This is the final installment of our Brazil business trip report!
After finishing our purchase, we drove to Auro Preto, a World Heritage city in the same state of Minas Gerais, by rental car to spend the little time we had left in Brazil. Again, we traveled nearly 400 km, but this time we dared to take the country roads instead of the main highways, which made the trip much more comfortable with fewer trucks.
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Auro Preto, whose literal translation is "black gold," is a gold mining town that was the scene of a gold rush when immigration to Brazil began.
The majestic churches in Brazil's unique Gothic style are located throughout the city, and are a nice accent when viewing the city from afar. On Sunday mornings, people in the neighborhood gather for Mass at these active Catholic churches.
It is a beautiful city and I would like to walk around a lot.
The entire town is built on a mountain slope, and basically all the streets are slopes. In addition, all the streets are covered with large cobblestone pavements, so the steep slopes in places are very slippery and difficult to climb up or even get down when it rains. It hurt....
Even if it wasn't raining, the sun was beating down and I was exhausted after walking 100 meters in a city full of hills.
I don't think I was able to fully enjoy this beautiful town.
There are also the remains of gold mines in the city, and churches are decorated with many kilograms of pure gold.
Visitors enter the mine on a working trolley that was actually in use. The trolley, made of only planks, is lowered down an unreliable narrow track by a wire, and it is a really simple ride. After descending through the hole for quite a long time, we arrived at the underground part about 300 meters below the surface.
The bottom part of the earth is a large space that has been dug up. When light shines on the exposed rock surface, it is not gold, unfortunately, but it is a beautiful sparkling mass of various metals and crystals of quartz, including a lot of iron and copper. It makes me strangely realize that Brazil is truly a country blessed with all kinds of minerals.
Come to think of it, the cobblestone pavements laid out in the city were also very shiny and glittering, depending on the stone!
Further into the cave, there is a large pond inside the cave, which is deep enough to dive in if you are so inclined (some people were actually doing it).
I can't, though, because I'm claustrophobic and, well, afraid of water.
After leaving the cave, the guide demonstrated how to collect pure gold. The actual rock from the cave was crushed into small pieces and slowly turned in a mortar-shaped trough with water,
Abracadabra... Ooops!
Only the gold with the heaviest specific gravity remained. Amazing!
In Brazil, this kind of primitive gold mining is no longer practiced, but when it comes to gemstones, open-pit mining is still the main method of collecting gemstones from the surface of the earth, and they are still sifted by hand or taken from the bottom of rivers. Such labor is the lowest kind of work in Brazil, and is called "garimpeiro," which is also used as a metaphor for a dreamer, but in reality is a symbolic term for a status that one does not want to be.
If you don't study hard, you're going to end up a gumbo of diamonds, covered in mud, every day!
In Auro Preto, many minerals other than gold are still produced near the town, and the world's only mine of Imperial Topaz, with its beautiful orange and pink color, is located near the town.
I HAVE A DREAM in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC!
The time passed quickly during our 10-day stay in Brazil, and it was finally time to return home.
The day before the last day, there was a big storm in Sao Paulo and Rio, both with power outages and fallen trees, but the flight to Sao Paulo, our departure point, was only slightly delayed, and it did not rain that much in Minas, and we had good weather throughout our stay. And with the strong Brazilian sun, I got so sunburned that I was afraid to stand on the store floor....
On the return trip, we spent one night in Washington, D.C., for a change of planes, and took almost three full days to return home safely.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. K. for accompanying me on this trip.
He was my classmate for 11 years in junior high school, high school, and college, and we traveled to dozens of countries together when we were in college. I was able to finish my trip to Brazil, an unknown country that I had been threatened with before departure, without incident.
We enjoyed our first trip together in about 10 years. Thank you.
