markets and ugly statues

we finally made up our mind to go to the minas gerais region, and took a bus to belo horizonte. arriving late we did what every backpacker is warned not to do under any circumstances> wander the streets at night looking for a place to stay. being sensible human beings we analysed the situation and decided that the amount of people out and the nearby police station would make our endeavour a safe one, and walked from one full hotel to the next. we finally got taken in and had to pay only one night even though we stayed for two, since we arrived well after midnight. we therefore had towels, a tv and our own shower for the price of a cheap hostel. yay :)

after breakfast we marked the parts of the city where there are handicraft markets, to find a god from south america for my friend KD. we spent the day walking down the main streets and looking for gods, finding only badly painted plaster statues. the market was fun anyways, with loads of stalls and few tourists, even though the city is, according to our guide, one of the third largest cities of brazil. you read right, one of the third largest, since salvador is also the third largest city. i don´t understand it either... we´re been told that belo horizonte is ugly, full of high rises and smog, and boring. we thoroughly enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere, the great tourist infrastructure (even though there were no tourists there), the quiet plazas, and the signs of omnipresent culture with theatres and dance performances.

after unsuccessfully scouring the artesanal market we went into the municipal park and whiled away the afternoon. we saw amazing things> punk ninjas, an argentinian circus show and a woman teaching brazilian women european folk dances (of course the brazilians couldn´t resist shaking their butts, so the dances actually looked better than usual). we finished the day off in a pretty little plaza drinking mango juice, and then relaxed in our luxurious hotel.

the next day around noon we left for ouro preto.

here a quick update to what more has happened until now>
spent some days in ouro preto where we saw a few too many churches,
saw sao joao where we did a lot of people watching,
met a cool artist in tiradentes (which is otherwise dead boring),
spent some more days with our couchsurfing friends cahe and giuliana in rio
and spent today in sao paulo eating a lot of yummy food.

tomorrow my flight leaves to canada! once i´m there i´ll write a little more detail, but for now wish me a good flight :)

wow

i´m amazed at my intelligence (which has taken time, but it has recently arrived). i have made my few web albums public, which means that all you have to do is click on one album (like the example one i have posted below), then click on `public gallery´ and you can see all of them! wehey! yay!

EDIT> my intelligence has expanded overnight!! there is now a link on the side of the page that you can click on, conveniently called `photos´. double yay!

cordoba

yummy fruit bombs

lencois! we arrived late in lencois from salvador, and were immediately taken care of by another self-proclaimed tourist guide. the only differene to the trancoso one was that this guy wasn´t creepy, and immediately showed us a fantastic and cheap campsite. the only problem with this campsite are the fruit bombs. there are mango trees on the whole plot of land, and you can hear the mangoes continuously dropping dangerously hard and fast. our tent has a few orange sprays, but has otherwise been spared.

we spent our first day in lencois looking around for tours, and walking a few kilometers outside of town to a crazy amazing waterwhole with a natural slide!! you can walk up the sides and take a bouncy butt-achy but fun fun slide down into the water pool. yaay :)

after lots of discussion and running back and forth and analysing guides, we finally made a choice to go with extreme eco-adventure tours, with the guide vaumiro, for a four day treck through the valley of pati. right choice.

the past four days we have seen: constantly changing vegetation, wild red pineapples, lizards, flowers that eat mosquitoes, wild lillies and orchids, crazy rock formations, amazing waterfalls... the list could go on for ever. we swam in waterfalls! we drank waterfall water while sitting under waterfalls! we ate amazing food, prepared by vaumiro (fresh salads, fruit salad for breakfast, fish for dinner... he put in so much effort, it was great). we saw star filled night skies with thousands of stars. we basically had a great time. we also went to a restaurant in a little town called capau - wearing bedsheets as skirts, since our clothes were wet. capau seems like an open minded cool little place though> a circus school, two libraries and a commune of eight lesbians.

we arrived back yesterday with blistery feet, covered in scratches from the bushes and bites from all sorts of evil itchy creatures. we enjoyed a drum concert in the street last night and today we´re going for a little walk outside of town past colourful sand fields and some more waterfalls.

tonight is our last evening with monica, which we will be spending on seperate busses to salvador (yes, we booked stupidly). tomorrow monica flies to uruguay to start her internship, and contribute to the disintegration of this group. it´s only sao-mai and i left now, and we have no clue what we´re going to do next. rio? minas gerais region? the pantanal? maybe even bolivia (except coming back seems complicated)? we plan to decide this relatively soon...

salvation, salivation, salad bar

salvador! we arrived at 6 in the morning and sat around the bus terminal waiting for lautaro (one of our argentinians) to generously pick us up and take us to the campsite, 1.5 hours out of town. staying there meant that we didn´t see very much of the city by day, since we got stuck lazing on the beach. there´s little motivation to take a bus when you wake up with a view of the sea and beautiful shiny sun and when there´s a little restaraunt right in the campsite sellig feijoada (beans and meat and rice) and hamburgers.


(can´t figure out how to turn it...)

the argentinians (three to four now, because of a brother and friends) were here to watch caipoeira (a mix of martial art and dance), so thanks to them we were forced to leave our dear campsite and explore more of salvador. we went to a caipoeira performance in the city, and learned a little more about the origin. the dance has angolan roots and was developed in brazil. when the slaves were brought to brazil and weren´t allowed to practice martial arts, caipoeira was a way to continue the practice by packaging it as a dance. lautaro practices the orginial angolan version, while most public performances dance the regional caipoeiro, which is more active and more fun to watch.

our next exciting happening was sm´s birthday! we planned to wake sm up with cake and candles, but everything went wrong. firstly, she kept mentioning how much she hates most cake, so we never picked up the cake we had ordered. secondly, when we went to wake her up, she wasnt in the tent, so the sparkles were out by the time we found her. :( it was still a cool morning though, because we had made a delicious cake made with only fruit and chocolate sprinkles, and lautaro and the others put on a puppet show using plastic bags. in the evening we went into town, saw lots of bands, danced samba, and then went to a gay club. we thoroughly enjoyed being able to dance without fending off ravaging brazilian men, and even met a very sweet laila who we hung out a lot with the next few days.

for new years eve we went to a part of the city called barra, where there was a huge public concert and lots and lots of people. many were dressed in white, and threw flowers into the ocean, to please the candomble goddess of the ocean and protect fishermen (and make the next year a pleasant one, i suspect). we danced to loud music and watched an impressive display of fireworks, before sitting on the beach to people-watch.

the rest of the time in salvador we wandered our pelourinho, looked at churches and museums, went to an independent movie theatre, visited a turtle conservation beach with laila and her friend ale, listened to lots of live music, ate a lot of beans and rice and drank a lot of fruit juice.