It was raining heavily when we woke up on Monday morning so we took our time getting up. While we were eating our breakfast, it stopped raining and the sky cleared up. We hurriedly packed up our backpacks and checked out, leaving them in a storage room. We caught the bus to Cosme Velho and got the cog train up the Morro Corcovado (Hunchback Mountain) to see the Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) statue. On the way up we enjoyed spectacular views of Corcovado which was in the middle of the lush green Tijuca National Park. At the top of Corcovado we walked around the statue and despite the clouds we enjoyed 360 degree views over Rio. After an hour or so we caught the cog train back down to Cosme Velho, where we had lunch at the Mamma Rosa cafe. After lunch and a lovely lime tart for dessert, we caught a bus to the Botanical Gardens. This was at the foot of the Corcovado mountain and from the park we could see the Cristo Redentor statue. From the entrance with its turtle pond we walked along a long palm lined avenue to the Fountain of the Muses at the centre of the park. We walked around a lake filled with strange fish and over the Monkey River and visited the bromeliad house and orchid house where we admired their extensive collection of flowering orchids.
We caught a bus back to Lapa after that and walked back to hostel. We caught a taxi to the bus station to get on our 11.30 pm "leitos" (first class) bus to Ouro Preto. The bus had spacious reclining seats (like Qantas sky beds) and we were issued with a pillow and a blanket when we boarded.
On Tuesday we were woken at 6.30 am when we arrived at Ouro Preto bus station. For the first time in weeks, we put our packs on and walked to the closest hostel in the rain. The room they showed us was very small so we caught a bus through Ouro Preto to Praca Tiradentes where we checked into the beautiful Pousada Ouro Preto. We sat down to a lovely breakfast of watermelon, pineapple, and small papaya, Pao de Queijo, rolls with cheese and ham, corn cake with cumin, biscuits, fruit juice and coffee. The pousada was full of Brazilians on holiday. Ouro Preto was built on steep hills with slippery cobbled streets and a plethora of churches. It had been a rich gold mining town and the churches here still contain large amounts of gold. We had a late lunch at Osotao, a per kilo restaurant and then wandered over to the travel agent recommended by Jerson, the owner of the pousada to organise our flight to Campo Grande from Belo Horizonte, the nearest airport. Then we walked to the bus station to buy a bus ticket from Ouro Preto to Belo Horizonte. Once this was sorted out, we walked around the Praca Tiradentes again but as it was raining we headed back to the pousada for pineapple tea (amazingly good) and corn and cumin cake.
Much to our relief, the sun was shining when we woke up on Wednesday. We had another lovely breakfast at the pousada and then we went to the Tourist Information Office to get a map of Ouro Preto. We spent five minutes marking the route suggested by Lonely Planet on the map before we set off. The route took us up and down winding cobbled streets, across picturesque plazas to various stunning baroque churches perched on top of steep hills. We started our walk from the Praca Tiradentes and walked along the Rua des Lajes to get a panoramic view of Ouro Preto nestled among the mountains. Our first stop was the Igreja de Santa Efigenia dos Pretos built by and for the black slave community. It was closed for restoration, but the caretaker opened the front door and let us in. Inside the church were columns, scrolls, tromp de l'oeil and plump cherubs painted in gold leaf. The walls and ceilings were decorated with frescoes and there were wood and polychrome figures of various saints, Christ, Mary etc. We visited Capelo do Padre Faria and the Igreja Nossa Senhora da Conceicao de Antonio Dias before heading back to the centre of town to the Igreja Sao Francisco de Assis which was just closing for lunch when we arrived. We decided to have lunch ourselves and walked to the Adega Ouro Preto Restaurante – another per kilo restaurant. After lunch we visited the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosario dos Pretos, the Igreja Matriz Nossa Senhora do Pilar (containing 434 kgs of gold and silver) and finally the Igreja Nossa Senhora do Carmo. All of the churches that we visited were decorated in the same heavy baroque style - it was all very excessive but there was some great sculpture and artwork.
Overall Ouro Preto was a beautiful town full of colonial architecture, most of which had been immaculately restored. As well as the buildings, statues, cobbled roads and bridges there were flowering plants and trees everywhere which attracted a lot of birdlife from humming birds to buzzards perched on churches. The incredibly steep hills gave the builders plenty of sites for the twelve or more churches and the different stone used for cobbles (black), walls, sidewalks, and columns (brown and grey) also gave it a different feel. Many of the paving stones shone with metallic lustre in the sun or glistened in the rain which reminded you that all this wealth in the town was from the gold and silver mines of the Minas Gerais region.
After breakfast on Thursday we headed out into the warm humidity to the Igreja Sao Francisco de Assis which we hadn't seen yesterday. It was also impressive with wonderful ceiling fresco painting and beautiful carving in wood, silver and gold. As with all the churches there was a large room in the rear with antique furniture, ceiling painting and works of art, this time paintings by Goncalves. The ticket for this church entitled us to entry to the Aleijadinho Museum so we headed down the cobbled streets back to the Igreja Nossa Senhora da Conceicao de Antonio Dias which had the Museum at the rear on three levels. There were furniture, oratories to display saints in order to ward off evil, four magnificent stylistic lions carved in cedar, all types of religious figures in stone, wood and polychrome, religious vestments, monstrances and other religious artefacts. Most related to Aleijadinho who was known as the Brazilian Michelangelo. Amazingly he lost the use of his arms and legs at the age of thirty and continued working! There was eerie music playing in the background and a TV playing continuous images of the highlights of the Aleijadinho art contained in all the churches. We climbed back up hill to the Praca Tiradentes only to find that the museum (Museu Inconfidencia) we had earmarked to see last was in fact closed until 12.00 pm! Our bus left at 1.00 pm and we decided to play it safe and returned to the hostel. We caught a taxi to the Rodoviaria (bus station) and then caught the bus to Belo Horizonte through interesting countryside of green hills and huge valleys spanned by enormous railway and highway aqueduct-style bridges. The highway cut into the hills exposed metallic laden ore of silver colour and the highway became three lanes in each direction as we approached Belo Horizonte with gum trees growing beside the road. Belo Horizonte is Brazil's third largest city and it looked like an ugly industrial city. We changed buses for one going to the airport 40 kms away. We reached the airport and our flight was delayed by an hour and a half so we checked in and did some work on the laptop while we waited. We arrived in Campo Grande, the gateway to the Panatanal two hours later. Our luggage came out really fast and we caught a taxi to the Pousada Dom Aquino and checked in.
After breakfast on Friday we headed off to the Tourist Office to get a map of Campo Grande and to find out about buses to Bonito. It was an extremely humid day, but the sun was blocked by the haze and smog so it wasn't too bad. We walked to the Tourist Office where we found that the earliest bus to Bonito we could catch was the one leaving at 3.30 pm and we couldn't purchase a bus ticket in town. We had to catch a bus to the Rodoviaria to buy our ticket and then catch a bus back to Centro. When we arrived back at Centro, we walked back to the pousada to check out and then we walked to the indoor market. We wandered around through the stalls selling electronics, travel goods, sunglasses, jewellery, and shoes from Paraguay – apparently they were cheaper because the taxes there were lower. We walked around town and found a churrasqueira restaurant. We had delicious grilled beef, chicken and sausage with a selection of salads, pasta and rice. Afterwards, we went to the shop next door where we bought a passionfruit juice which was large enough for both of us. After walking around some more, we walked back to the pousada to collect our bags and caught a taxi to the Rodoviaria to catch our bus to Bonito.
The bus took half an hour to get out of Campo Grande. Once we were in the countryside most of the vegetation had been cleared and you could see how flat the landscape was. We started seeing large herds of cows, mostly white and leaner than the dairy cattle we had seen in Scotland and Ireland. We also saw some rheas, vultures, an eagle, and two giant hairy anteaters. The first of these was wandering along in the open near some cows so we could see that it was quite large, about half the size of a cow and extremely hairy. It was a truly amazing looking animal. We also passed many dilapidated shacks made from cardboard, wood and plastic sheets which were obviously home to local people. There was a lot of water lying around as it had rained solidly last week. As the sun went down the haze became more of a heavy mist which made a surreal sight floating over the flat land with occasional patches of jungle appearing and disappearing. Apart from short green grass for the cows we saw corn and sugar cane being grown. We reached Bonito at 8.30 pm and walked to the Pousada Muito Bonito and checked in.
It was raining heavily when we woke up on Saturday, but it had stopped by the time we had had our showers and went out to the breakfast table. After breakfast Keith organised an eco-tour/snorkelling trip to the Rio da Prata (Silver River) with the hostel. We grabbed our swimmers and towels and at 10.30 am we were collected from the hostel by a taxi driver. The Rio da Prata was a 50 km drive out of Bonito and some of the drive was on dirt roads. We drove past open flat plains dotted with red termite mounds, herds of cows and a couple of rheas. We arrived at the tourist reception centre at 11.30 am only to find out that our tour didn't begin until 1.30 pm – after lunch! We walked around the property for the next hour and Keith took photos of various parrots, a road runner, a toucan and an ibis. We had lunch at 12.30 pm and it was a fantastic buffet lunch featuring lots of meat and local produce. After lunch we got ready for our tour. We were issued with wetsuits and booties which we had to put on immediately, and a mask and snorkel. Our clothes were put into plastic bags to be collected at the other end of our swim downstream. At this point Keith found out that he would have to leave our cameras behind because they weren't waterproof – very unhappy! After donning our wetsuits and booties we climbed onto the back of a jeep and were driven to the start of our tour. We spent about half an hour walking through the rainforest in our wetsuits and booties, which felt very surreal. Thankfully because it had been raining, it was cool and overcast and the walk was very comfortable. At the river bank, we were given an orientation session in Portuguese (general gist of it was don't touch the fish, don't put your feet on the ground and swim in a single line) and instructions on how to use the mask and snorkel. Then we started a 3 km float/swim down the river. The current was pretty strong so we really didn't have to put much effort into swimming at all. The visibility was really great and we saw many different varieties of fish. The fish were very tame and we could get quite close to them before they swam away. There were large silver fish with thick lips which vacuumed the river bed, large black fish which looked velvety soft and appeared to eat leaves fallen into the river, there were golden dourado with big teeth, freshwater catfish on the rocks, and many more big and small. We saw a deep hole in the river bed at one point and we saw springs bubbling up through the sandy river bed. We saw macaws flying overhead, a cormorant, and a large black bird with yellow beak calling plaintively. Much to Keith's disappointment and Suzie's relief, we did not see any anacondas or jacare (caiman). Our snorkelling trip was over all too quickly and we got changed in little huts by a jetty on the river bank and then we climbed back on to the jeep. On the way back we saw a little armadillo crossing the road! We drove back to the tourist reception centre where we had a cup of tea and some fresh popcorn. We wanted to fit in a visit to the Buraco dos Araras (a sanctuary for macaws) before we went back to Bonito but when we arrived, it had just closed and we couldn't persuade them to let us in. However, outside in the car park was a very friendly red and green macaw who was happy to pose for photographs. We drove back to Bonito after that feeling very satisfied with our day.
We had a leisurely breakfast on Sunday morning chatting fellow travellers. We met Lucas and Cynthia from Holland who had rented a car at Campo Grande and driven to Bonito. They told us that they were visiting a few of the local attractions so we asked if we could join them. They agreed and so after breakfast, we jumped into their car and headed out for the day. Lucas and Cynthia turned out to be avid wildlife enthusiasts with lots of camera equipment which suited us (and in particular Keith) very well. We drove slowly out of town on dirt roads trying to spot birds or animals. Our first stop was the Ilha do Padre (Priest Island). We paid our entry fee and walked onto the island over a small footbridge. There were a few waterfalls and some crystal clear waters that would have been great to swim and snorkel in, had it been hotter. We walked around some picnic areas and some leisure areas. We spotted a couple of toucans and a large troupe of Howler monkeys swinging through the trees. We were on our way out of the complex when we came across a very tame red and green macaw called Laura. It was very friendly to Cynthia and after a while we worked out that it was absolutely besotted with her red fleece - when Cynthia put her fleece on the ground, Laura nuzzled it lovingly. We also saw a blue crowned motmot with two long tail feathers ending in a disc. As we watched another arrived with an insect as a gift.
Next, we drove to Ilha Bonita where we ordered lunch at the restaurant. While we were waiting for our lunch to arrive, we walked around the gardens and the clear river where they were feeding fish with corn. After lunch we drove to Buraco dos Araras 50 kms away. On the way we spotted a giant anteater right beside the road and we got out and got really close before it suddenly fled. It had an enormous amount of shaggy hair and a strange dark colouration with a light stripe down its side. It had a long relatively thin snout which it appeared to be probing the ground with very carefully.
We arrived at the sinkhole Buraco dos Araras and walked a about 500 metres to the hole. It was a circular hole approximately 300 metres wide and 200 metres deep with almost sheer walls of red rock. In the bottom was a pool of green water and tropical vegetation. In the trees around the edge many macaws were screaming at each other. There were also many ibises nesting and calling. The red and green macaws flew across the hole and dived spectacularly down towards their nests in the rock walls. Apparently there are a couple of caiman in the water in the bottom and the guide said that they must have been washed down in one of the annual floods. It was a very relaxing sunset there and we were thoroughly satisfied as we drove home. We saw another giant anteater on the way back and a small grey cat. After dinner we packed up our gear in readiness for catching the 6.00 am bus to Buraco das Piranhas in the Pantanal.
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