Thursday, October 13, 2011

Rio day 6 - Ouro Preto

Today (Oct 11) we went to Belo Horizonte for two days. We were greeted at the airport by another person on Paul's team - Marlon. We were staying with his family - which was fabulous. His wife was an amazing cook. In fact, i was completely over fed at their place. She didn't think i was eating enough for the baby. I just hope i have enough Tums to last me the rest of the trip. Oh, the heart burn. And she makes her own cheese bread. One word. Yum.
Marlon, Paul and Patrick advertising their Revv.
And then that evening there was a planned meeting with others on the team but due to weather, only two showed. Since many rely on public transportation, weather can play a huge role on turnouts.
This whole area is know for it's mining of jewels and precious metals. There are lots of historic towns and today we decided to plan a day trip to Ouro Preto. Mental note, check the weather reports first.

We met up with Patrick's sister and family, who is also on vacation in Brazil, to join us. Coordinating with multiple people is a challenge and i've realized i'm not a huge fan. If Paul and i went on our own, we would have left about 11am. Instead, we didn't get out until about 2pm which put is right in the middle of a rainstorm.

Once we arrived, we went straight a restaurant. 1. because we were hungry. 2. To wait out the rain. Just after we sat down the power in the town went out. Great. Paul and Patrick ventured out to find something we could eat. Success at a bakery.
After eating we went to the museum and just as we were walking up the steps the doors closed. Yet another set back. So about all we were able to do was take some pictures. This is from the museum from above looking out over the plaza.

Dane with Erik (Patrick's nephew). They were having so much fun telling stories in the back of the car.
And this is the whole group. Then on the way home we got stuck in the worse traffic of our lives. Took about 2 1/2 hours to go 5 miles. Awesome. At one point we ended up in a "buses only' lane. Thank you patrick. By the end the whole day was so messed up that I was in tears I was laughing so hard. At least it was memorable.

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