Dates of travel: 16 August 2014 - 24 August 2014
To Google Translate, I must say "obrigado!" for that title. For those of you at home, it says "One week in Brazil".
In August of 2014, my company sent me over to Brazil as a technical representative at an Iron Ore conference so we could do a presentation about our technology in the industry. I had been to a couple of Latin American countries before (also for work), but this was my first time to Brazil. I didn't know anything about the country really, except that they speak Portuguese and there are some nuts named after them!
The first fun part was getting there. From Australia, Brazil is a long way to travel, regardless of which direction you go. But because I had to go straight from Brazil to a different job in South Africa, I travelled to Brazil via South Africa first... return itineraries are cheaper if you come back by the same cities, you see! So I was in transit for about 46 hours:
Adelaide - Perth - Johannesburg - São Paulo - Belo Horizonte
Once I arrived, I transferred to my hotel, the Ibis Savassi. A very basic hotel, really, but Brazil is quite an expensive place, so basic is good! To the left is the view of Belo Horizonte from my room on the following morning; a beautiful blue sky to greet me on Monday 18th August, 2014. I was informed that, meanwhile, back home, the weather was quite average. Sorry guys! But what can you do?!
Belo Horizonte (pronounced "Bellow Hori-zonch") was settled because of the large iron ore reserves that exist nearby. The mountains that form a bit of a horseshoe around the city are chock full of iron, and the mining companies (specifically, the local big guys, Vale) take good advantage of this.
This photo shows an area off to the left of the photo above. It shows the super rich suburbs of Belo Horizonte; home to many of the region's richest folks. My guide informed me that the city was originally designed to be suitable for about 500,000 people. These days, more than 7 million people call Belo Horizonte home. As you can imagine, this makes for extremely busy roads, footpaths, and... well, just about everything!
A short walk from where I was staying for my week in Brazil, there was a Municipal Palace. Unfortunately, I could not get a good photo of it, as my cameras lens was too big to peep through the gates. However, across the road from the palace's front entrance stood this lovely avenue. From this photo, it really feels like you could remove yourself from the busyness off the traffic that is all around. Unfortunately, that is just the advantage of a still photo versus actually being there.
One of the coolest things I noticed while driving in and around the city was the abundance of street art. This example was the best one I saw and is, quite frankly, one of the coolest pieces of art I have ever seen. There are clearly some very talented artists in Belo Horizonte. I wish they'd allow more people to decorate Australian cities like this!
Of course, no trip to Brazil could possibly be considered complete without sampling some Brazilian BBQ! Now, Australians would likely argue that we are the kings of BBQ. And don't get me wrong - I do love a good old Aussie BBQ... but Brazil has us well and truly beaten, guys.
The more I travel, the more I seem to discover that Australia are the one of the only countries that resort to gas BBQs... and the more I discover the superiority of proper wood-fire cooking. This is the way Brazil, among many other countries, do their BBQing, and man is it delectable!
Of course, it is more than just the method that makes for a tasty piece of meat. There is a good level of cooking skill required, too, as well as access to good cuts of meat. For my Brazilian BBQ experience, my colleague (who happened to be from neighbouring Paraguay - how convenient!) took me to the very well known Fogo de Chao. This is a famous restaurant chain that has multiple sites across Brazil and even more in the USA.
We each sat down to at least 2 persons' worth each of beautifully cooked pieces of steak from all kinds of places across the cow. I never knew that so many different parts of a cow could be consumed and result in so much happiness! By the way... if you look at the picture to the left here and say it needs to be cooked more, well... you probably won't enjoy this so much! A succulent medium-rare is the only way to serve such beautiful cuts of beef, and Fogo de Chao do it brilliantly!
To complete my Brazil-food experience, on my last day, my guide took me to a buffet style lunch of traditional Brazilian food. This included a whole lot of bean dishes, salads, meats... anything you can think of, done Brazilian style. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the restaurant we went to, but I would hazard a guess that it was not unique.
And of course... who could ever think of going to Brazil without taking in a match of the World Game?? Well... I don't follow football (or "soccer" as we Aussies call it), but I was surely going to get in on that! Towards the end of my stay, I went with my colleague to a national game at Estádio Governador Magalhães Pinto.
The game we watched involved the local heroes who appear to be called Azul. Well, at least, their fans are known as the Mafia Azul, as seen by their ridiculously big banner!
One of the reasons I am generally not so much into soccer is that it far too often seems that these 22 guys run around for 90 minutes and nothing much happens. And unfortunately... this game was no exception to that stereotype! While there were a few semi-exciting shots on goal, there was no successful attempts for basically the whole game. When we got to about the 88 minute mark, my colleague and I agreed we should head out to grab a taxi and beat the crowd. We hesitated a couple of times, but eventually turned our backs and went down the stairs. And I kid you not... literally about 5 steps down the stairs, the stadium behind us erupted into a massive roar of cheers. We looked at each other and said "No way!", ran back up the stairs and found the home team had finally found the net. And this is what greeted us:
What an atmosphere! If only we'd seen the actual goal!
So, Brazil as a destination - yay or nay? It's a big resounding YAY from me! From the people to the food to the atmosphere, my one week in this Portuguese paradise was great fun from start to finish!
The more I travel, the more I seem to discover that Australia are the one of the only countries that resort to gas BBQs... and the more I discover the superiority of proper wood-fire cooking. This is the way Brazil, among many other countries, do their BBQing, and man is it delectable!
Of course, it is more than just the method that makes for a tasty piece of meat. There is a good level of cooking skill required, too, as well as access to good cuts of meat. For my Brazilian BBQ experience, my colleague (who happened to be from neighbouring Paraguay - how convenient!) took me to the very well known Fogo de Chao. This is a famous restaurant chain that has multiple sites across Brazil and even more in the USA.
And of course... who could ever think of going to Brazil without taking in a match of the World Game?? Well... I don't follow football (or "soccer" as we Aussies call it), but I was surely going to get in on that! Towards the end of my stay, I went with my colleague to a national game at Estádio Governador Magalhães Pinto.
The game we watched involved the local heroes who appear to be called Azul. Well, at least, their fans are known as the Mafia Azul, as seen by their ridiculously big banner!
What an atmosphere! If only we'd seen the actual goal!
So, Brazil as a destination - yay or nay? It's a big resounding YAY from me! From the people to the food to the atmosphere, my one week in this Portuguese paradise was great fun from start to finish!
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