gallery
-Maletta is rather calm, quiet, dead at day-time, with mainly second-hand books and antiquities stores, and a smell of old dusty stuff; heavily crowded of young and grunch people at night time! And full of bars.

Painted BH...tagged and coloured - nice!

Central market: so many smells in here

Coffee break is thus a good friend to the turist! Kahlúa café especiais is then the perfect place: here I found typical coffee from Minas - did you know that the finest organic coffee here is one where the bean first is eaten and digested by a Jacu-bird, then only it is collected to make coffee: café do Jacu. The taste should be exquisite! But too expensive for me to give it a try sadly...

Kahlúa

The royal palm tree on the squares:
1: Igreja, hidden between the royal palm trees | 2: Praça da Assembleia

After a quick lunch with Prissila and Fabrice, my new travel friends for the day, we head for Praça da Liberdade, where is located the governor's palace and the Edificio Niemeyer - beautiful modern building, in concrete, glass, wood and tiles, with a beautiful curve that might remind of the COPAN in São Paulo. Then up and down, we reach Praça da Assembleia. Here the streets are more wide and the buildings spread - functions seems more to be offices and services, whereas the other streets had more of a mix between housings and smaller commerce. The perfect square grid here is also more loose. Before aiming back for the pousada, I make a last stop at Praça da Estação, where is the Museu de Artes e Oficios. I didn't visit though as time was starting to get short, but the building is already something. There on the square I overlooked a cop pursuing a thief - meu deus! You don't wanna get in their way. I saw as well a man stealing the tires of a fine car, at daylight, very open about it...

Edificio Niemeyer

Praça da Estação at dusk when highrise and statues blend together

Around the train station, the buildings are more shabby and you feel the less desirable, less secure atmosphere of the neighbourhood. But many people are gathering a bit further - I walk there to. It is a fair of Brasilian comic strip! Super interestinga and fun exhibition.

In front of the bus station

Looking towards the viaduct

Brasilian comic strip

Time is now to catch my bus to Ouro Preto.

BH skyline seen from the bus window

Minas Gerais

Just back from weekend in Minas Gerais...the country of the golden mines, the Portuguese historical colonial towns, pão de queijo, doce de leite, cachaça and coffee!

I have seen a humming-bird, or beija-flor (flower kisser) as they call it in Portuguese, an ostrich, an iguane (or was it a cousin...) and so many beautiful things! I am returning half-hysterically happy and amazed!

Then I have met amazing people - the mineiros people are some generous of a kind! I might have travelled alone - just one name on the ticket - but I have not felt alone one single minut!

Pictures are coming up soon!

Poty

I had noticed the reluctant artistic expression in all the wall and mosaic works but not really noticing who it was. Fabiano, a good colleague of mine, has revealed the name behind those art works: Poty. A very good friend of Jaime Lerner, by the way, as most artists and creative people in this city.

On the front of Teatro Guaira...

In the Torre Panoramico...

On the wall behind the cathedral, next to Largo da Ordem...

The themes are anchored in the Paranese culture and history: the Araucaria tree of course, the working people, the many different origins and related architecture styles, the old tram-way and the latest transport system (with the drawing of Poty's fantastic imaginary world inside the tubo station!), the fairs and markets, the circus, the Farol do Saber (meaning lighthouse of knowledge), the Botanical garden pavillon... everything and everyone that constitute or contribute somehow to construct and represent Curitiba and Paraná.

The line is simple, a bit naive almost, could be considered close to childish, but at the same time, it is brilliant in its simplicity. Beautiful and powerful images, loyal references to the origin and origins of Paraná.

Praça Vinte e Nove de Março - the Araucaria tree, Paranese pine tree

In Torre Paronamico - fishers and scenes from rua XV de Novembro with the first tram-ways pulled by mules

Corrente Cultural Curitiba

This weekend, the 5th-6th November, is the cultural fair in Curitiba - 24h of concerts, events, shows...

Jazz at Teatro Guaira

...24h where the city finally is full of people. Not because it is usually empty, but with all this flow of wonderers the city really becomes the space for everyone: artists, audience, pipoca sellers,... Somehow it feels like the mixing and miggling is bigger. Or is it my joyful feeling and the electrifying atmosphere that makes me think like that.

Though with all those people, the street are taken over: some paths which would have been less comfortable feels less dangerous, the city seems like ours - and not borrowed - and the feeling of safety is strongly increased... Why are cities only organising such events once in a while? Imagine if we had fairs and festivals every weekend, using the city not as a network of streets to get somewhere, but as the scene for our lives - really using the spaces and not just crossing them, hurrying from point A to point B, but using the segment AB as the extension of our private spaces, our living room... True city-life.

Coming out from the jazz concert, there goes a gipsy band playing...

Cities are amazing when people take over the streets, when the happening is in dialectic with the urban spaces! Like the contemporary ballet happening at Teatro Guaira - AMAZING!

The event comprehended a mixture of ballet on the street in front of the theater, in the entrance hall and the ticket sale's hall - three ballets shifting from one to another, with intermezzos at the vitrines of the 1st floor. Everywhere you would look, some physical happening caught your eye for a moment or more. Music then - all over the place! Plunging the whole theater, rooms, streets and praça in this electrifying atmosphere. Projections, on the theater walls - still pictures, moving pictures, out of time and gravitation laws... Some moving images are the ones that are filmed by one dancer group in the ticket sale's hall and then projected on walls, interfearing thereby with other environments than this where the ballet occurs. Exciting mise en scène - brilliant! Light and colours, interaction with the public. People would pass by, wonder from one space to another, humming, swinging, jumping, with eyes like cups and heads spining like a weathercock...

Still picture on the side wall of Guaira

1st floor's intermezzo

In the ticket sale's hall...

Between sculpural facade and projected scenery...
This mise en scène fits the theater's architecture greatly

Choregraphy in the entrance hall

Choregraphy in the street

Shows and concerts are everywhere in the city, at all hours. Here, the crowd listening to Samba in front of Paço da Liberdade. Short movie were projected in Largo da Ordem, other concerts going on there... A huge urban feast!

Samba in front of Paço da Liberdade

Daytrip to Morretes

Wednesday was the day of the dead - a Christian holiday in Brazil. Rapid planning and here goes the journey to Morretes, a city just on the other side of the Serra do Mar, the mountains between Curitiba and the coast. It is a city situated right in the middle of the Mata Atlantica, the coastal jungle forest... How was it again, something like 4% of the 17-19% left and existing in Brazil are located here around. Numbers - not very important when you are there... The beauty of the scenery is breath-taking and that is all that matters there. Whatever is left, it should be taken good care of anyway!

Pedro's CS guests, Guido and Arwen, are embarking the trip - by train! An adventure in itself given the few train lines in Brazil. "Atenção!!!" screams the guide in he wagon " No lado direito - cachoeira!" or " Em 7 minutes, no lado esquerdo, rio Ipiranga, primeira vez!"... "Mais 7 minutes e rio Ipiranga secunda vez! Atenção!!! Camera foto, pronto, no esquerdo!" CRAZY! LOUCO! And the people tumbling from one side to another in this old train, so that I almost thought the whole wagon would tilt over, down in the marvellous canion... Beautiful place for such a dramatic end, but fortunately the old rails and wagons kept on the way bringing us through this fantastic landscape and down to the warm and charming Morretes.

1: Arwen and Guido on the train - 2: passing tunnels...

1: cultural heritage on the way - 2: river Ipiranga

1: canion - 2: clouds hanging over the Serra

1: view towards the coast - 2: cachoeira

The plan was to have lunch, have a quick walk in the city and then aim for a little hike before getting a bus home. Only thing is that the concurring guides mislead us by telling us that a whole day and night over (of course in their pousada!) was necessary to get the full experience and go for a hike in one afternoon was pratically impossible if you didn't know the place and the forest. It says though that the trails are well marked - especially if you just go for a two hours walk or so...

Arrinving at Morretes

1: everything with banana and manioc - 2: colourful facades

Impressions from the streets and yards

Shops...

...and river side

Anyway, we enjoyed the city and its surroundings instead. Walking through the historic center and the market stands, the idylic river side, tasting bala de banana and local cachaças! Definately cachaça de banana was my favourite... And then after a big lunch in a little restaurant and a nice nap on the waterside, we headed for a walk, picking a road that seemed to lead to the mountains. It didn't. But the nature, the vegetation, the views we had on the way - and the fun!- were more than fascinating and our curiosity enough to make this boring asphalted road (probably the thought of a local) into our discovery road. Palm trees and banana flowers. Bamboos of giant size, singing somehow as they were rubbing and pushing against each other. A river, beautiful, blue, reflecting the sky and mountains. A hairy worm and huge blue butterflies.

1: banana flower (eatable apparently) - 2: immense bamboos

1: hairy fellow - 2: Arwen at the river

Impressions of late afternoon in the city

Back again, a quick coffee - brazilian coffee...nice! - and there we go to the other side.

Even the coffee is pretty...We had four photo cameras over our cups!

The road here is of earth, leading down to the cemetery and further to the surrounding neighbourhoods. More humble and simple in looks, the houses vary from regular ones to shaggy ones (but with big screen computer inside the living room! Contrasting you could say...), coloured ones, some surrounded by dogs, some by chickens - when I say surrounded, I mean it litteraly! -, children playing joyfully, swinging on a rope attached to a tree, or teenagers playing fancy on motorbikes. A horse. A mule. An old abandonned factory. People selling flowers for the cemetery visiters.

1: cemetery - 2: house lost on the hill

Houses around Morretes

Chicken and kids...

1: bird in the cemetery - 2: José's backyard and VW van

Last discovery in Morretes before catching our bus is the local baker, José Augusta da Cruz. As Arwen was taking a picture of the yard with the old VW van, he pops out and invites her in - curious or a bit worried, she waves at Guido and I to come. The baker invites us in to see one of the few remaining stone ovens on the country: two in Morretes, four in Curitiba and that should be it, besides a few in São Paulo maybe. He shows us the oven, explains the functionning, his ideas of improving its efficiency with a sustainable system of his invention - which by te way he would like to patent. His engineer of son has agreed and checked it and he is rassembling the budget for doing this abroad so that it can serve other countries (apparently even China doesn't have such a system as his, according to his saying), and avoid the corrupted veto of some local politicians. He describes the bread, the baking, the technics to take it in and out, he offers us to taste it and pours ou butter and knife! What a lucky coincidence to meet him, what an interesting meeting!

1: Arwen, Guido and José - 2: warm bread from the oven

Finally we thank our new friend José and hurry down the street with bread in our pockets and hands. It is late and getting dark. The bus leaves in 20 minutes. A last look to the mountains - all streets of the city have this amazing perspective with the curve and shadows of the mount as back scenery. Blues, greens, shadows of all colours as the sun, clouds and hours pass. Beautiful! Truely!

Typical Morretes street perspective

That was a wonderful day, a beautiful city and a nice visit with some new very sympathic friends! Good that they are staying a bit in the city, so that we can enjoy each other's company a bit more. Yeah, Arwen and Guido will stick around for some weeks, the time to learn Portuguese before carrying on the trip to an organic farm where they'll be helping out for 6-7 months. Great!

Oh and by the way, just to brag about it... If you noticed, Arwen and Guido will be learning Portuguese, which means that they don't speak it quite yet. Yes, indeed, I was the translator of the day: tickets, crazy guide information, asking for price or way, translating the story of the baker...everything in Portuguese. It was me - yay, how is that - impressed...?!

Models at the office

Eloisa is an architect colleague, but also a student in clothes design. She is among the finalists of a competition for young Paranese designers - if I got it all right. Tuesday, suddenly pops in two elegant young people - in outfits slightly unusual. They are Eloisa's models. They are going to photo shoot at the office. Difficult to keep the focus on the work that afternoon...

Forro e jazz

Sunday evening - It was supposed to be an early night before the start of a new week. But coming home I meet Leandro and Fernando who are considering to go and listen to Dino, who plays bass in a forro group, Xaxa de Xexe. On we go...ending up with chopp (=beer cups, like choppe in French but obviously they forgot the final "e" even if it is pronounced "choppi") in a forro dancing bar. Leandro offers me a dance - stepping on feet and miscounting rythms, all what is needed for a dance catastrophe! But fun it was... The evening, or night should I say, goes onto a nice jazz bar, Parangolé. Yeah, that was my Sunday evening!

Dancing forro - check!