Bella Belo
Trip Start
Feb 02, 2011
1
2
12
Trip End
Mar 08, 2011
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Our third day in Belo Horizonte and loving the time here, Glenio and his family can't do enough to make us feel at home and last night they had a barbecue at the house for Glenio's and Alini's - "my bride" as he calls her - families. The folk were all wonderfully friendly, telling us about the area, looking up places to go to on Google, Glenio's parents come from large families, 10 siblings for his mother and 11 for his father. There is an incredible number of medicos in his father's family and last night we had a neurosurgeon, an anaesthetist, an ophthalmologist and a general surgeon amongst the 25-30 folk who turned up. This simple old GP felt a little humbled. Delightful people one and all. Glenio's beautiful sister Alexia who is not married has been taking us around as have Glenio and his father. Yesterday we had a walk at Mangabeiras Park which is on top of a mountain overlooking the city of Belo Horizonte which has something like 2.5 to 3 million inhabitants. Glenio was keen to show us some monkeys but they proved to be in short supply. However there was dazzling array of butterflies which kept us occupied for 2-3 hours. We probably walked 6-7 kilometres on a road which is constructed from small pieces of rock and must have taken ages to make. Some of the original roads in the city were made the same way. The original city of Belo Horizonte was built in 1897 as the first planned city in Brazil, Brasilia is a copy of the plan for BH. It is built in very hilly countryside at an altitude of 800 metres and because of this has a much less humid climate than at the coast. It reached 33 during the day yesterday here and drops to the high teens at night when we sleep with the
windows open and enjoy the night breezes.
The food at Glenio's parents' table is superb with lunchtime being the highlight of the day. We haven't yet taken up the siesta habit and use this time to get the diary and photos sorted.
Saturday 5th Today is the wedding day and we will have a quiet time until the evening when the ceremony and reception take place in the city. There will be something like 300 people at the wedding. You can well imagine that number of Brazilians having a happy and noisy time.We have found the local people to be very affable and helpful and if last night is anything to go by we are in for great night.
Glenio is still the same vibrant, considerate, sometimes fiery and cheerful guy he was when he stayed with us. His "bride" is a nice girl who will likely steady him down and give him stability. We found her and her family to be kind and friendly. After the wedding plans are already in place for Glenio senior - he is named after his father - and his sister Alexia to take us to the World Heritage listed old gold mining town of Ouro Preto and then to stay overnight at Caraca where
there is a church and old monastery now converted to accommodation. There the priest feeds a maned wolf at night and this has become a tourist attraction. Really looking forward to those few days. Initially we were concerned that we would be imposing on the family but we have a suite of rooms at the back of the house which allows us our own time and Glenio's parents, Glenio and Maria, are attentive and kind all the time and since they are both retired they are
able to devote their time to showing us with great pride this part of their wonderful country. Last night we met the son of the neurosurgeon who had a homestay in Adelaide at roughly the same time as Glenio was in Brisbane. When he got married two years ago his Adelaide family came to the wedding too.
