My sister is here visiting, and she loves coffee. Her love of coffee has rubbed off on my husband. So we decided to visit a coffee farm while she was in Minas Gerais. Unfortunately, due to our schedules, we couldn't plan a return trip to Fazenda Cachoeira, but several friends recommended Cafe do Mirante in Santo Antonio do Leite, which is relatively close to Ouro Preto (about an hour and 1/2 from Belo Horizonte).
I was able to schedule a tour via email (in Portuguese, but they were very quick about getting back to me). For R$14 a person, we got a tour of the coffee farm, to see the production and storage area, sample the coffee, tour the distillery (alimbique), sample some cachaca, and tour the pousada. The kitchen was closed, so we weren't able to eat there, but we brought a yummy picnic and enjoyed it on the grass yard with a beautiful view.
Picking Jabuticaba
The woman who made our sample of coffee was great, and we REALLY enjoyed the sample (her method was a surprise, and a little bit of a shock,but so worth it). I also got to mark something off on my Brazilian bucket list: pick jabuticaba fresh off the tree! November is the month to harvest, and there were a few trees at the pousada. It's delicious!
The library bus at Jeca Tatu
On the way back to BH, we stopped at Jeca Tatu, a restaurant/museum unlike anything we've ever seen before. There are several old American school buses that have been converted to rooms that hold books, memorabilia, old records, and all sorts of fascinating stuff. Well worth the stop.
We also stopped for ice cream at Arte e Manha. There were signs everywhere along the road, advertising their unique ice cream flavors, such as violet, guava and cheese (romeu e julieta), rose, and many unique Brazilian fruit flavors. I had graviola (aka soursop) and cupuaçu (tropical rainforest fruit somewhat related to cacãu) and seriguela and cajá. My sister had the goiaba e queijo. I'd highly recommend any of they unique flavors.
Matt and I have talked about visiting a coffee farm ever since we moved to Brazil. We finally had the chance in July! We decided rather last minute, and because July is a very popular time to vacation, the place that many people had recommended to us wasn't available. So I had to go with what I could find on Google. And we got very, very lucky!
Fazenda Cachoeira is in Santo Antonio do Amparo in the south of Minas Gerais. Google maps says it is only 2 hours away which really means it is 3 hours away. Getting to Santo Antonio do Amparo was easy, and it's a nice road (because it's a toll road). It was a little tricky to find the Fazenda once we arrived in Santo Antonio, because there are no signs, and because we live in Brazil. But since we have now lived in Brazil for 3 years, we my husband has kind of figured out how directions work and how to "feel" your way to the destination. And once we arrived at the actual Fazenda, there were no clear signs as to where to go, and who was in charge, so we just had to wander around until we found someone who looked like they were in charge. But once we found that person, we know we'd found a good place.
Mariana told us that the farm had been in her family for 5 generations. We stayed in the main house, which had been built in 1870 something. It had been renovated in the 1980s, but still had the Mineiro farmhouse charm. Wood furniture, big doorways, lace curtains, and old fashioned keys in the bedroom doors. There was a pool, hammocks, dogs, a game room with foosball and pool, waterfalls, hikes, beautiful views, bonfires at night, and horses. The kids couldn't get enough of the horses.
We rode them around the farm, to the waterfalls, around the farm again, and the around again. It was wonderful to watch the kids play outside, to get dirty, to run and laugh and explore. It was the first time I'd been out of Belo Horizonte since January, so it was so refreshing and restorative.
Matt and I got to take a tour of the farm with Mariana. It was fascinating to learn that Brazil is the largest producer of coffee in the world, and that Minas Gerais produces about 80% of all arabica coffee. We learned that for optimal production, coffee needs to to be planted at 1000 to 1100 meters above sea level. We saw the cherries being dried on the terraces, and learned that during drying, the coffee needs to be "raked" 10 times a day to dry uniformly. And of course, we drank some very delicious coffee.
Matt raking the coffee
I was able to make most of the arrangements via email, but I did have to make a phone call to clarify what meals were included. It was a little hard to reach them because it was the peak of coffee harvest, so the owners were not only hosting guests, but also managing the harvest. The packages include all meals and desserts (not drinks), and horse rides. The owners speak some English, and a little French. Highlights for us were watching the sun set from the top of the coffee farm, walking on the coffee cherries (they make a very nice crunching sound), eating the fried sausage, and hiking to the waterfalls. We had a great time, and would highly recommend a visit to Fazenda Cachoeira.
We had the privilege of visiting Rio de Janeiro for 6 days in January. My dear hubby has been there a few time for work, but it was the first time for the rest us, and for my parents. It was amazing. I can totally understand why people want to live there, and I have to admit I was quite taken by it all. Granted, I was also on vacation, so I had very few responsibilities, no laundry, no driving. We flew there and took taxis to get around because 1) my hubby found tickets for less than R$200 round trip and 2) the penthouse we stayed in had no parking spot and 3) the mere thought of driving in an unfamiliar city known for its crazy traffic gave me the heebie jeebies. We also ate out a lot. So, I realize that my experience in Rio was made even more amazing because I was just there to relax and have fun. Plus we were mainly in Copacabana, so please take all this with a grain of salt.
But all that said, I have some comparisons to make between Rio and Belo Horizonte.
1. Beauty. Rio de Janeiro is beautiful: there is the beach, the ocean, the mountains, sunset, Cristo Redentor, Pão de Açucar. There are certainly parts that are not so beautiful. We went to Centro to go to Confeitaria Colombo and then we walked to the Theatro Municipal, and it was certainly dirty and not such a great neighborhood (at least from appearances). But I would have to say that the ugly views are well balanced by the very, very beautiful parts. Although Belo Horizonte might mean "beautiful horizon" it is not by any means a beautiful city. Sure the view from Mangabeiras Park is nice, and the Serra do Curral (the mountains "behind" Mangabeiras Park) are beautiful, but it is not very easy to see this part of Belo Horizonte. And miles and miles and miles of high rise apartments are not my idea of beauty. And even though Belo is called "the garden city," and there are some streets that still have nice trees, over all it is just not very visually attractive.
2. Tourism. Rio de Janeiro hosts lots of lots of tourists from Brazil and the world. Belo Horizonte is NOT a tourist destination. Rio de Janeiro has resources to cater to tourists, and Cariocas (people who live in Rio) for the most part know how to welcome tourists and help out. Belo Horizonte just doesn't have many great tourist attractions. There's the Mercado Central, some parks, some museums, but honestly, it's not worth adding an extra day to your tour of Brazil to come visit Belo Horionte. Just saying.
3. Accessibility. We found Rio de Janeiro to be walkable. This means that there were places that were flat, that had good sidewalks, and that we didn't feel like we were risking our lives when we crossed the streets. In Belo Horizonte, the sidewalks are HORRIBLE, it is terribly hilly (if you aren't walking uphill or going downhill it means that you are standing still), and drivers here have no tolerance for pedestrians. This was the thing that surprised me the most. I think that Mineiros (people from Minas Gerais), or perhaps specifically just people from Belo Horizonte get really mean when they get behind the wheel. They don't take traffic sign and signals seriously, they drive crazy fast, and they don't like stopping for pedestrians. Unfortunately pedestrians here compensate by being stupid and running in front of cars. But overall, drivers were MUCH nicer in Rio.
4. How things work. In Rio, the taxi drivers refused to stop at the side of the road to let us out because it was against the law and they could get fined. Maybe I'm reading way too much into this, but I was very impressed by this. There is a street in our neighborhood that has several NO PARKING signs, and any time a car parks in front of the NO PARKING signs, they block traffic and it causes cars to back up and it just makes a mess. But no one cars, and people are always parking there. In fact, in Belo, people stop their cars wherever they want to, whenever they want to. I would like to say that I have never participated in this kind of behavior, but when in Rome...
5. Cleanliness. I found Rio to be overall a much cleaner city than Belo Horizonte. Maybe it's because we were in Copacabana, but it was nice. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Rio is a clean city, but compared to Belo Horizonte, it was cleaner. I didn't see any dog poop on the side walk the whole time I was there! Unfortunately, there is a lot of trash and dog poop in the street and on the sidewalk here.
6. Expense. I didn't find the prices to be all that much difference in Rio as compared to Belo Horizonte. There were some things that were much cheaper (groceries! clothing!), and other things that were more expensive (eating out). I assumed that Rio would be more expensive. But then again, I didn't look into renting any apartments....
I think that I was expecting Rio to feel more dangerous, a little darker and meaner than Belo Horizonte. But I was surprised. My son said that when he grows up and has his own family, he's going to live in Rio de Janeiro. I'd move there with him!
For quite some time, I've heard about the caves in Minas Gerais. It's
Semana Santa (Holy Week), and my husband has 5 days off, and myself and
the kids have 4 days off. We'd talked about taking a little trip, but
we just didn't get our act together soon enough. So instead I convinced
the hubby to drive to Gruta da Lapinha--probably the closest cave to
Belo Horizonte. We met up with a friend in Pampulha.
Mozambique Overpass
We take Pres. Antonio Carlos (the "road" or "freeway" or in my opinion, big street) to get to Pampulha. We think it's kind of funny that the city has named the overpasses after African Countries. We finally got around to taking some pictures to share. And by the way, this is probably one of the nicest stretches of road in BH--it's new, it's wide, it's not bumpy. It's great!
Congo Republic Overpass!
After we got to Pampulha, it took about an hour to get to the Gruta. You have to drive to Lagoa Santa, and then follow the signs for "Gruta." I wish I could say that I had better directions, but I wasn't driving, and Corinne got the directions. And I'm really bad with directions anyway. But, if you are going to try it, I'd say go for it, because it wasn't so complicated.
The cost is R$10 for adults, and R$5 for meia (kids, students, senior citizens) and kids 4 and under are free. You HAVE to wear close-toed tennis shoes. We made the mistake of having Beatrice wear crocs, and they told us she couldn't wear them, but then eventually everybody just ignored it and she was able to go in. Ah, Brazil. The land of rules, and the land of ways to avoid following those rules.
We packed a picnic lunch, and enjoyed it at the covered picnic tables. There is a little snack shop, but it looked like it really only had coconut water and Popsicles. There were several dogs around, lizards and butterflies, and the kids loved playing with them and running around while we adults chatted.
Then it was time to don the helmets and go into the cave.
Dora, Sebastian, Kevin and Bea
really?
entrance to the cave
cool formations in the cave
"curtains"
watch out for spiders!
more formations in the cave
The guide didn't talk about this (not at least according to my understanding of his Portuguese), but Peter Lund discovered these caves sometime in the 1830s. Peter Lund was a Norwegian naturalist who came to Brazil for treatment for tuberculosis, but ended up doing a lot of research and exploring caves. He's considered the Father of archeology. I'd heard that it was at Gruta da Lapinha that he found the oldest human remains in South America. However, I did a little research and found out that the remains were actually found at Lapa Vermelha in the 1970s. Luzia, fondly considered the "first" Brazilian, is the oldest human skeleton found in South America, and is between 11,400 and 16,400 years old! But Luzia is considered representative of the "Homem de Lagoa Santa" or the people that lived in this region during that period. And the connection of all this to Peter Lund, is that Lund did find 31 skeletons that belong to the "Homem de Lagoa Santa." But I don't know where this was. And if this has anything to do with Gruta da Lapinha. I've opened up a can of worms here...
I'm glad we went to the caves, and I had a fun time getting out of the city and satiating my curiosity. However, if anyone out there is thinking of going, I would recommend spending more time at the park or in Lagoa Santa to make the most of the drive. We spent about 3 hours driving there and back, and only about 2 1/2 hours eating lunch, playing and touring the cave. There are lots of restaurants along the road close the cave that looked interesting (quaint little farm-restaurant looking places), and the guide for our cave tour mentioned a hike to another cave that sounded interesting. So with a little more research and planning, you could add this cave tour to a fun day out of the city.
Last post I mentioned that I was going to have a day of leisure and relaxation poolside at a "resort," paid for by a coupon we got with Peixe Urbano. Peixe Urbano is the Brazilian version of GruopOn, or one of the many variations on a theme of online discount restaurant/store/hotel coupons. You get a daily email with deals, and if you like one of them, you log in and buy the coupon. We've purchased many things: dry cleaning services, chocolate, meals at Restaurants, and so on. Last year, we got 2 coupons for a day pass at place called Clube Verde Lazer, a camping club in a town about an hour away from Belo Horizonte. We planned with some friends to go, and gave them the extra tickets. I knew it wasn't a fancy place, but I thought it would make for a relaxing day. We packed a picnic lunch, loaded up the swimsuits and sun screen, and hit the road.
It was a nice day, an easy drive (it was the same drive we took to the sitio we went to during Carnaval 2011, minus the horrible traffic). We found it without too much problem (but it was thanks to our friends who had called to get the directions). There were LOTS of people walking along the "road" (cobblestone/dirt one lane path is a better description, and that should have been a warning sign to me, but we kept driving along. And then we pulled into the parking lot for the Clube and saw probably about 50 people waiting in line. My husband dropped me off to get in line, and went to park. There was quite a bit of confusion about which line to be in, and EVERYONE had a coupon from a different company (ClickOn). Waiting in a line is a common experience in Brazil, so I knew we were going to be a while, but I didn't think too much of it. After a few minutes, Beatrice had to go to the bathroom, so I asked one of the women wearing a shirt that read "Would you like to become a member?" tee-shirts where the bathroom was. After Beatrice was finally done, I told her that we should go check out the pools. We walked towards one of the 3, and I was overwhelmed by the number of people. There were probably already 200 people at the pool, and there were NO places in the shade. And it was hot. Not a good sign. Then I looked at the pools. I didn't have my camera with me, but this will give you an idea of the color:
Oh yuck. I immediately started imagining what kind of disgusting sickness was living in the pools. Beatrice and I walked back to the line, and our Brazilian friends told us that we needed to get out of there. Because of the popularity of the coupons, there had been a HUGE number of people visiting the Clube that weekend. They had been so busy that they hadn't been able to clean the pools. It was a 24 hour camping clube, and they didn't want to inconvenience any of the guests. How about inconveniencing them with giardia?
So, we drove back to BH, got our friends blow-up swimming pool, and made our own little pool party in our patio.
Thankfully the coupons were free (we had used a R$15 credit to buy them), and thankfully our friends were easy going and we were able to laugh at it all. But never, EVER visit Verde Lazer Clube in Sabará.
Ok, here's the rest of the story! We got settled at our pousada, and then walked into town. We got to the praça, and let the kids run around for a while. If you walk a bit away from the praça (over the "bridge" and towards the mob of horses), you can see Igreja N. Senhora das Mercês, but in terms of all the Churches there, it's not the most impressive. We then decided that we wanted to make it back to the pousada for their 5:00 Tea, so we rented a horse drawn cart to get back.
Very fun! I tried negotiating with the driver, but he told me the fixed rate was R$30....hmmm....but it was worth it. We got back in time to be first for the tea (cookies, bread products and tea), and the kids played in the playground and then it got pretty cold, so we just hung out inside and watched bad TV, went back into town to get Pasteis for dinner (fried pastry with meat inside, yum!) and went to bed early--it was wonderful!
The roosters woke us up off and on through the night, but overall it was a good nights sleep. We had breakfast at the Pousada, and then the kids got to ride the horses. They LOVED it!
They each had about 20 minutes to ride around the neighborhood. After that, we ventured into town. We could hear the train whistle, so we decided to go towards to the station to check it the Maria Fumaça. We just so happened to arrive right before the steam train "turned" around. The train had to move onto the turntable, and the workers had to manually push in order for it to be turned to go the right direction. It was VERY cool, and the kids loved being so close to the engine.
I've heard that it's fun to ride the train to São João del Rei, but the line was SUPER long, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to do it on this trip. I think the train goes twice a day (at least on holidays and weekends) and costs R$40 roundtrip for adults, R$20 roundtrip for kids age 6-10, and is free for the little ones. Thankfully the kids weren't begging to go on the train, and we drove back towards the main part of town to look at the churches. We went to the Chafariz (fountain), and then went on a hike on the trail behind it. We'd read that it was 6 miles long, but the kids were happy hiking for about 30 minutes and then turning back. If you do want to to the whole way, make sure you wear good shoes and clothes that you don't mind getting dirty--the trail is right next to the stream and you have to kind of bushwhack at different points. But it was very beautiful.
Next we went to the Igreja Nossa Senhora do Rosario, the slave church. This was by far the most interesting to me. It was very simple compared to the other churches, and had lots of African saints. The Church was built at night, after the slaves put in a full day of work.
Then we window shopped and worked up an appetite. The owner of the pousada recommended Restaurante da Mercês, and I'm not sure it's one of the best in Tiradentes (which is known for having GREAT restaurants), but we enjoyed it. The waiter recommended the Chicken in a Bowl (or something like that), and it was really good. Especially the sauce. Last week I was talking to a friend, and he said it probably was made with chicken blood (ew), but it was really yummy, especially with Angu (a kind of Brazilian polenta).
The rest of the day was spent at the Pousada, trying to stay warm. It was very cold for Brazil (60-65 Farenheit), and the floors were all tiled and there is no insulation, and the sun never came out, so we were chilly! We went back into town for dinner, looking to find coxinha for Katie (the chicken snacks that look like a chicken leg), but we had no luck. But we did find espetinhos (kebabs) for R$2 across the street from the gas station. I love me my cheap eats!
The next day we went to Bichinho, a small artist community about 7 km outside of Tiradentes. Most of the road there is cobblestone, so it's a pretty slow drive. But it's very scenic. There are lots of stores selling handicrafts and art, and it's a great place to buy furniture made from reclaimed/recycled wood. Unfortunately, my sister had left her wallet at the place we had bought espetinhos the night before, so we had to cut our visit short. But the good news was that the woman who found my sister's wallet was SO excited that we came back--she said she had no way of knowing how to contact us (all my sister had was a little cash and her American credit card and no ID). And of course, she had coxinhas today, so not only did we get back the wallet, but we got our chicken salgado (salty snack). We drove out of Tiradentes happy.
On the drive back, we stopped at Charm Country for Linguiça com pão (sausage with bread). They threw on a little cooked Minas cheese...oh my oh my. It was heavenly. It's kind of a dying little restaurant by the side of the road, but it's got a nice view and a little space for the kids to run around before the final leg of the trip.
"Mom, we are not happy that you are making us pose in front of the stinky cows!"
Katie with a Papaya tree!
Fun weekend, wonderful time with the kids and my sister, and some great food!
Belo Horizonte (pronounced bell-oh oar-ee-zonch) is the the 3rd largest city in Brazil and is almost completely unknown to the outside world.
How to contact me
I can't promise that I will respond quickly, and I can't promise that I will have the answers to your questions, but if you'd like to reach me, you can email me at srkelz (at) gmail (dot) com.
