After disembarking from the bus at around 11pm, we felt a little stranded as everything was closed. But as we stood on the street corner contemplating how we would get to our hotel, a taxi drove past. He flew down the steep cobblestone streets and pulled up at our hotel. Being a bit tired from the trip we didn't negotiate the rate before hand, and he had no meter, so he completely ripped us off charging $R 20 for the 2-3km trip.

Our room was a twin with a shared bathroom, as it was the cheapest we could find that looked reasonable. We basically went straight to bed, though it took a while to get to sleep. We're not sure what was going on that night, but for some reason people with speakers in the backs of their utes kept driving by our pousada, while others let off fireworks. As Ouro Preto is a university town, we thought it might be associated to that? Fortunately we were tired enough to get to sleep!

We woke up and enjoyed our ham and cheese rolls with coffee for breakfast, then hit the town. We were only staying 2 nights here, so we only really had one full day to have a look around. Ouro Preto has a long history associated with it. It was once the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, and the centre of a gold rush that hit the area.

With all the wealth generated from the gold mining, the people did what all wealthy people would do, and built churches. The streets are constructed from very rough cobblestones, on steep and winding streets, so the town is a bit harder to navigate and is less organised than the other colonial town we visited, Paraty. Though buildings are more impressive in Ouro Preto and it functions more as a normal town, and less as a tourist haven.

We started the day by walking the streets, making our way up the hill via a few churches. One, (Assis), was supposedly very beautiful on the inside, but the entrance fee was quite steep so we didn't go in. At the top of the hill is the main square, Praça da Tiradentes, and another grand Baroque style church. We took a few pictures, and visited the tourist information to see if we could find out how to get to the old Passagem Gold Mine.

Unfortunately no one at the info spoke English, but we managed to ask how to get to the mine in Spanish. The guy pointed us to another mine that was in town, though that wasn't the one we were aiming for.

We decided to go to another tourist info we had seen on the bus coming in the night before. On the way we walked down one of the main shop/restaurant streets, then back up the hill to the tourist info. This guy didn't speak English either, but he had a brochure on the Passagem mine, and we managed to work out what bus we needed to catch.

We jumped on the next one that came by, and asked the ticket sales lady to tell us when we needed to get off. She completely forgot, but luckily we saw a sign to the mine, then just had to walk a short distance back to it.

The tickets to go into the mine were super expensive, $R 35 each (~$18) but we had come all this way, and it was one of the main attractions we wanted to see. You are taken down into the mine on an old rickety cable operated rail car that declines for 300 or so metres, to a depth of about 120m.

At the bottom, we got off and were signalled to walk around. We would likely have gotten some commentary if we spoke Portuguese, but instead we were just supervised while we showed ourselves around.

On one side was a large cavity with support columns. We could see large veins of quartz running through the walls, and from where we stood, several passages lead further into the 22kms of passages in the mine.

On the other side, we walked through a drive, at the end of which was an underground lake with astonishingly clear water. You weren't allowed to swim in or drink the water, though it looked safe for both. You could, however, go scuba diving into the waters, and from what we could gather this dive lasted half an hour and took you through 3 tunnels of the underground lake, that seemed to continue quite a bit deeper to what we could actually see. No one seemed to be diving while we were there.

Once we had explored all the areas we were allowed to, we made our way back up with our guide in the rail car. Back at the top, a shop sold all sorts of semi precious stones and crystals, as well as some really nice looking stone and copper cookware what was super cheap, but unfortunately far too heavy for us to backpack wth.

We then made our way back to town, and jumped off the bus near the other mine we had heard about. It was a much smaller mine, cut into one of the hills that the town had been built on above. We were really lucky that when we arrived, a tour guide who was there with his tour group and spoke English was able to show us through while his group were taken through by one of the actual mine tour guides.

With our pretty hair nets and hard hats on, we went in. For most of the passage, it was barely head height, or not even in some places, and only about 1m wide, all hand cut by slaves. We only walked about 100m into the mine, though it continued for about 4km.

Our "guide" explained how the mine was cut by African slaves who brought their mining expertise with them. Near the top of a drive, that delved off the side, there was a cavity that we were told the children were left in all day, without food, until their parents were able to collect them after a days work. We also heard how the slaves would hide gold in their hair, and if caught, their heads would be shaved and they would be hung. The men often took the blame for the women, and thus women were labelled "bad luck" in the mine.

Gold wasn't the only thing extracted from this mine. Pigments of varying colours were also gathered, and used to paint houses, churches and peoples bodies for African ceremonies. This mine, unlike the other larger mine we visited, is known to still have gold, however as Ouro Preto is a UNESCO listed heritage site, it cannot be mined. Neither of the mines we visited seemed particularly safe, but we made it out so we'll leave it at that!

From there, we walked back into the main square at the top of town. We were getting pretty fit by this point with all the hills we were walking up! It was late afternoon and we were pretty hungry, so we decided to have a bit of a snack and a coffee. We found a cafe called "Chocolates Ouro Preto", and it was a real gem! They had a few sweet and savoury snack options, all pretty cheap, and a "Cappuccino Ouro Preto", that was amaaazing. It had some kind of cocoa in it, giving it a delicious bitterness and sweetness at the same time.

We made our way back down the hill the long way to see what there was along the way. We found a barber charging $R15 a haircut ($7.50) so we decided it was time for Fergus to get one at a place called Fabio's, by Fabio himself! It was a bit nerve-wracking given our lack of ability to communicate, but Fergus decided the safest and easiest thing to communicate was short back and sides, so that's what he got!

With a fancy new haircut we headed out for dinner. We were in search of a pub we found online, but couldn't seem to find it, so ended up at a place called Spaghetti. They should have good pasta, right? It was busy, and we were given a table that was usually used as a service dumping ground of ready to serve pizzas and dirty dishes. After we ordered our pastas, we noticed everyone else was eating pizza, and wondered if it was a sign. It turned out it was, as our pasta's were pretty average! And we had to pay for average entertainment at $R7 a pop that wasn't playing when we arrived so we didn't know until after we ordered that there would be entertainment! One of the great Brazilian dinning experiences, you get charged for the entertainment no matter how good or bad it is or whether it plays for long or not during your meal.

We retired back to our pousada, and had a bit of a sleep in the next morning as our bus trip to Belo Horizonte would only be 2 hours and buses left hourly. This time we caught a local bus to the bus terminal rather than being screwed around by a taxi! We were on our way to the next destination!

LAPFWT