Unfinished Business, finished

What were you doing back in Belo Horizonte I hear you all ask. Surely it wasn't just a nerdy need to travel for 13 hours on a train, was it?

No, it wasn't. We had unfinished business in Ouro Preto and, by golly, we were back here to take care of it.

We organised a transfer from BH to Ouro Preto and arranged to stay in the Grande Hotel. It's an Oscar Niemeyer designed concrete square box, the only 'modern' building in Ouro Preto, which has been a conservation area for many years (hence the capital of Minas Gerais being moved to the newtown of Belo Horizonte)

To get a view of the town, we stayed in a suite (which isn't as expensive as it sounds) and we have a lovely two-level apartment with a sitting area and balcony downstairs, a wooden spiral staircase and a mezzanine, bathroom and bedroom upstairs. It is very nice and light and airy. As seems to be the style in Minas Gerais, it is decorated in the seventies, but, somehow, this works. The bathroom is worse than in the Ouro Minas, the bed is OK, the windows don't fit properly but none of that matters. It just feels nice to be in. Hats off to Oscar.


Ouro Preto from our balcony

Anyway, staying in Oscar's house wasn't what we came here for. We had business to attend to. Whilst we were on our tour here a couple of weeks ago, T had spotted a ring that she liked. She'd decided against buying it, mainly because the rest of the people in our tour group were standing around as she was looking at it and trying to decide. Of course, as soon as we were on the minibus heading back to Belo Horizonte, she decided that she really did like it. So we decided to come back. The nerdy train thing was just a Brucie bonus.

After looking at the ring, going for a beer, looking at the ring again, deciding on buying it and then going back for another beer, I was sent to pick it up and pay for it. This I did whilst T sat chatting to a couple of English lasses that we met in the bar. The only English people we've met so far.


Business ... finished

We stayed in the bar until we could hardly stand then stumbled back to the hotel. I managed to fall down one of the hundreds of pot holes and scraped the skin off my knee. Nurse T cleaned it up for me, bless. Apparently I was a bit of a handful and insisted on sitting on the balcony when we got back. T finally steered me into bed where I lay comatose and snoring, apparently. I woke up feeling fine and T feels rough after a practically sleepless night. I've negotiated a late check-out and, as I type this, T is catching up on her badly needed zzzz.

Later this afternoon we'll be getting the bus back to BH and staying in a hotel near the airport, ready for our morning flight to Salvador via Brasilia.