Nossa Senhora da Boa Viagem in Niterói

It’s one of those ideal spots for a church, or a fort. The tiny Nossa Senhora da Boa Viagem church, which has a long, storied history, has survived nearly 350 years perched atop a tiny island just inside the mouth of Rio’s Guanabara Bay.

And that's the Christ the Redeemer statue perch in Rio way off in the distance in the center of the photo.

You can see the church just across the water from our neighborhood Icaraí beach. It occupies what is now the background to the more popular photo of Oscar Neimeyer’s iconic Contemporary Art Museum building. I’ve always wanted to visit the site but it was either closed to the public awaiting yet another round of restoration work or the access gate was locked shut.

This access bridge to the island was built in the 1970s.

The rare day when this gate is unlocked.

It's a long way up a very old stone walkway.

Now that the church has been brought back to working order it is only open to the public one Sunday a month. This past Sunday was my chance to see it up close, and to get spectacular views of Rio, the bay and back at Niterói.

Originally commissioned in December, 1663, the church was eventually completed in 1734. Over the centuries it was expanded, burned to the ground, rebuilt, handed over from one custodian to another, abandoned, rebuilt, closed again and finally maintained by a local Boys Club chapter on a minimal stipend from the city.

It’s a cute, if nondescript, little chapel. This church is really all about location.

To visit the island and the church plan your trip for the fourth Sunday of the month. The gate is opened in the morning, mass is celebrated at 10:00 a.m., and then the gate gets closed up in early evening.

Two hidden mountain towns near Ouro Preto

Workers on break enjoying the view in Catas Altas.

Taking the back roads is hands down our favorite way to see Brazil in all its humble glory. Discovering tiny towns with their simple beauty, historic architecture, local pride, living history – and occasionally some fresh cheese or fresh sausage drying in the air to round it all off, count me in.

During our recent visit to Ouro Preto (OP) in Minas Gerais we identified two nearby towns worth exploring: Lavras Novas and Catas Altas.

Just 17 kilometers outside of Ouro Preto is the little town of Lavras Novas. It is sufficiently tiny and located sufficiently close to OP that for governmental purposes in modern history it has been incorporated as a “district” of OP, essentially a far flung neighborhood. But its history tells a much more rich and interesting story.

Founded in 1717 this mountain village served to shelter early gold miners. Historical reports indicate that gold was discovered in this area prior to it being discovered in neighboring Ouro Preto. The central chapel was erected in 1740. Over the years the gold supply dwindled and most folks relocated to nearby towns such as OP. But many stayed behind and worked farms and honed crafts like basket weaving and wood carving. Town representatives would take fabricated goods to Ouro Preto for sale and return with purchased essentials for living. Word is that the town was a rather insulated, hard to reach village living out a rather socialist/collectivist communal strategy.

One tale about the town that many dispute is that by the late 18^th century the town operated as a quilombo. Quilombos were towns and villages (even some cities) in Brazil that were refuges for freed and escaped African slaves and their allies. Most were located in remote, defensible locations that offered maximum safety and security for residents from those who would seek to capture and re-enslave them. Given the (then) remote and difficult to access nature of Lavras Novas and its long-time majority black population this tale took root. But others suggest that it was simply too near to Ouro Preto to have been an effective location for a quilombo and that its black residents were freed slaves choosing an alternative, more appealing community to OP.

Whatever the case may be, this present day town of about 1,500 people remains a majority black community that still sports a ridiculously, seriously rugged access road (which, unbelievably, sees daily bus traffic to and from Ouro Preto).

Our casual day trip took us to town just to look around a bit. The town has developed a pretty good tourist infrastructure with pousadas and several eco-tourism adventure services. The surrounding area is great for hiking and includes several beautiful waterfalls.

We just wandered around the central area and took pictures.

Always on the lookout for the unexpected, I spotted an artisan basket studio where we stopped in and bought a few dried gourd cabasa plant holders that Luiz envisioned as creative containers for flower arrangements. Out of the car window while leaving town I caught a glimpse of a sign on the front of a rather worn house that advertised fresh goat’s milk for sale.

Carlos was good enough to stop so we could inquire if they might have any goat cheese for sale. There was a little bell thingy at the front gate with a sign that read: “Ring bell and wait!” Luiz gave it a go and we waited. Rang it again. Then again. We were just about to return to the car when a young man appeared at an open window and called out. After some friendly chatter he offered to take a look in “the laboratory” to see if they had anything firming up.  Then… bingo – we scored. He only had one cake of cheese but he offered to sell it to us for R$15, a quite reasonable price. The next morning over coffee we discovered it was really yummy, a bit too fresh and mellow perhaps, but yummy all the same.

It was thanks to a tip from a fellow back roads traveler on a gringos Facebook group I frequent that I discovered the other nearby town of Catas Altas.  He had posted a link to these terrific images of the town. Carlos assured me it was a brief 70 kilometers drive from OP to get there, so we planned another day trip of discovery.

This place was/is beautiful. It’s plunked on top of the mountains with views in every direction. Typical for the region, Catas Altas was originally an outpost housing gold miners working lucrative mines (or rather, excavations) way up at high altitudes. Thus the name Catas Altas (high excavations). Local records date the original settlement to 1694. The first baptism recorded at the original town chapel was dated in 1712. Construction of the larger church that replaced the original chapel began in 1729. That building, occupying the main town square, still functions today and (in typical showy church fashion) sports a glorious interior that outstrips any other structure  in town in terms of extravagance.

The historic church in the central square.

Dogs in repose at church entrance.

Once we arrived in town we parked near the church and walked to various points in search of further exploration information. You know, the typical stuff: we talked to the lady at the bakery, chatted up the woman at the register at the little market, tried to get some useful information from the woman guarding the church entrance (and insisting on R$2 to enter – even if you just wanted to say a prayer), asked a few questions of the man selling aluminum pots and pans on the curb around the square, checked in with the gals at the pharmacy, and eventually spoke with the woman cleaning the local school library.

As the tourist office was unexpectedly closed (folks said they were surely exhausted from the Carnaval weekend and probably would be open again in a few days – haha), we had to shake down the locals for directions to the nearby waterfall we had heard of. With just one false start out of town and then two wrong turns past the water pipe filling the cows’ drinking pond we finally found the dirt trail of a road that took us to within a short walk of the waterfall.

The view back down to town from the waterfall spot.

 Aside from the waterfall, the town was pretty stingy with its treasures. I am often accused of chasing rainbows when I insist on looking around every corner in these small towns. But my experience has resulted in way more hits than misses in this regard. The really cool stuff (like the fresh goat cheese place) don’t just jump out and grab you. You gotta do some work, especially in places that don’t have a big tourism budget to help visitors find the residents’ art studios or the local historical society (if it even exists).

Public water fountain.

I did find a fresh loaf of sweet coconut bread sitting at the grocery checkout counter for just R$3. That counts as a good find in the absence of more obvious bits of interest.

After a thorough going over, a splash in the waterfall, picture taking and a fine Minas style lunch at a wood fire buffet we called it a day and headed back to Ouro Preto.

This is the delivery entrance to the town's appliance store.

If you plan a visit I must warn you that the mountain area surrounding the town is pretty torn up by big mining companies gouging into the hillside for iron ore. It’s pretty nasty. But fear not. Once you get close to the town the mining fades into the background and you are transported back in history.

Visiting Salvador, Bahia – simply amazing

Trying to write briefly about Salvador, the city that is in many ways Brazil’s cultural beating heart, is a bit like trying to introduce someone to Paris, or Istanbul or New Orleans. There is no short story about this place. Or better, the real story is a long story. Everything else is a simple glimpse, a narrow impression. A beautiful amazing glimpse, but by its nature limited in scope. Still, it’s all good. Here are a few impressions from our most recent visit.

The amazing bamboo cathedral lining the road to and from the airport.

Salvador has some serious history. The place oozes with it. The indigenous folks had been living in the area for goddess knows how long when the Portuguese stumbled upon them in 1501. Those first few encounters didn’t go very well for the Portuguese colonialists resulting in a couple of the early ones being eaten by the locals. Over time the natives (wrongly, as it turned out) warmed to the newcomers and eventually tried coexistence.

As most all of these historical tales go, the demands of the Portuguese crown pushed for the establishment of its own territory, Brazil, and then its first colonial capital city, Salvador, established in 1549.  The Catholic Church was down with that whole taking of territory thing as long as the Portuguese converted the natives to Christianity (adding that it was OK by the Church to enslave those native peoples who refused to be converted, and later, those of the tribe that had eaten Brazil’s first Bishop). And so a nation was born. (To read a more complete, still brief, but well compiled historical account, from which I have drawn these observations, go here.)

It is the history of Brazil’s African slave trade that cast the die of Salvador and as a visitor today you see it and feel it (and smell it and taste it) every minute you are there. The vibe is in some ways both ultimately triumphal as well as suffocating in its heaviness.

Salvador served as Brazil’s main port of entry for human slave labor, receiving nearly 1.3 million people. This one city in Brazil trafficked in more enslaved Africans than all of the United States. According to noted historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., the United States incorporated approximately 450,000 African slaves over the course of the slave trade while Brazil brought in more than 10 times that number at 4.86 million. And again, Salvador was the main port of entry. I encourage you to Google for hours and gather a rich record of this dark period in Brazil’s history and its impact lasting through to the present.

Luiz and I had been to Salvador some 11 years earlier. During that first visit we took care to explore many museums, churches, historical monuments and various neighborhoods. There is so much to take in to truly get some perspective on where you are standing. A decent visit takes a good week or longer just to dig in a little.  This time around we were keen to divide our time between just two locations: the Barra district, specifically Porto da Barra, and the central historic Pelourinho district. Our plan was to sit on the beach and relax, with a little sightseeing thrown in.

The view from our bedroom - for just R$70 a night!

Our friends Carlinhos and Du lived in Barra for several years a while back and gave us a personal referral to a friend of theirs who rents efficiency suites right on Farol de Barra beach (well, across the street from the beach). Lucky us! We had the PERFECT location. Our bedroom (plus a kitchen and bath) was on the second floor of a 1920s building with a view of the water. We literally felt like we were on the beach when sitting up in our bed. And to make it all better than perfect the rate was 50% less than even the cheapest near comparable room in the neighborhood. Brazil – it’s all about the personal connections.

The tiny beach in Barra gets its name from the adjacent lighthouse (farol). As beaches in Brazil go this one is quite small. But for urban dwellers and tourists alike it is a welcome respite from the otherwise crowded and cacophonous surroundings. Located at the tip of the peninsula that is Salvador and as such at the mouth of the bay which defines the region, the beach has a long history. The Porto Farol neighborhood is rich in historic architecture and includes several museums, forts and churches of interest.

There is as well a terrific arts institute with a gallery and gift shop filled with typical local artworks of superior quality at damn good prices. Visiting Instituto de Artesanato Visconde de Mauá is a MUST, if you are into that sort of thing. Forget about the mass produced touristy stuff for sale at the typically pointed out Mercado Modelo in Centro. Check out the Instituto’s website for more details and photos of the artwork available.

For the most part while in our snug historic neighborhood we stuck to the beach. On any sunny day this popular beach is cheek to jowl with chairs and umbrellas. Local folks fiercely work this patch of sand. Any number of guys will rent you some chairs and an umbrella, then keep you in beverages. Itinerant food vendors wander through the crowd with everything from empadinhas to frozen fruit pops to charred cheese or shrimp on a stick to roasted nuts. We ate an amazing plate of the local  favorite: acarajé. It was served up fresh and for only R$5.  I got the non-fried alternative abará. Don’t get me wrong, I love the smell and taste of dendê oil, which is central to the preparation of acarajé, but this boy has got to watch his calories. Luiz shared a taste of his so I could avoid total blasphemy.

acarajé

If you need more sunscreen, a hat, a new bikini, another conga,  a foot massage, or whatever else – there are folks to help you out with that. Have small kids? Need an inflatable splash pool for the babies? There was a guy renting those as well (inflated and filled to your satisfaction). And of course there was the colorful caipirinha bartender shaking them up bem gelada pra você.

Then periodically, just to remind you how nice he is and that he can get you a fresh cold beer or soda, the chair/umbrella guy comes by carrying a big garden watering can and cools down your feet with some sea water. Qualidade de vida, baby.

Over in the Pelorinho district things have changed since the last time we were in Salvador. In fact they have changed rather dramatically and for the better.

While I was blown away by how amazing Salvador is the first time I went there, I did pull back in the face of what seemed to be a constant barrage of pestering people on the streets seeking spare change or trying to get me to buy some whateveritwas item from their outstretched hand. As a tourist and additionally because I am a gringo I was targeted by locals to fork over some “extra” money in some way or another. It was annoying and exhausting and it extended beyond the boundaries of the Pelorinho tourist district. After dark when the streets were less populated it went so far as to feel unsafe. On this trip this situation was significantly different. We were practically never approached on the streets.

Structurally speaking the whole Pelorinho area has clearly been on the receiving end of development assistance to turn a slummed-out, abandoned, decaying district into a restored, revitalized and repopulated now-vibrant and safe(r) cultural district that serves both tourists and the local community. The change was like night and day. Pelourinho is back! Now there are museums, cultural centers, nonprofit organizations, restaurants and clubs, pousadas and hostels and shops, shops, shops. And a constant police presence to discourage petty crime on the street.

I have no clear idea how this happened aside from an obvious commitment from the city/state/federal governments to restore a cultural jewel (and designated UNESCO site). It is my hope that there has been some level of local input, shared opportunity and mutual reward for all stakeholders. But then, you know how that goes…  Whatever the case, the place is now a very desirable historic center that provides rich cultural experiences to both tourists and residents alike. There is a reason that every tourist should spend some time there while visiting Salvador.

Luiz and I wandered the narrow streets, enjoyed a couple delicious lunchtime meals, did some shopping for stylish summer wear and of course popped in to Mercado Modelo (mostly for a moqueca lunch with a view) at the base of the elevator that shuttles residents from lower to upper Salvador and vice versa.

So in summary (ha – even a simple glimpse of Salvador turns into a bit of a long story…), we loved visiting Salvador a second time and we look forward to our next visit. I, for one, cannot get enough of the rich African-Brazilian cultural vibe that permeates everything with pride and bravado.

There is so much to experience in Salvador it certainly takes multiple visits to take it all in. One (English language) website I found that offers a tremendously thorough look at Salvador, its neighborhoods, music, religions, architecture, history, activities – everything – is here. Don’t be put off by the smattering of self-promoting links to apartment rentals. A gringo’s got to make some money somehow.