Tiradentes with children

While my sister was here, we took a trip to Tiradentes. I have to admit, that I much prefer Tiradentes to Ouro Preto, especially with children. I would definitely recommend a visit to Ouro Preto (it's closer to Belo Horizonte), but for a longer stay, I'd have to go with Tiradentes.

Here's how I planned our trip: I get about 50 emails a day from things called Groupalia, Savemail, Peixe Urbana, City Best and CidadeOff that offer discounts and coupons on anything from Hotels/Pousadas, trips to France, Spy Cameras, Sensual Photography (?!?), and Cellulite removal. Really. I tried to use one these discounts to book a room at a Pousada, but of course they don't work during Ferias (vacations). But the website for the Pousada looked nice, and they actually responded to an email, so I decided to go with them. It was called Pousada Fazendinha de Minas, or "Little Farm Pousada." I rented a car with Via Facil, which did NOT respond to emails, but we rented them before when we went to Ouro Preto and Jabuticaba in December. They seem to have good rates, they ask for a lot of things on their "application" for rental, but they don't need a Brazilian Driver's License (I still don't have one, and if you want to know why, you can read here--yikes!). On a beautiful Friday morning, and the kids first day of vacation (it started late because of the teacher's strike back in March), we loaded up our little rented Fiat, and headed out of town. Driving to Tiradentes is pretty easy (for Brazil): the directions aren't too difficult, and it's pretty well labeled. We stopped for a picnic lunch by this little church on the road after we exited from Conganhas (Alto Maranhão)?




There was a cemetery across the street...



...but there wasn't anything interesting there. The Church was closed (not sure if there was anything worth seeing). But it was a convenient place to stop.

We drove another hour or so, and had no problems following signs towards Tiradentes. But it got a little strange as we approached Tiradentes--about 2 miles before the city, the road turns to cobblestone! It felt like we were going the wrong way, and there was NO traffic. It was a little eerie. But then all of the sudden we rolled into town, full of restaurants, cute little shops selling local artwork and crafts, and horses. Lots of horses. Horses pulling carts. Shetland ponies. Horses with pink saddles.

Our pousada was about a 5 minute drive from the central praca, and a 20 minute walk. This was a good thing in my opinion, because I think we heard less traffic, and less noise. Also, the property was a little bit larger, and it was true to it's name: it had ducks, roosters, geese, chickens, peacocks, dogs and 2 horses. There was a koi pond and "fishing" poles (long bamboo sticks that you could poke into the water or use to poke your little sister). There was a pool table and Foosball. There were lots of pretty trees, flowers and a little playground. A GREAT place for kids!








We got settled, and then walked into town.
I'll have to make another post, because the last 3 times I've tried to write, I've gotten an error message, and now what I wrote has disappeared into cyberspace...

confessions: recycling

We have lived in Brazil for 18 months and 4 days. In that time, I confess that I have NEVER knowingly recycled. For those of you who know me from my former life in the states, this is quite a shock. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. I lived in Eugene Oregon for 4 years. I was very disciplined about recycling, I reused things, took cloth bags to the grocery store, bought recycled clothes, composted, and saved the salmon. I was the picture of environmental conscientiousness and a little bit high and mighty about my recycling ways.

And then I moved to Brazil.

The funny thing is that Brazil has something like a 96% success rate for recycling aluminum cans. But I just couldn't figure out how to do it. I saw the coleta selectiva (recycling) trucks in our neighborhood. I saw big, strange looking "bins" on the Contorno for collecting recycling (hard to take a bag of beer bottles there when you don't have a car). And some of the grocery stores have areas where you can recycle. But we didn't have much space in our apartment. But the big thing was the garbage collecting in our building. In the garage/basement, there were 3 barrels, labeled "glass" and "paper" and "cans." But they were always just full of trash. And the nice ladies who cleaned the common areas of our old apartment would just take all the trash out there and put it out on the street (that's where you put your trash for collecting here). So, it felt kinda pointless. But the thing that didn't make me feel so horrible, and made me feel like my environmental soul was not going straight to hell was knowing that there were people that would look for my cans and bottles and cardboard in the trash. There are people who make their living digging through the trash. Not a great way to make money, but they have found a way to make it.

But now that we are in our new place, I made it a priority to figure out how to recycle. We have outdoor space, so I can store our stuff out there. There is actually a recycling bin in our building too! Though I found out that we can't use it because it gets too full in the weeks time between pick ups. But I learned that recycling day is Tuesday, and all I need to do is just put my stuff out on the curb. Voilá! And I can sleep better at night, knowing that I'm doing "my part."

My sister's reviews on Trip Advisor

I'm still recovering from July (moving, my sister's visit, trip to Tiradentes, the kid's winter vacation). So, I'm borrowing content from my sister's reviews on Trip Advisor--we went to the Mercado Central and the Hippie Fair, and click away to read what she has to say. You can also look at her other adventures--she's quite a world traveler. Enjoy