Pissing
Inclement
Churches
A short stop in Ouro Preto saw our wettest town to date. It is a colonial town, which in the past was the centre of gold mining and government. It has the steepest topography of any other town in Minos Gerais region - the elevated views of the city from the top were nice, but the grey sky and pouring rain did not encourage me to produce my camera as often as I would have liked. It was slightly apocalyptic (possible blogger exaggeration prerogative here!) as the rain was absolutely pissing down from the heavens and new rivers flowed down the narrow, crooked, cobblestone streets. Amazingly the stone footpaths, which looked absolutely lethal, they were very safe to walk on and not at all slippery.
Ouro Preto has 23 churches and most are within close proximity of each other. All are decorated with gold and the sculptured works of Aleijadinho, a Brazilian sculptor who was left badly disfigured from a debilitating disease and so continued to sculpt with a chisel and hammer tied to his fingerless hands.
Due to the inclement weather we only visited a few churches, instead taking refuge in cafes and pay-by-weight restaurants. While I sensibly wore a raincoat and waterproof trousers before embarking on the trip, foolishly I wore my water-loving trainers - in hindsight flip flops would have been a much better option. Within five minutes of leaving the truck I had pools of water in my shoes and was squelching around for the day. I also had to invest in a cheap brolly just to try and keep myself a wee bit drier, needed to avoid all the water gushing from gutters. When we got back to camp my feet were horrendously pruny in appearance. I'm surprised that none of us got sick from the superb drenching.
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