Belo Horizonte and a loooooong bus ride

A few hours up the road is the sixth largest city in Brazil: Belo Horizonte (downright tiny after Sao Paulo and Rio).

(From here)

We didn’t really plan to stay for more than a day or two. Brazil’s almost European-level costs were pushing us over-budget a bit so Belo got dropped and was mostly just a stopping point to arrange transport to Foz do Iguacu. There is some cool stuff to see, especially architecturally if you’re a fan of Oscar Niemeyer who has a bunch of creations clustered in the Pampulha district.

A great side trip from the big city’s modern architecture is a visit to the prehistoric cave paintings at Gruta Rei do Mato. On the way there, we got another little taste of Brazilian Wisconsin with more cows grazing under palm trees mixed in with evergreens. I didn’t have any idea how far it was or where to get off but the driver was friendly enough to drop us on the side of the highway just across from the cave. So far, so good. We got some tickets and sat with some other (very) young couples waiting for the mandatory guide to arrive for the tour. Apparently the cave is dating hotspot because the only other people we saw there were teenagers giving each other googly eyes. The guide was great, a really friendly kid who was happy to practice his English for us. The cave itself is impressive enough but being able to see the 6000 year-old paintings (and a zebra monster - Xenorhinotherium bahiensis -skeleton replica!) was a great bonus and made me glad that we at least stuck around in Belo long enough to do make that trip. 

(Gruta Rei do Mato)

(From here)

(From here)

(The great Xenorhinotherium bahiensis!)

Getting back was a bit of a trick. We knew that the bus would go past on the road outside the cave but getting it to stop was a problem. We waited for about fifteen minutes and finally saw a green and white bus that looked like the one we came on. With my timid Canadian upbringing I weakly waved at the bus from the side of the road, sort of the way you might hail a cab. It blazed past. Ok, no worries, we had about an hour and half until the buses stopped going, which meant three to five more chances. Another one came. It was a different colour but I thought I should practice a bit and figured it might go back to the city anyway. I waved with a steady hand full of confidence, but again it wasn’t interested in stopping for us. My wife was getting a bit agitated by this point and fortunately we saw our tour guide starting to walk home. I went over to ask him if the buses did actually stop. While we were talking another one came and he leapt onto the shoulder of the road and started jumping around, waving and shouting. The bus missed him by about a foot as it barreled on, but it stopped about twenty metres down the road in a cloud of dust. We hurriedly thanked him for risking his life to get us home, and ran to catch our ride.

We celebrated yet another successful adventure with an excellent per-kilo meal at a shopping mall near our hotel. Brazilian barbecued everything with tons of different sides. I wish they had spreads like that in Canada so cheap.

After cave day came bus day and our first brush with the kind of truly long distance land travel that comes to define most trans-continent adventures. It was supposed to be 27 hours but it ended up being about 32. It was comfortable, and it stopped every once in a while to let us get food and stretch a bit, but there are only so many hours you can fill sitting on a bus. After you’ve looked out the window on and off for 3 or 4 hours, read for another 5 or 6, slept for 8, listened to miscellaneous songs on your iPod that you didn’t know you had for a few more sluggish ticks on the clock, and read again until your eyes dry out, you realize that you still have and 10 hours to kill. That’s when you’re about ready to die.     

(One of our many stretch stops – could almost be Canadian prairies if it weren’t for the slight hills.)

We didn’t die but it was a close one. It was around the 25 hour mark, just after I had reminded the remnants of my sanity that we must almost be there, that the bus started to splutter and jerk as we climbed a steep hill. It got slower and slower inching its way to the top. And then it never sped up again. Some part of our bus’s spirit was extinguished on that hill and with each hill that came after it, we could feel the bus gradually fading from this world. The driver stopped on the side of the road a few times to give it a pep talk and each time it started up well only to get even slower at the next hill. We crawled in to Foz do Iguacu a good five hours late and thanked Christ the Redeemer that we didn’t have to hitchhike. 

However, for our saintly patience, we were rewarded with a great hotel and one of the best meals of the trip. And a waterfall. . . yeah, that too.