Brazzil

By Brazzil Magazine

I am a cartophile; I love maps. Apart from my world atlases, I keep local maps religiously in alphabetical order in an old paper filing folder. And I have the most maps of Belo Horizonte than of any other city. I have maps from three different travel guides, maps from history books, maps given free by hotels and maps that come with the state tourism brochures. I have so many maps of BH (only Westerners call it Belo, locals use its initials: Be Agá in Portuguese), and I still manage to get lost in the place.

Originally I blamed it on my first map published in that early edition of a travel guide, which shall remain nameless. It had printed the mirror image by mistake in the way newspapers sometimes print photos and make you look out the window to check if cars in England still drive on the left or if, as the picture shows, they have changed the system while you dozed off. You can imagine the havoc such a misprint can cause to a new arrival. After hours of feeling as intelligent as a pair of windscreen wipers and an animated visit to the tourist office ("You have built the town wrong!") the penny finally dropped. But even with correct maps—and my collection now looks like overcompensation—I still managed to get lost. BH, Brazil's first planned city founded in 1895, does not just have a grid that crosses at right angles, but occasionally a diagonal street comes through, resulting in a six-way crossing, which makes following a straight line quite a challenge: oops, once more I have moved to another Avenida. What fun.

BH and me didn't start on the best of terms. It doesn't help that BH with its rapid post World-War II industrialization is a modern ugly city with its original features dynamited by developers. One of the nicer Art Deco buildings, the Old Market, Feira de Amostras Permanentes, was demolished in 1970 and the rodoviária—which I would get to know very well—built in its place.

With my backpack stiff on my shoulders and a late flight from Manaus behind me, I chose to walk the small distance from that very same rodoviária to the oddly named Hotel Ambassy (with an A'), which sounds grand, but ain't. It's at a rickety-rackety junction, ear-splitting with noise and brimming with danger, since the area around the rodoviária until at least the Praça Sete is one of the shittiest and crime-ridden in BH, with pimps, whores and drug-dealers monopolizing not only the night hours, but the daytime as well. Hell, I thought, I was only in BH in order to return to the rodoviária next morning to visit as cidades históricas of Minas Gerais.

***

There was a particular town with a cult reputation: one that had witnessed the first gold rush of modern times, the first to be declared UNESCO patrimony of mankind by Brazil—and it is the whole town, brimming as it is with baroque interiors and rococo façades, that is a monument, in the manner of Venice or Kyoto; a town which became the revered pivot of Brazilian independence and where for the first time art on American soil a colony surpassed the art—in poetry, sculpture and architecture—of the European mother country.

I had no idea what to expect, except that this town was crowned by the very distinctive peak of Itacolomi, a mountain everyone seemed to be searching for in the late 17th century. One group of paulista bandeirantes—settlers who organized expeditions into the interior to enslave natives and find precious metals—led by Fernão Dias, explored the junctions between Salvador, Rio and São Paulo for seven difficult years. Fernão Dias sadly missed out on his triumphal reception into São Paulo for he died on the banks of the Rio das Velhas in the autumn of 1681.

As a tearful son, Garcia Fernandes, led his father's mortal remains back to the town, the rest of his bandeira under the Spaniard Manuel Borba Gato encountered a royal party led by Dom Rodrigo de Castelo Branco who was supposed to take over. Strangely, Borba Gato was very adverse to relinquishing command—there was friction between the two men and in October of 1681 he murdered the royal representative and disappeared into the Mata Atlântica.

The inhabitants of São Paulo could not make head nor tail of such odd behavior, for Borba Gato had condemned himself to death: be it the gallows or the jungle. But Garcia Fernandes held the key to the motive: his father's group had accomplished the dream of the Portuguese ever since Brazil had been discovered. Green with envy at the immediate acquisition of the Spanish crown's Aztec and Inca gold treasures, begrudging the subsequent discovery of the silver mines at Potosí, the Portuguese had been impeded for two centuries by Brazil's unhealthy climate, inhospitable jungles and hostile natives in their search for treasure. The word was out: Borba Gato had killed the royal envoy, because the expedition had found gold. The West's first gold rush had started aptly with a murder.

Unfortunately Garcia Fernandes could not scout his way back and for the next 17 years the paulistas made various explorations into their northeastern interior occasionally reappearing with enough precious stones to keep the interest up—until a dark mulatto brought back some strange black pebbles. When he had them examined properly, the tests revealed rich gold ore under a thin film of black oxide. The news spread like a jungle hyperblaze: this black gold had been panned by the banks of a river under a peak which split into two: the smaller appeared like a boy: the Boy-Rock, Itacurumim in Tupi, or as it is now known, Itacolomi.

The Gold Fever

On the evening of the feast of St. John, on the 23rd of June 1698, a party led by the paulista Antônio Dias de Oliveira made their camp at the bottom of a valley covered in freezing fog. That June night was chilly to the extreme and the fires of the bandeirantes could barely keep them alive. The next day, however, brought the sun out which broke the fog and warmed their hearts as it revealed to them in all their astonishment that they had camped below the shadow of the Boy-Rock. The riches were now in hand.

Two years later, twenty after he committed the crime, Borba Gato gave himself up acknowledging that the game was over, but he was pardoned in exchange for more information regarding the location of various mines he had discovered. It was worth it, for he revealed the rich seams of Sabará which for a short, glorious period produced as much gold as the rest of the mines together.

The discovery of gold in Brazil was to change the course not only of the country's history, shifting irrevocably as it did the economic and political center of gravity from the Northeast (as even the capital moved from Salvador to Rio in 1753), but also the global balance of power. For the gold in the region that became known with the coldly efficient name of Minas Gerais (General Mines)—imagine Michigan called General Motors—ended up in England, paying for the new mass-produced goods from its novel Northern factories.

In the 18th century an estimated 80 percent of gold circulating in Europe came from Brazil leaving words like joannes—gold coins stamped with Portugal's Dom João V's portrait—still in English dictionaries. But the only thing that changed in Portugal, content to export olive oil, port wine and the gold to England, were the court caparisons. There was a reason for it. In the permanent shadow of Spain, the Portuguese ruling house of Bragança allied themselves with England by marrying off Catherine of Bragança with Charles II.

With the Treaty of Methuen in 1703 they attached themselves even closer to this new rising naval power: exports of capital from Portugal were freed and they found their way into England's new banking institutions which lent them to those Northern workshops. Later Dom João VI (the one who fled to Brazil) decreed that English products throughout the Portuguese Empire would attract only 15 percent tax. Even Portugal's own were more expensive at 16 percent while the rest of the world was on a prohibitive 24 percent. No wonder a certain Reverend Walsh who visited Minas Gerais in the early 19th century found there "Manchester cottons, Yorkshire woollens, Nottingham stockings, London hats and Sheffield cutlery". Brazil gold bankrolled England's Industrial Revolution.

Eventually, certain urban nuclei were formed: in Nossa Senhora do Carmo, which became known as Mariana; in the Vila Real de Nossa Senhora da Conceição do Sabará—unsurprisingly shortened to Sabará; and in Rio das Mortes, the River of Deaths—such a name just HAD to change, and the town became known as São João del Rey. The settlement under Itacolomi was rightly baptized Vila Rica (Rich Town) and ended up as the capital of the new captaincy of Minas Gerais. But it changed its appellation, in turn. Antônio Dias left his name to the parish which overlooks the peak he accidentally rediscovered. It joined the parish on the other side of the hill of Santa Quitéria which was called after Vila Rica's mineral: Ouro Preto—Black Gold.

That is the name that stuck.

***

The bus to Ouro Preto stops high above the city next to the tourist office. You don't notice the town until quite late, so I remember vividly the thrill of seeing the twisted peak of Itacolomi for the first time: so that's what the Boy-Rock looks like! I could imagine Antônio Dias letting out a winner's cry. But then the town caught my eye and held it wide open: this was not the stereotypical Brazilian landscape I had come to expect: no beaches, no jungle, no concrete-and corrugated-iron buildings, but gentle rolling hills and two-storey colonial houses, Mediterranean-style with fuchsia-red pantiles in the roofs

Your first baroque Brazilian town is special for its surpassing of expectations as you are bombarded with architectural splendor of the highest caliber. Perhaps, had I visited Olinda first, I might have thought otherwise, but on that first trip, after the wilderness of the Amazon and the shabbiness of Belo Horizonte, I stepped out of the bus onto Ouro Preto's narrow, roughly cobbled streets and felt as if I had walked right into a frameless Renaissance painting: I could be in 18th century Florence, or Sienna. There may be other great vista points in Brazil gazing down on man-made magnificence or supreme natural beauty, but that initial, mouth-watering moment of surprised shock still brings me goose-pimples.

The tourist office sold me another map and tried very hard to flog me a human guide, as well. I would have none of it as I also rejected their advice to take the bus to Praça Tiradentes rather than walk down the steep hill with my backpack. I zigzagged my way to the central square, every step a new vista and every house—two storey, large wooden door, square windows, painted windowsills—a gem; in our century of uniform housing and apartment blocks, the 18th century individuality in design of every single dwelling is poster-worthy. In fact there was a beautifully constructed poster that attracted my attention: Balconies of Ouro Preto and Mariana.

It could have been titled Meetings with Remarkable Windows: first floor French arched doors leading to a Mediterranean-style narrow balcony with lantern lights hanging on the sides, flowerbeds sprouting irregularly; railings ranging from simple horizontal beams to elaborate arabesques on sculpted soapstone; rectangular glass panes contrasting with elaborate shouldered arches and complex skewed fanlight designs; ceramic red, blue mauve, yellowish brown, sand pink, ink-blue colored grilles framed in glowing white. The secret of the beauty of Ouro Preto is its homogeneity: streets of terraced two-floor houses, all in the same style, and yet each one unique in character.

I took up residence in the Hotel Pilão facing the main square—an old colonial mansion with wooden creaking floors and ceiling tall enough to accommodate a training trampoline gymnast. As I walked out, my eye fell on the price list. This was not the figure I had heard—or had I heard correctly?

"250,000 cruzeiros for a single room? I thought it was 150,000", I asked timidly.

"No, it is 150,000", said the woman receptionist wearily. "It's such a pain rewriting the rates; we have put the list up to last a month. In the meantime we pretend we give discounts."

This was 1993, the time of spiraling inflation when the currency was the cruzeiro. So hard to come to terms with this mess even as a tourist, I reminded myself. I walked out into the wide space of Praça Tiradentes.

Something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

To my left stood the old Town Hall with central clock tower and its four sculpted muses; on my right were the winding stairs of the old governor's palace, now the School of Mines; in the center, a tall memorial to Tiradentes, the main Brazilian Independence hero; next to me stores selling precious stones, minerals and soapstone sculptures; opposite me restaurants, bars and taxis.

Something wasn't quite right.

Only when I started walking down the side of the Governor's Palace, armed with my map of the roteiro histórico for the arduous trek east to the Chapel of Padre Faria did it dawn on me that there was no church in the main square.

***

The gold rush found the Portuguese crown both unprepared and wizened from the Spanish plundering experiences of earlier centuries. It thus acted quickly to establish its authority to collect taxes. Dom João V, who was on the throne for almost half a century, acted decisively: there would be no foreigners in the region—and no troublesome Jesuits. Foreigners were only allowed in the early 1800s after the mines had been depleted and a small number of Jesuits only in 1745 to establish an educational college; but as they were expelled from Brazil fifteen years later, they did not acquire the domineering influence they had in Bahia or Pernambuco.

Central square, administrative buildings, no church!

One cannot comprehend the development of Minas Gerais and the character of its inhabitants without pondering over this isolation of Minas from the outside world and the freedom from the Jesuit ultra-conservative influence. It was the lay orders, led by the third order of São Francisco and the third order of Carmo who were going to be the motive force competing in extravagance, as the former included the mine owners and the latter the town grandees. The biggest effect of the absence of Jesuit influence was an explosion in artistry with minds freed from the bridles of proscription.

***

The church of Santa Ifigênia commanding a top spot on the Alto da Cruz was the first one I visited—if only to catch my breath after the tortuous climb. This is the part of town where the slaves lived. You can still tell from the uneven sharp cobble stones, the ever darkening color of the residents and the one-rather than two-storey houses that flank the eponymous street. No wonder, for Santa Ifigênia was the church built by the black slaves and class mobility is not exactly a phenomenon for which colonial societies are famous for. Legend goes further: it is supposed to be the church built by Chico Rei.

It is now we enter the realm of ghosts—and it will be hard to leave it, for in Minas they merge with the living as easily as they straddle the dead. Chico Rei is a mixture of a historical figure and a folk tale compiled by that great ethnographer, Câmara Cascudo. Mineiros have no doubts, however; walking around Ouro Preto, you'd be forgiven to think that his existence was as certain as the church he allegedly built: a sheet describing his life in minute detail is sold at the entrance to his haunted mine. The tale is an allegory of the changing labor practices in Minas—from harsh and horrid to lax and liberal.

As slaves were imported from Africa to work in the gold mines, the mineiros—many of whom were new, open-minded Portuguese arrivals—eventually realized that they were dependent on the skills and wills of their workforce more than the sugar-cane landowners who could treat their slaves as cattle and expect the same response. No, here, free paid labor with some private incentive proved rather more productive, especially as the years wore on and gold became scarcer: slaves were allowed to work extra hours to buy themselves off; a relative benign attitude came to prevail and a new consensus emerged, receptive to the new ideas imported by the sons of the scions of the community who sent them to study in Europe. But after all, maybe Chico Rei's story is so popular because, if not authentic, it is certainly one we'd all like to be true. So, I'm not going to cast doubt on it any more.

Chico Rei was an African King who was defeated in a tribal war and sold to the slavers along with his family and his tribe. His wife and all his sons but one died in the passage. Once in Ouro Preto he started working in the mines. He could have been one of the many Sudanese slaves who were sent in the mines from Africa. In 1735, a census taken by the authorities for a poll tax counted more than 100,000 able bodied men and women, a reminder that in the mid 18th century Vila Rica was one of the largest towns in the Western hemisphere.

Luiz Gomes Ferreira, a doctor, wrote his memoirs upon his return in Lisbon in 1735 and they provide a grim read about the original work practices of the mine owners. The slaves were permanently kept in the underground galleries—"there they work, there they eat, and often there they sleep and since when they are working they are bathed in sweat with their feet ever upon the cold earth the stones or in the water, they catch cold in such a manner that it develops into dangerous infirmities such as very tight pleurisies, palsies, convulsions, pneumonias and many maladies". The good doctor went on to prescribe a cure for asthma which will appeal to cat lovers everywhere: "powder of new-born kittens placed alive into a new pot which is to be put into the oven for them to dry until they can be made into a powder". But I digress.

The ex-King gained everyone's respect for he worked non-stop in his own time, on Sundays and festive days and earned the money for his release. He married for the second time, a black woman baptized Antônia and started to rebuild his life working in mines belonging to a Major Augusto. One day Major Augusto fell ill and on his death-bed requested a visit by Chico Rei—an act unheard of in Vila Rica as blacks did not walk into white men's houses. It was there that Chico Rei's luck changed. The ailing Major, impressed by Chico Rei's virtues offered to sell him the mine of Encardadeira.

Would you hesitate for long?

Chico Rei earned the fee for his son's release and together they both worked to buy off his faithful servants of old: Quima and Evumu who subsequently worked with him to free members of his tribe. It was thus that the King without a people became a new King amongst the freed black population of Vila Rica. On Epiphany, the day of the Three Kings, the populace of Ouro Preto still celebrates his memory by dancing the congado, a dance attributed to him. Chico Rei is said to have died from hepatitis in 1776. His son, Prince Muzinga, 15 years old at the time, was nominated as his heir. But then, the legend vanishes, like Chico Rei's heirs and his donated mine of gold. Or not?

I haven't finished with him yet.

***

A small street urchin started following me and two elderly Brazilian women as we entered the church.

"Santa Ifigênia was built between 42 and 49…", he started.

The two women turned and tut-tutted.

"What century my boy? It sounds like 1942-1949. What century? You must say 1742-1749. Say it", said one lady.

"The church was built between 1742 and 1749", he repeated slowly staring at the woman with apprehension.

"Good", she said abruptly and went in leaving the boy confused.

Santa Ifigênia could only have been built by black slaves. The spot is one of the best in Ouro Preto—high on a hill their church can't be missed from wherever you stand in town, a two-finger salute to their masters. The front is old-fashioned and austere, and looks more like an Olinda church than the rest. Inside it is full of the famous grisalha murals which were uncovered during recent restorations. They are subtle, monochrome scenes of everyday 18th century life: couples in love and guitar-playing musicians decorate the walls, a reminder of the life-affirming African beliefs—no wonder they were covered up later. I can picture 19th century prudes shouting "profanity!"

"The church is haunted", said the boy behind us suddenly, causing one of the women to scream.

The school mam tut-tutted again.

"Every church in Ouro Preto is haunted my boy", she said confronting the kid, eyebrows crossed.

This time, he didn't budge.

"When the church empties," he said, "the walls start to speak in old, African languages".

I looked around. The grayish images felt alive and creepy. The screamer woman seemed perturbed.

"How come you know if they speak when the church is empty?," confronted him the school mam.

The boy had the answer ready.

"You can hear the murmurs from the outside", he said.

The screamer crossed herself and dug in her purse for some notes.

"There", she said and winked let's-go to her friend. "Thanks for the information".

The boy looked at the notes and smiled the smile of the deceived.

Living with a 2500 percent inflation has many day-to-day effects which you only notice when you experience it. One of these is that you start upping your tips and your handouts to the beggars with notes of ever increasing value. So unless you are a real cheapskate and you pitch in last week's accepted rate, the poor see their intake increasing, so they never look glum when they check out your donation, even though it will be worthless next week.

Whether we wanted it or not, the kid took us to the chapel of Padre Faria whose interior is decorated more lavishly than its exterior would betray. This chapel stands next to a Pontifical cross and a modest, rare standalone belfry. It was built in 1710 by Padre Faria who found gold and abandoned his habit, in a rush to shelter the image of Nossa Senhora de Rosario which was taken from another makeshift church whose priest was murdered during Mass.

The ladies pointed at the odd-looking angels on butterfly wings, the church's ornamental claim to fame. It, too, comes with a tale and this one is recent: a worker is said to have found a hidden box of treasure when repairing a window in the 1970s. I wonder if this is what set off the wave of restoration work that followed.

Oh, who cares? I'm hungry.

***

Mineiro cuisine is one of these unexpected joys which make traveling exciting. This is bandeirante expedition-food, high in protein. The base is the feijão tropeiro, one of my favorites: black beans, manioc, bacon and eggs mixed together accompanying a range of meats: vaca atolada—ox ribs in manioc sauce, carne de panela—stewed steak, dobradinha—a kind of tripe, moela de frango—chicken giblets, rabada com agrião—an oxtail stew, costelinha com canjiquinha—pork chop in ground corn sauce, frango ao molho pardo—chicken cooked in its own blood in the manner of the Pernambucan cabidela, galinhada—chicken and rice stew, linguiça—primitive, meaty sausage; all served with a range of steamed or boiled vegetables like couve—finely cut salty kale, chayote, okra, pumpkin, cabbage and jiló, a cucumber-like bitter Brazilian green whose tang goes well with meat and, of course, different kinds of bean concoctions: molho de feijão com pimenta—bean pepper sauce, tutu de feijão—pureed stewed beans with manioc.

The sweets are, as in all Brazil, very sweet indeed and they tend to be transportable: stewed fruit: figs, oranges and crystallized citrus rinds, plus milky pulses like the exuberantly-named ambrosia—an egg-based sweet, the impossibly-named espera-marido ("Husband-wait!") another milk-and-egg sweet, arroz doce—sweet rice, doce de leite com coco—coconut-and-milk sweet: you get the picture; goiabada—guava marmalade chucks, doce de banana—a banana marmalade and rapadura: cane sugar in cubes. It sounds terribly unhealthy on the carbohydrate front, but it all stores well for those interminable bandeirante days on horseback through the jungle.

Not that I did any horse-riding, of course, but the hills of Ouro Preto make you feel tired as a horse rather than a horseman. I retired to Praça Tiradentes and sat down at a restaurant promising authentic tutu à mineira: a mixture of meats with kale and feijão tropeiro. In fact, outside the moquecas, this is the food I have also cooked at home. The taste of slight garlicky kale with meat stew and the wonderful mineiro beans is one I serve in London dinner parties.

***

I reached the House of the Auditor on the way to the Largo de São Francisco where I had to struggle with souvenir-sellers for dear life. This is where the poet Tomás Antônio Gonzaga lived; he had been appointed a kind of ombudsman—ouvidor—in Ouro Preto and at the age of 45 had fallen in love with 15-year-old Maria Dorotéia Joaquina de Seixas. I know it sounds like a dirty-old-man scenario within our 21st century morals, but 18th century population-expanding mentality had a rather simple motto: if you could menstruate, then you should be saddled with a man on the path to procreation. How old was Juliet?

Maria Dorotéia was visiting the house of her aunt next door, when she caught the eye of the poet who was struck by her beauty. He was in luck, for Maria Dorotéia responded positively—she must have been into Daddy types. Overcome with love, Gonzaga started composing stanzas for her that would in time form a long poem and to spare her blushes, he invented a love nickname for her: Marília, Marília de Dirceu, and that's how she has remained in folk memory since.

I passed Marília's bridge, another of Ouro Preto's delights—and sat by the chafariz, the sculpted fountain; both bridge and fountain works of art by themselves. Marília's house doesn't exist any more and a school has been built on its place. But this is the real fountain where the two lovers used to meet in those cooing and wooing days of 1788. Marília's family was not exactly over the moon for she had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth (and this is rather literal since a silver spoon, along with a jacaranda cot and a crimson damask bedspread appears in her inventory of possessions stored in the Registry of the First Office of Ouro Preto); they had better plans for their daughter than marrying a civil servant—worse, a poet: how much dosh can HE provide? Still, we can presume the teenage girl stomped her feet and threatened to die in the tradition of lovelorn teenagers throughout history and won her way. The marriage was marked for May 30th 1789.

It never took place.

It is here that tragedy assumes Casablanca-like proportions, for Gonzaga and Marília's lives were brutally caught in one of those political maelstroms which, in the words of the cliché, really was larger than both of them. It is the 1789 Conspiracy of Vila Rica which defines Brazilian patriotic sensitivities to this day—the first independence movement in Latin American history: the Inconfidência Mineira.

Secret societies were the rage in Europe at the time, from the hedonistic Hellfire Club in London and its famous orgies, to the nationalistic Friendly Society in the Balkans which would become the fulcrum for Greek independence. Gonzaga belonged to such a society with the independence of Brazil as its central cause. It was inspired by North American and French Enlightenment ideals—of Man as Responsible Citizen, of no Taxation without Representation and of Reason as the Measure of all things. But it was not just that. Apart from the unfair taxation as the gold diminished—the tax was imposed on assumed extraction—it did not pass unnoticed in Brazil that the colony accounted for 60 percent of Portugal's exports, that it could not trade independently with other countries but only through the metropolis, that it was not allowed printing presses, so it could not print books or pamphlets, that it could not establish schools of higher learning and that it could not build its own industries.

This secret society had penetrated the cream of intellectuals of Vila Rica amongst them another poet-magistrate, Claudio Manuel da Costa, whose house can also be visited, a second lieutenant, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, who was known as Tiradentes (Tooth Puller—the Portuguese language can be rather direct at times), as he had a knack for dentistry, and José Joaquim de Maia who had been corresponding with Thomas Jefferson. The latter had replied with a cryptic remark: a revolution would not be uninteresting to the United States', probably the first ever comment of a long list of US interference to come.

Make no mistake: this was a narrow movement of the elites: slavocracy and aristocratic inequality would continue; the choice of slave-owning Thomas Jefferson as a contact in the US was not accidental. A true French-style revolution occurred in 1798, in Bahia with an elected government, equality before the law, and abolition of slave trade on the agenda. Unfortunately, the lack of printing presses necessitated the handwriting of pamphlets and the—admittedly dim—ringleaders were caught They were all executed However, the names of Lucas Dantas or Francisco Moniz mean nothing to Brazilians today, because post-independence the elites, still attached to monarchy and still dependent on slave labor conveniently celebrated the failed insurrection of their own.

A secret society by definition can only be betrayed from within. The Judas of Brazilian nationalists is Colonel Joaquim Silvério dos Reis who did rather well out of it: apart from the obligatory medal, he got a life pension and had his debts written off. By design or by accident, the authorities stepped in one week before Marília's marriage was due and arrested Gonzaga along with the other principal conspirators. They were imprisoned in the Treasury—the Casa dos Contos—and then in the Ilha das Cobras in Rio.

They were put on trial and condemned to death—but their sentences were commuted by that mad Portuguese Queen Maria. Tiradentes, claimed to be the leader, was unrepentant in his principles and he was the only one to be executed. It has not escaped the historians' attention that he was the only one not of noble birth and without any friends in high places. Indeed, his claims now cling strange: a lowly second lieutenant, a dentist, leader of the town aristos? The most likely leader was da Costa who was suicided' conveniently so that his family would not have their fortune sequestered or considered infamous until the fifth generation.

Still it was Tiradentes who took the rap. He was hanged and then quartered; his head was placed in the main square of Vila Rica, now named after him, where his monument now stands, and he became the symbol of Brazilian independence, with statues, piazzas and streets named after him in every town. His day of execution, April 21st, is a national holiday throughout Brazil, fully eclipsing the day after, April 22nd, the day Cabral discovered' South America.

The remains of Tiradentes, as of all fifteen original conspirators, including Gonzaga's, are buried in a mausoleum on the first floor of the old Ouro Preto Town Hall, now the museum of the Inconfidência. This rises nobly on the south side of the square, focusing the eye on its central clocktower and its soapstone decorations: Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude. As it used to be a gaol as well, it has double bars on windows on five-foot-thick walls and solid wooden doors.

There is a portrait of Dona Maria, the Mad Queen, in what looks like a 1960s beehive hairdo and, yes, she looks positively loopy. (I bet the Brazilians chose the painting specially).The museum, with a rather steep entrance fee, inflation or no inflation, also contains Tiradentes' English watch, a piece of his noose (*shudder*), a photocopy of his sentence of execution and various other documents (like a warrant for the continuation of the interrogation of Tomás Antônio Gonzaga') ; this is the closest to a Brazilian Heroes Pantheon as can be. Me, I can't bring myself to swallow that a whole country worships a dentist, for God's sake. The profession either conjures up giggles as I think of Steve Martin's performance in the Little Shop of Horrors or evokes painful images of drills, scrapers and jaw injections with needles that would frighten wild horses. It just doesn't do it for me.

Marília's tearful fate does.

Instead of being executed, Gonzaga was exiled to Mozambique. Marília tried desperately to join him—there are letters to the Governor of Minas Gerais begging him to allow her and her aunt to leave for the African colony—but she never did see him again. Gonzaga fell critically ill upon arrival and was nursed back into health by another woman, Juliana de Souza Mascarenhas whom he eventually married in 1793 upon his convalescence.

Marília didn't marry. She remained a spinster until the grand old age of 86—proving that the mineiro diet is not that unhealthy.

She adopted and raised a boy, Anacleto, a love child of her sister's conceived outside of wedlock. To her death, however, she remained a virgin, withering faithful to the memory of her youth. But unloved she was not. Gonzaga's stanzas became the best love poem in the Portuguese language, famous throughout the Portuguese-speaking world. No less than sixty different editions exist of this widely translated poem, first published in 1792 in Lisbon and even Pushkin was moved to compose a version in Russian of stanza #71 based on the French translation of 1825.

You see, Marília remained true not only to Gonzaga, but to the whole image that had been created around her, a Greta Garbo before her time; and that is why the fascination remains. Dom Pedro II, the Emperor of Brazil, requested and visited her house twenty-eight years after her death. "I went to see the house of Marília where a chair and the clothes hanger are preserved in the alcove where she slept. They have cut down the pine trees at the bottom of the little orchard ", he noted in his diary.

Marília was buried in the church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, which she visited all too frequently one would assume; in a typical streak of Brazilian romantic compassion, her remains were moved to the Museum of Inconfidência, where she lies close to her beloved Tomás Gonzaga in death, as she could not in life.

***

Dusk was setting in. I looked at my watch. Maybe I can fit it in.

I got up from Marília's fountain, crossed the street and turned right before the Largo Antônio Dias. There, past another small bridge is the haunted Mine of Chico Rei. In 1946 ground subsidence revealed a sealed mine in the area where the Encardadeira might have been—again you sort out the fact from the fiction since this is Ouro Preto and I'm already overwhelmed. What I can tell you is that in order to reach the mine I had to duck under the wide-leafed plants of someone's garden and cross to a private house yard where an unmanned reception desk awaited me.

"Anyone here?"

Talk about haunted.

"Anyone here?"

I walked past the desk—the ticket office?—into a patio. A small white statuette of a minstrel which I assumed to depict Chico Rei stood next to a rather modest cave-like opening.

"Hello?", I shouted again. No answer.

A sparse set of light bulbs was lighting the main gallery. I decided to go it alone.

Where were the owners?

I walked in and the welcome, cold air surrounded me, chilling my skin as my own sweat stuck on my T-shirt and turned frosty. After about 30 feet, Ouch! I bumped my head and caused a minor subsidence.

I remembered how it was discovered. The ground had given in.

Did someone die here? Is this why it's haunted?

This is an old mine, indeed. The supports seemed more and more primitive, the deeper I entered, and the ceiling ever lower. Five minutes in, I walked squatting.

A spotlight on the wall pointed at a seam. I checked. Can't be gold, of course, it would have been mined out already. Maybe fool's gold.

The air became warmer. I looked to my right—there was an arch leading to another gallery. Where does the warm air come from? I went in carefully. Pure Dark. Can I get up and rest my legs? I can. Can I stretch them? I can.

I had better not stray from the light in case there's a hidden shaft.

After a few minutes in that dark side gallery, I heard the murmurs.

At first I thought it was the sound of water nearby, an underwater rook, or seepage. But then I distinguished the timbre of individual voices with characteristic Brazilian nasality.

The mine is closing. A party is probably returning from a guided walk. Wait here and join them.

And what if I frighten them, and cause an accident?

John, don't be silly.

So why aren't the voices getting any closer?

I said, don't be silly!

I left my Pure Dark chamber and walked into the narrow illuminated main gallery.

The voices had stopped.

Mines are full of vertical ventilation shafts propagating sound from the most improbable places.

I know that, but I'm splitting anyway.

***

I went to bed early that night, in the colonial mansion that was my hotel. First I had to settle a dispute between a French couple and reception.

"Can you explain to them that they have to pay 50,000 cruzeiros extra?, asked the receptionist politely.

The French told me that they had left one backpack in the hotel, toured the region all the way to São João del Rey, came back for one night, were given the same room, but the hotel charged them more now than before.

"It's inflation", I said. "They change the prices almost daily".

"Inflation", the man said in perfect English with a Gallic gesture of defiance. "Inflation—that's what they say when they want to rip you off. It's license to charge whatever they want. We have only been away for one week."

"How long have you been in Brazil?" I asked.

"We arrived in Rio a few days ago and took the bus here. About ten days".

"Do you not notice any difference when changing money?"

"We changed all our money when we arrived".

Dear, dear. The French had not inflation-proofed themselves by keeping their dollars, and they were feeling the pinch like Brazilians whose capital was being eroded.

I had an idea.

"Why not consider the 50,000 as a tip for keeping your backpack", I ventured Solomon-like. "How much would you have to pay in a guarda volume?"

That threw them. As I walked up the stairs to my room, they were talking amongst themselves in low voice. I winked at the receptionist.

***

That night I had strange dreams. Dreams that woke me up at night in time to hear the floorboards creaking and the window grilles beating on the slightest whiff of wind.

Funny how night is never quiet in Ouro Preto.

Forget the history of murder and betrayal of Ouro Preto's foundation, the tales of Chico Rei and Tiradentes or the tortuous passion of Marília de Dirceu: there is one thing Ouro Preto is famous for: its baroque and rococo. Hovering over them is the architect and sculptor Aleijadinho: the first American-born genius whose personal tale of even greater suffering and glory reigns supreme in Minas Gerais.

My first glimpse of Aleijadinho's work were the wooden sculptures in the Museu da Inconfidência, and like every visitor before me, I was a convert: you immediately know that here was a grand master at play. The cedar statues are not life-like, though many, like the statue of St George, complete with spear, are life-size, but they are highly individualistic in style—almond-eyed, hair obsessively undulated, clothing sharply pleated and expressions out of the Eastern book of spiritual countenance rather than the optically accurate canon of Western Renaissance.

If there can be a comparison, it is with another unique stylist who brought Eastern elements in his line: Aleijadinho's sculptures are like El Greco paintings come to life. Like Bernini, not only was Aleijadinho a sculptor, but he was also a grand architect who advanced the Baroque he inherited into a graceful rococo.

I started from the other far end: to the Western old Ouro Preto parish and Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos. In the Catholic church of times past, there was a kind of saint's apartheid operating. Nossa Senhora do Rosário was the Madonna of the Blacks accompanied by a set of African-born saints: Santo Elisbão, São Benedito, Santo Antônio do Noto and Santa Ifigênia. The latter was a slave's church; this was more of a multicultural one.

A book tells us of the fraternity's orders of 1715: Article 1 states that "Every person black or white of both sexes, free or captive, of whatever nation who wants to become brother may come to the fraternity's registry to apply." Article 2 reminds us that this is a black church though: "There shall be elected a King and Queen, both black, of any nation, and they will help and be present in festivities" The educational superiority of whites at the time is betrayed in Chapter 3: "There shall be elected two judges, one male and one female, both black, freed or slave, a secretary and a treasurer, both white and a black proctor to administer the fraternity".

In tune with such liberated thinking the exterior of the church consists of a radical elliptic front—like an athlete proudly blowing his chest, tucking back his shoulders to the point where the two bell towers hover, facing a courtyard of the best-looking and best-preserved complex of residential houses in Ouro Preto. Had Nossa Senhora do Rosário been situated anywhere else but in this feast of baroque art that is Ouro Preto, it would have been the top attraction in town.

The walk down the Rua Antônio de Albuquerque past the simple chapel of Bonfim—where the last rites for those about to be hanged were administered—did take me to one of the jewels in the Crown of Ouro Preto: the Matriz of Pilar, built in a traditional Latin cross, heavily laden with precious metals: a full 434 kilos of gold and 400 kg of silver have been used to ornate the interior. From the Bohemian crystal chandeliers—donated later by Dom João VI—to the illusionist painting of the lamb on a cross in the ceiling (echoes of Salvador's São Francisco ) and the eight silver angels to the painted ceiling, this is exhibitionist, extravagant baroque: when the Matriz do Pilar was started in 1733, the riches of Vila Rica seemed inexhaustible.

Gothic was the style of the Catholic church administrative: unquestioned, ultimate arbiter, superior to secular rule, arrogant and haughty; baroque was the style of the church in conflict against the new Protestant minimalism, overvenerating the Madonna, displaying its opulence to overwhelm the faithful through ornamentation; rococo was the church re-triumphant, a holistic requiem like the new symphonic music that was emerging, but now the saint was a sinner—threatened and uneasy. Rococo did not really take root in Spain, but somehow it did in Portugal and found its peak in Brazil's colonial gold-mining towns.

If we want to find a reason, we have to return to the gold rush which brought the best Portuguese artists to Minas. Aleijadinho's father, Manual Francisco Lisboa was registered for his license to work as a carpenter in Vila Rica in 1724. He was an architect and a sculptor in his own right and there are payment records showing that he was a major team leader of the church decorators. So how did he do? Far too well, is the answer.

Some observers quoted by the town historiographer Lúcia Machado de Almeida feel that "in this Matriz, with its profuse wealth of decoration in gilded carving there is a real orgy of the baroque, a touch of the profane that hinders devotion, suggesting a ballroom where minuets are heard, rather than litanies". Normally I walk into a church and take off my black sunglasses; in the Matriz do Pilar I almost had to do the opposite.

I walked out to face a trio of young German tourists. They were sitting in the yard dejected—two of them were short blond and cute and one of them, tall brown-haired and cute who was close to tears.

"Scheisse", I heard him say shaking his head.

One of the short cute ones looked at me. Our gazes crossed.

He was Günther and his other short friend was Berndt. The tall, distracted one was Thorsten. They were from East Germany. (West Germans are called things like Michael, Nick and Andy. It's the East Germans that are called Siegfried, Dietmar and Wilhelm). And of course they were wearing well-worn jeans. I looked up the steep hill that awaited me to reach Nossa Senhora do Carmo and decided to sit down with them for a chat.

They were University students in Leipzig University and had taken advantage of the recent German reunification and the good conversion rate to blow their savings for a trip to Brazil to satisfy their chronically suppressed wanderlust.

"We traveled to Sao Paulo, Iguaçu and made our way on the coast to Rio", Günther said. "It's so beautiful. Have you been? Oh, we had always dreamed of coming to Brazil and it's so much better than we thought".

"You came from Rio?", I asked. "I'm making my way there slowly. Did you stop at São João del Rey?"

"No, we came straight away. It's a seven-hour bus journey to Ouro Preto. We're going back tomorrow".

"It's fantastic so far", said Berndt. "except that…"

He pointed at Thorsten.

"He can't get into the churches", he added.

Thorsten looked at me plaintively with his hurt, puppy brown eyes and broke my heart.

"Why?", I asked.

"He's got shorts on."

Ahem, I had noticed. He was wearing tight jean shorts hugging a callipygian behind, showing off a pair of long, muscular, hairless legs.

"They won't let me in the church", he moaned.

"No", I refused to believe it.

They all nodded "yes" gravely.

"They're THAT religious?", I repeated shocked.

They all nodded "yes" in a rewind of the previous scene.

I turned to Thorsten: "You haven't got any long trousers?"

"He left them in Rio", said Gunther. "We only came to spend one night".

I shook my head. "Oh, no, you are missing the second most gilded church in Brazil after Salvador's São Francisco."

"I know! They haven't stopped telling me", Thorsten hissed murderously.

I changed the topic.

"Where are you going next?", I asked. "Up?"

I pointed at the impossibly steep climb to Nossa Senhora do Carmo.

They nodded yes.

"Well, let's all go and have a drink somewhere", I proposed. "You tell me about Rio and I'll tell you about the Amazon".

***

Aleijadinho has become such a legend that despite ample historical record, (we have for instance his signatures on his invoices and a biography in the mid 19th century where his still living niece collaborated) there has been controversy even about his existence—surely the highest accolade for a man who would be myth. One of the unknowns is his birth date: either 1730 (going by a possibly wrong birth certificate) or 1738 (what most modern historians accept) counting back from the age on his death certificate in 1814. Whatever: he was born Antônio Francisco Lisboa of mixed race, a mulatto, from one of his father's slaves, although the father freed him at birth. He was unmarried, but there is a record of a son of his with one concubine. We have no idea what became of his offspring.

He learned his trade from his father who had three more legitimate children: two daughters and a boy, who became a priest; Brother Felix also dabbled in woodcarving—two of the black saints in Nossa Senhora do Rosario are attributed to him. It was his father who was the main influence on Aleijadinho, and it was his father who put his stamp on the architectural harmony of Ouro Preto proper: he was the architect of Santa Ifigênia (Chico Rei's church), the Matriz of Antônio Dias, and had a hand in the Matriz do Pilar amongst others. He soon became such a respected—read rich—figure in the town that, as records show, he was elected a member of the fraternity of the exclusive Third Order of Carmo on Christmas day, 1746.

This very church of the Carmelites stands high on the side of the Museu da Inconfidência—Aleijadinho's father started it, but he died soon after and his son, only 28, continued to finish it and produce his first exemplary monument. This early two-tiered physiognomy of the façade became Aleijadinho's trademark: the door, an upper central fanlight and its two lateral, subordinate windows are embossed under curved transoms, flanked by triumphant cherubic angels, under makeshift heraldic crests in floating, delicate soapstone reliefs; individual elements being subordinate to the overall theme deciphered only by the onlooker.

Inside the church has six side altars with Aleijadinho-supervised or Aleijadinho-made dramatic sculptures. Blue azulejos add the final, tessellated touch in a harmonious interplay of diversity with the paintings of Brazil's master of frescos, Manuel da Costa Ataíde, Brazil's top painter who, like Aleijadinho, stamped his authority in Ouro Preto.

Thorsten couldn't get in. We tried to describe it, but with our sparkling overawed eyes, we only made it worse.

"Drink?", I smiled.

"I don't want to sit down anywhere", said Gunther, who was the most bubbly, talkative one. "Can we not find a Coke machine or something?"

I looked at him surprised.

"Have you seen many drink-dispensers in Brazil?", I asked.

"Well,", Gunther answered after a while. "We haven't exactly been looking".

"We have been camping everywhere except Sao Paulo and here. We've been doing our buying in supermarkets", said Thorsten.

"There are no drink machines in Brazil", I said. "Inflation".

They looked at me not comprehending.

"Inflation!", I repeated. "Prices change every day. How can you operate coin-operated machines in such an environment? Especially if there are no coins. "

My small speech silenced them. Capitalist countries obviously had some of the problems Communist propaganda had been preaching with a megaphone. Thorsten scratched his head, got up and innocently bent over for a stretch. I checked. He was not wearing any underwear.

I had an idea.

Sigh. I was so bad when I was younger.

***

In 1777 there is a chilling entry in the annals of the Church of Mercês e Perdões on whose construction Antônio Francisco Lisboa was working. There is a charge of 1/2 oitavo for two blacks whose task was to transport the master. It's our first indication that his illness had struck.

There has been a mountain of paper speculation regarding what debilitating misfortune hit Aleijadinho at the age of 39. Was it a venereal disease? Was it deformative neural rheumatism that made him scream with pain? Surely the symptoms not far, far more severe—imagine: a master sculptor begging his slaves to amputate his malignant fingers with a chisel.

Was it leprosy that turned first his legs and then his hands into stumps? But if, so, how come he was not shunned by the townsfolk and was eventually buried inside a church? Was it porphyria as a recent exhumation—rather inconclusively—suggests? Was it a Faustian pact with the devil—a romantic tale created by Saint-Hilaire after his trip in Minas in 1816: did Antônio Francisco Lisboa drink a potion of an elixir called cardina to enhance his senses and reach even greater heights of artistry—a strategy that backfired, turning him into Aleijadinho—'little cripple', the name he bequeathed to history?

***

The receptionist gave me the key to my room and looked questioningly at Thorsten. Had it been night-time, I wonder if she'd say something stroppy. This is a city of the faithful, after all.

I walked up to my room heart beating faster and faster; Thorsten followed me, head bumping on the top of the staircase.

"It's really nice of you, John", he said. "Even if it doesn't work, I really appreciate it".

"Oh, don't mention it", I said, swallowing hard, trying to hide my excitement.

"No, I really appreciate it", he said.

I opened my door and went straight to my large, wooden, closet, probably stemming from the time of Saint-Hilaire.

"Wow", said Thorsten sitting on my bed. "It's huge."

I turned around: "What's huge?"

"Your room".

My brain was otherwise engaged. "My room? Yes, it is."

I opened my closet and took out a pair of blue jeans.

"There", I said and threw them on the bed, "try them on".

I stood next to my window, pretending to look out, my peripheral sight catching Thorsten struggling to slip out of his tight shorts. He was getting into mine when I turned and caught him facing me, naked from the waist down, my jeans still around his ankles.

"Oh", I said a bit TOO readily and stared at him intensely.

Thorsten froze in time for a split second, as my unspoken question traveled through the ether and vanished in his expressionless stare, but he went on to pull up my jeans rapidly. They fitted.

"YES", he said waving his shorts in the air.

My only reward was a sexy grin.

***

Thorsten left me, Gunther and Berndt to stroll down the Largo do São Francisco while he ran off to check out the churches he had left behind. This might be the best-looking square in Ouro Preto—if square' this sloping, irregular clearing could be called—had it not been for the permanent local craft market of gem-sellers, street-painters and soapstone carvers.

It is during the construction of this church of São Francisco that Aleijadinho fell ill, and yet it's his ecclesiastical masterpiece. He composed the ornamental portal, the high altar, the chancel retable, the six side altars and their statues (the Blessed Heart of Jesus and Mary and of São Roque standing out), the soapstone pulpits, even the remarkable baptismal font in the vestry, depicting a blind human figure: a truly fantastic piece of work. Had it been in Rome, say, it would draw the crowds; instead it is cruelly hidden in the back of a church, its existence only known to a few. Perhaps it is the very inaccessibility of Aleijadinho's work which makes him a cult figure: you have to struggle to get to admire them.

The exterior is pure perfection, from Aleijadinho's own hand without any contribution from pupils; the portal decoration blends with a medal in place of the fanlight above a complex composition of St. Francis receiving the stigmata on a mountain: a typical, sumptuous baroque chorus of shapes and figures: metaphysical, idealized, dramatic. The whole façade is flanked by two circular belfries ending up in sharp spires.

Inside the white and gold of the altars contrasts with the red ceiling, Ataíde's best work depicting Nossa Senhora da Porciúncula, a half-breed Madonna surrounded by mulatto angels. His chancel paintings depict the life of Abraham—and I could not help smile noticing the oh, so mineiro cutlet on the table of Abraham's supper. But it is part of the miracle: artists cut off from Europe by geography as well as administrative laws, created their own vision. European rococo ended up draining the audience like an interminable heavy metal guitar solo; the Minas artists remained the master bluesmen who never lost sight of the maxim that craft is subservient to art. As Germain Bazin, a curator of the Louvre and expert in Minas art wrote with characteristic French syntax: "the works of genius of Aleijadinho enliven with lyrical breath and reviving energy baroque art, which in Europe, by then, had been thoroughly exhausted through formalism and virtuosity".

***

We caught up with Thorsten later. Wide-eyed and hopping-happy, he insisted on buying me a beer. We sat in a luncheonette in the Rua Direita for drinks which turned naturally into dinner. No one can exhaust Ouro Preto in a few days in the same way no one can eat a royal banquet in a few sittings—and then richness of the sauces can sometimes overwhelm. We were all suffering from the Stendhal syndrome, normally experienced in Rome and Florence: running confused by sensual overload.

The first time we saw prices was when we got the bill—the menu simply stated the food whose price changed constantly, rendering any kind of listing obsolete as soon as it was typed. Some restaurants did struggle masochistically with prices or updated them periodically with an attached sheet showing the multiplier: what you see plus 60 percent to correct for inflation. I did some mental calculations to figure out if it was cheap—back in Manaus it was 20,000 cruzeiros to the dollar and it was 22,000 by now—it was cheap. Very cheap!

We were ready to leave when the waiter arrived with one of those large, unwieldy noisy calculating machines with a print roll and large buttons. We couldn't understand anything he was saying.

"He wants us to pay more", said Berndt.

Our ears pricked up. Berndt was right.

"It's wrong, it's wrong", the waiter kept saying and smiling embarrassed. "It's 1,000,000 more".

Hey, it's not often you parts with an extra million even if it is in cruzeiros. I checked the total from the printout—it was what we had paid and had left a tip on top.

"Please add it yourself", he said.

"Manually?", I asked him with surprise.

"Yes".

"He's right", exclaimed Berndt.

I did the sum, checked the calculator total and recoiled. The machine had overflowed and had truncated the sum to six digits. Inflation had finally caught up with it.

We looked at each other. The food had turned expensive. Or not? We went back to the calculator and tried dividing by 22,000. No luck. Can't tell. Jeez, what a pain. We had to drop the last three zeros. Hm, the meal turned out not that cheap.

"There", I showed the proprietor. "Why not ignore the last three digits and perform your addition then".

He smiled one of those gringo-doesn't-understand smiles.

"We correct the prices every day", he said. "We use all five digits".

Ah, indexation.

"You need another calculator", I said. "Or rather a full-scale computer".

The waiter smiled condescendingly at the patronizing gringo.

"The DDR had its faults, but this was not one of them", said Berndt. "This is madness".

It was madness.

***

The timetable of buses between Ouro Preto and Congonhas was very inconvenient; it only allowed me two hours in the town. In fact, I had already decided to return to Belo Horizonte instead, and take the direct bus to São João del Rey rather than wait with my backpack in bus stations interminably for connections from Ouro Preto.

During the two-hour trip I had ample time to ponder over yesterday's events; how I had woken up early to catch the local bus to Mariana with the Germans. I remember their distress: they had expected a small town, easy to stroll in, quickly explored in a short time. Instead, we had arrived at another Ouro Preto. Mariana has the same style of architectural harmony, the same 18th century air and a similar abundance of sights, only with fewer tourists and more easy-going folk: Thorsten's shorts hardly caused a stir. It could be of course, because there was no one around.

This was the first settlement in the area and the first capital of Minas; its first bishop, Manuel da Cruz. arrived from Maranhão in 1748 crossing 4000 kms of the interior. It took him 14 months; it is a miracle he survived. He did well to reach Mariana, for his cathedral, Nossa Senhora da Assunção is the third richest decorated church in Brazil, and possibly the best of all three in terms of aesthetic synthesis. The funny thing is that its exterior is old-fashioned: colonnaded, rectangular, stolid; nothing prepares you for the gilded splendor of the dark interior with not one, but three rather tastefully naves. It was there I said goodbye to the Germans. I couldn't just follow them, run off and peek inside the churches just to say I've ticked them off: I had time.

My bus stopped. Time to change for Congonhas…

I had met the Germans running again frantically in the distance as I arrived in the main square of Mariana which has a complex of buildings surpassing anything that can be found elsewhere: a Town Hall in the style of the Ouro Preto School of Mines and two churches by the two main lay fraternities; São Francisco and Nossa Senhora do Carmo vying gracefully and coquettishly: "Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Prettiest Of Them All?" Mariana church of São Francisco boasts a monumental portal by Aleijadinho's atelier, while the one on the Carmelite church tries to imitate his style but ends up like a mockery, with a set of perfectly symmetric, and rather camp, podgy angels—whereas it is the slight asymmetry in the design that normally provides his baroque delights. But ultimately the round, pointed belfry towers save the Carmelite whole.

Whatever the merits or not of the edifices in the square of Mariana, another UNESCO patrimony of mankind, there is only one focus: this is a city with the original pelourinho. There it is, the monumental stony pole complete with slave shackles and with the image of blind justice, watched over by the solemn and unfeeling eyes of the four church windows. Mariana's Cathedral overlooks the slave market; its two main churches the place of castigation of slaves. Bishop Manuel da Cruz did not see anything untoward in this—like all good Catholics he accepted the institution as a natural state of being. Popes blessed it: Nicholas V gave the go-ahead with his papal bull Dum Diversas to the Portuguese to enslave the heathen back in 1450. This has been a no-go area for the Vatican since later Popes condemned the slave trade but accepted that slaves could exist in tied servitude, since the Bible provides many examples and quotes and it was after all, the Curse of Ham'; as late as 1866 the Holy Office issued a statement in response to Abraham Lincoln's emancipation declaration saying that slaves could be bought and sold legitimately as it was in tune with natural law. Only after the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888 did Pope Leo XIII issue the encyclical In Plurimis welcoming the measure, providing a selective history of the Catholic Church's stance. That encyclical rather falls flat on its face in Mariana's main square.

The bus started maneuverings into the small rodoviária.

At last. Congonhas do Campo. Yet another UNESCO cultural site in Minas Gerais, and undoubtedly the most spectacular.

***

Whatever Aleijadinho's disease, its results were grim. His teeth rotted away and fell. His lips retracted; his lower jaw dropped and gave him a sinister expression of ferocity. His hands ended up resembling stumps. He gradually lost his sight until he turned completely blind. He could not walk and was transported by his slaves: Maurício, Agostinho, who were both sculptors, and Januário. He started wearing a blue cape that wholly covered him, special shoes on what remained of his feet, and a brown broad-brimmed hat to hide his face. He became irascible, short-tempered, self-conscious about his ugliness. And throughout all this, pain, constant pain—for 38 long years. Even earlier, he is on record complaining that the Carmelites paid him with counterfeit gold; his advancing disability and the deaths of his slaves probably rendered him subject to exploitation. His family abandoned him and left him—except for his niece, who nursed him during the last, terrible, bed-ridden years of his life which he spent in abject poverty.

There ends his life, but here starts the legend, for he continued to work—in Sabará, São João del Rey, Ouro Preto. The myth of a handless master sculptor was created by European traveler-explorers starting with Saint-Hilaire. And it is half-blind, in constant pain, with mallet and chisel tied by Maurício on his wrists that Aleijadinho produced his breath-taking Gesamtkunstwerk of Bom Jesus in Congonhas. His story is either a triumph of the indomitability of the human spirit or a proof that Faustian pacts do, after all, exist.

***

The first thing that strikes you about the church and sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos is the setting, which has inspired travelers much worthier than me including the poet Oswald de Andrade who called the complex: "a Bible of soapstone bathed in Minas gold". The basilica stands on a hill, representing Calvary, with just the blue sky in a backdrop, flanked by tall and thin palm trees, their green leaves crowning the composition below. Six chapels containing no less than sixty-six, magnificent life-size polychromatic cedar sculptures by Aleijadinho representing Jesus' martyrdom, crook their way to the main porch. But these—astounding as they may be—are still just the hors-d'oeuvres.

At three levels in the church courtyard lies what has been boldly described as the best baroque ensemble of statues in the whole world: Aleijadinho's pièce de resistance: twelve Old Testament prophets carved in grey weathered soapstone, positioned carefully and symmetrically to each other in what Germain described as choreography akin to an act of ballet. At the entrance level, a thick-bearded, hooded Isaiah points forcefully at his scroll of prophesies flanked by proud Jeremiah demanding respect. Higher up a regal Baruch (a surprise choice from the Apocrypha) and Ezekiel, wise and graceful, a gallant Daniel on a dragon-like lion, which betrays the sculptor's sources: more T'ang Chinese than African Kalahari. The pathos reaches its apotheosis on the third level: Joel questioning, apocalyptic, severe, Jonas looking inquiringly to Heaven, figure carved boldly from a single monolith, with a creature on his feet, more of a sea monster than a whale; Hosea, inscrutable, reflective, with a deformed right hand hidden by perspective from the viewer as the prophet is placed in the far left…

Deformed?

The crowning achievement of the ugly, little cripple who started half-blind on this monumental work at the age of 69 and went on to toil for a decade, is that his illness is molded in with his prophets. They are anatomically wrong, or in some cases positively malformed, but it is these imperfections that create the overall grandeur of pathos, wisdom and agony. While Europe was disappearing up its arse in rationalist verisimilitude, the message from a small village, difficult to get to and almost forgotten by the world at large, is that it is the unspoken passion and emotion in art that moves us rather than arrogant scholasticism. Hovering above Aleijadinho's prophets is the spirit of the master, speaking allegorically about his own plight: "Here I am, a life slowly strangled by disease and steeped in anguish, but there is my legacy which has the power to make you feel my pain".

I checked over my shoulder. Who says that statues can not talk?

***

My own haunting came later that night.

I returned to Belo Horizonte and the Hotel Ambassy—with an A', needing as usual to change money. This was such a hassle; it involved wading through a mass of paupers outside the bank who were trying to beg off you any last remnants of change; shady characters who were opportunistically preying upon your distractions; young men whose employment involved waiting permanently in queues. In such an environment a tourist causes a big commotion and draws unwanted attention as the news of his arrival spreads rapidly to the nearest favela.

This time I encountered plain hostility from the woman employee: thin, bespectacled, stereotypically annoying, she looked at me with barely disguised contempt: the dirty, young gringo was flashing his money about—who does he think he is?

"Wait there", she pointed at a chair as she disappeared with my hundred-dollar-bill.

I waited for so long, I started worrying about a frame up. What if she returned with counterfeit money and a policeman? She wouldn't need one specially—there were enough armed guards around to start a revolution with more success than the Inconfidência Mineira.

After half an hour, I went to another till to enquire. Was the lady faxing the Federal Reserve to check the serial number? The yawning employee ignored me. I sat down gritting my teeth, determined to win the war of attrition.

The woman came back after fifteen more minutes. She was glum as if disappointed I was going to walk away with it. I wonder what tests my 100-dollar bill had been subjected to. She gave my two- million-plus in four freshly-printed 500,000 cruzeiro bills.

I refused them.

"I want fifty and twenty-thousand bills", I said. "No one will change those. They are unusable".

"We don't have any change", she said curtly.

The blood went to my head.

"You have no change? What is this—a grocery store? You have no change? You are a bank for chrissake. MAKE SOME!"

"Mal educado", spat the woman and turned her back to me.

I walked up to her.

"Listen", I shouted. "You are not doing me a favor! I am the client. I demand my change in lower bills".

Confrontation with the bank is not something that comes naturally to a Brazilian. Everyone stopped and stared. One of the armed guards came closer. He asked me what was happening.

I explained.

"I gave her $100 and she paid me back in 500,000 notes", I complained. "Look! What am I going to do with these? Do you have any change?"

Even the guard understood my plight, because he didn't intervene further. I changed tack. She had signed some papers in triplicate. Now, I'll show her.

"I WANT MY MONEY BACK".

She was doubly cross now.

"You can't have your money back", she said. "The transaction is complete".

"It's not complete if I am not happy", I pounced back. "I WANT CHANGE OR MY MONEY BACK".

She was stuck now. Signatures had been procured.

"I WANT TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!"

She stood up.

"Give me the money", she ordered me.

That's it! I won.

I gave her my cruzeiros. She opened a drawer, took out a bundle of 50,000 notes, counted it and then casually threw the money on my feet contemptuously, like giving alms to a beggar.

This was the only time in my life I wanted to hit a woman.

Composing myself under the watchful eye of the armed guards, I picked it all up and left with only a mal educada você".

With delayed shock, I stormed blindly through the crowds of Afonso Pena and yelled at reception in Hotel Ambassy ("Why the HELL do you spell it with an A'?" ), cursing the woman and the bank, the hotel and the noise, this crazy country and its inflation. I stayed in bed convulsing from the humiliation for hours. I tried listening to my Walkman without effect. I walked to the TV room, but I couldn't understand the Portuguese. Back to my room I tried to sleep and calm down in vain. By then it was dark and my stomach was rumbling.

I walked out into the uninviting, dark and unseasonably chilly streets of Belo Horizonte. The town got a reputation for good and healthy weather in the 1920s and attracted the sick and infirm from all over the country; looking around, they were still there, at the end of the century, living ghosts, shadowy figures standing around small bonfires, an army of destitute silently lamenting their fate. This was urban, undignified poverty on a mammoth scale; it felt like India. I made my way back to the bus station and its fast food outlets. I bought my pies, drinks and sandwiches and ate them on the spot. Munching in the street attracts the hungry and they are capable of anything.

Is it just the inflation or is this country's whole social fabric gone to the dogs?

My chest was still aching from suppressed rage. I took a left out of the station. Trash. Mountains of smelly trash. Filth. I took another turning towards what seemed a shopping mall. Deserted. Better the light of the bonfires. This could be hazardous. Darkness everywhere.

Where am I?

I looked up. Rua Curitiba. Where's that?

I still had a can of Coke. I tried to pull the ring. It broke in my hand.

Damn! Does nothing work in this country?

I passed by a huge pile of garbage. I hurled the can aiming at its middle.

THAT'S FOR BRAZIL!

I heard a noise behind me, as I walked away; I turned my head.

And then I froze, as the rubbish slowly rose and talked to me.

***

I returned to Belo Horizonte eight years later during Brazil's 500th year, a little after the journey which forms the backbone of this travelogue. This time I had more money, so I stayed as far from the dreaded rodoviária as I could: I got a good weekend deal in an apart-hotel in upmarket Savassi with its posse of illuminated restaurants, clubs and late-night bars. From my 11th floor window I could have a look on the exceptional horizon that gives the town its name—it is encircled by the Serra do Curral and its jagged peaks at dusk and dawn convey to Belo Horizonte the air of a tropical Denver, Colorado. I wanted to give the town a second chance and in the buffet of the restaurant Caldo de Minas in the corner of Rua Sergipe and Santa Rita I re-discovered the wonderful mineiro cuisine—although meatiness can be a disadvantage if you are stuck behind a mother and her small boy. She was fishing chicken pieces from a galinhada casserole.

"Do you want this?"

"No", said the little boy ready to cry.

She stirred the pot and picked up another piece. "This?" "No".

"This?" "NO". "This?" "NO" and then, to the dismay of the rest of us in the queue, he added:

"I want the other one".

The mother panicked. "Which one?"

"The other one".

She started again fishing chicken pieces: "Was it this?"

"No". "Was it this?" "NO"

Ah, we could play this game for much, much longer…

Yet once more I needed to change money and I walked into the bank closest to me in Rua Sergipe. Some things never change: I was informed that the bank charged $20 on every transaction so I had better go elsewhere. Banks really don't like customers here, do they? Anyway, I didn't need to advance to much. A guy had heard me inside the office and offered to change the money on the spot. Eight years earlier this would have been a transaction fraught with dangers; in this new Brazil it was routine.

For inflation did come under control in the mid-90s with Finance Minister's Fernando Henrique Cardoso—later President FHC—Real Pan which, much like the Euro program, introduced a new currency, the real, by working gradually and changing people's expectations first rather than shock them into submission at once. But then Brazil tied its currency to the dollar at a rate 1:1 which became unsustainable. Jeez, Brazil for a few years became expensive—but that's a story too far.

Savassi with its high-rise luxury apartment blocks (attached garages for every resident) is plush, rich, self-assured attracting young revelers who party in its bars and clubs. The choice was staggering: there was a piano bar, straight out of a 40s movie; a reggae bar decorated Jamaican style with hammocks to lean back on from your seat; a cocktail bar where shelves and shelves of books vied for your attention of the belohorizontino beau monde; a three-floor mansion on top of a hill converted into a restaurant with the clientele absorbed in board games; a video bar serving a range of Margaritas, and a gay club, Mix-Excess—mentioned with pride in the state tourist brochure—whose extravagance put anything in Rio or São Paulo to shame. I counted 30 multi-point lasers on three megalights revolving around the dance floor composed of lit squares straight out of Saturday Night Fever. Is it because the city is still so ugly? But diss not Belo Horizonte: we have to thank it for becoming the new capital of Minas, drawing the developers and so keeping Ouro Preto pristine.

Still, some things never change: it took me two days to find Mix-Excess, as long as it took me to locate—in spite of my maps—the Praça da República where many of the old Art-Deco buildings of Belo Horizonte still remain, including a typically brash and unusual construction by Oscar Niemeyer. There were beggars and street kids lazing about, but the crumbs that have filtered down to them from Brazil's industrial advances in the years since I'd been there had turned them less hostile or threatening for unemployment is down, way down. There are jobs coming into Minas, the second most industrialized state in Brazil after São Paulo: Volkswagen, Fiat and Mercedes, Nippon Corporation's Usiminas steel works, state-controlled industries like the electricity company CEMIG, arms industries, mineral companies extracting zinc, bauxite, phosphates, diamonds, precious gems and, still, gold. A whopping 40 percent of Minas economy comes from industry and 50 percent from services, with agriculture down to only 10 percent.

I hopped on the 2004 bus that took me straight to the city's main monument—the audacious modernist church of São Francisco on the shores of the lake Pampulha, universally acclaimed as the best example of Niemeyer's style. In this, he abandoned the gigantesque favoring the intimate, although he was criticized for the absence of functionality. Blue faience tiles adorn the whole of its multiply parabolic front and the sparse inside, with a discrete mosaic motif of fishes and doves alternating on a color scheme based on brown and blue. In the interior, another parabolic Picasso-inspired mural focuses the attention in the absence of an altarpiece whereas the pulpit is set on copper panels depicting the Fall, with a very sexy naked Adam, curvy buttocks on the wrong side of decency, and a very naked, surprisingly unbusty Eve.

But this is Minas after all: it's cursed.

It may have been Adam's buttocks or it may have been the mural of São Francisco with a mongrel dog on his right—which some took as symbolizing Satan—but the Archbishop of Minas refused to consecrate this church for more than a decade, and it remained on the shores of the lake unblessed, unfunctional and unvisited. Even after the authorities' volte face—the second liberal and liberating Vatican council had intervened—and the church's inauguration, it still has the air more of a museum than a place of meditation; the locals never took it wholly to their bosom. And yes—folk superstition gained credibility in the early 1980s when a murder occurred there during a literal blood wedding: one guest killed his cousin because of a financial dispute.

Some things never change, indeed.

This time I also traveled to Sabará, which has a good count of Aleijadinho churches. It was there in 1850 that Francis Castelnau fuelled the myth of the Little Cripple even more vigorously, as he exaggerated: "The door of the principal church in Sabará was made by a handless man". There were the same recognizable names: Nossa Senhora do Carmo, with its well-known soapstone frontal composition that is the mark of Aleijadinho—Nossa Senhora do Rosario, an unfinished ruin of the church of the black slaves; Nossa Senhora Matriz de Conceição in a small square where people were attending mass overflowing into the street. There was none of the picturesque motor-vehicle unsuitability of Ouro Preto's winding streets; was it the proximity to Belo Horizonte or had Ouro Preto changed, too?

I grimaced involuntarily as the bus back from Sabará took my down the side of the bus station. It seems it's my Sisyphean task in this world to return again and again to the Belo Horizonte rodoviária. Hotel Ambassy—with an A'—still existed and looked outwardly less grim although the noise level outside had increased; the side streets were full of cheap restaurants, kiosks with dirty magazines, and low-grade street life; Pássaro Verde was still the line for buses to Ouro Preto and Mariana leaving almost every half an hour.

Every half an hour…

On the spur of the moment, I bought a ticket leaving early in the morning, returning later the same evening. I'd spend another day in my favorite city in all Brazil.

***

When I saw the peak of Itacolomi and the town of Ouro Preto spread below it, I stepped out and back into my own dreamlike déjà vu. I sniffed the crispy mountain air, looked wistfully down below and felt those goose pimples again. The city map in the tourist office was more expensive at three reais, but the offer of a guide sounded all so familiar. This time, I did take the bus signposted Padre Faria', which ran down and up the narrow stony streets like a rollercoaster; it took me down to the very bottom of the town—to its fin-de-siècle railway station inaugurated by Pedro II in one of the last acts of his Emperorship.

Praça Tiradentes was shockingly full of people and buses; tourism was now internal as Brazilians with more money in their pockets started discovering their country. Hotel Pilão was still there; the restaurants on the Praça were still serving tutu à mineira; the bars on the Rua Direita where I had spent a night with the Germans were all there, as I remembered, but seething with clients; and the entrance to the Museum of Inconfidência was still expensive, but hell, I visited it again, for my knowledge of the history was so much more complete.

I walked to the side of Nossa Senhora do Carmo. A bunch of backpackers were chatting, sitting on the stairs. A girl wearing shorts was taking photographs of the floating, delicate portal relief carefully with a long zoom lens. Had they let her in? I mused, before I entered. Dear God what opulence. Even though I knew what to expect, the multiple focal points all insoluble into one whole, still had the power to amaze.

I went to the Casa dos Contos and happily spent time in the money museum—this time my Portuguese was so much better—I could read and understand the inscriptions and the brochures. I stood silent on the ground floor where, during these tumultuous days of 1789, the Count of Barbacena jailed the conspirators before their dispatch to Rio. I knew so much more, but I was missing something.

It's the magic—the magic has gone. Is it the town or is it me?

Nossa Senhora do Rosário, further out and a little less in reach of the tourist buses was much more serene and the house with the balconies and their freshly-painted window grills brought back the picture of my own, quiet Ouro Preto. I noticed a kiosk was selling the very same poster, of windows arranged geometrically, ever the winner. I walked down to the Igreja Matriz do Pilar with its 424 tons of gold and strolled inside heavy-headed. I walked up the steep hill of Santa Quitéria up to Praça Tiradentes—and oh, Goddess did I ever come this way before? Was I fitter, chirpier, abler in body? How did Aleijadinho's slaves carry their master up this slope? They must have been as fit as horses—correction: more fit than horses.

I took a look at the Largo São Francisco with a density of ten craft artists per square inch mobbed by an interminably thick crowd of souvenir hunters—one always wants to recollect Ouro Preto—and took fright, so I took refuge inside the cathedral. Scaffolding reached Ataíde's grand ceiling set for restoration and the six statues on the three lateral altars had disappeared. I heard a murmur of disappointment behind me. Well, I had seen them last time. Wait! Does that count? Should I not care because I'd seen them before although I can't remember them exactly?

I crossed the Largo quickly and entered Tomás Gonzaga's house, the House of the Auditor, as this is the only place with public toilets I had found in Ouro Preto. Students from the School of Mines were ubiquitous on the entrance; a nice little earner during holidays. The students of the University are spread over town in fraternity houses called repúblicas. Nação Zumbi music stormed loudly out of the windows of one such república: Uma praieira', shouted Chico Science referring to one of the Recife uprisings. "Uma praieira".

Why am I waiting for something to happen? Nothing ever does.

On Marília's fountain, some sweet soul had placed a red rose, and remarkably it was still there, a few day's withering not having affected its appeal. But in the meantime I had found out that she is not lying next to her beloved Gonzaga; he's still buried in Mozambique—for some reason his nephew's remains were moved into the museum tomb instead.

Too much knowledge is a bad thing.

In the slave barrio of Antônio Dias, I walked into a bakery for a pie and saw the local newspaper headline. A petrol station Auto Posto Sorriso would stop its 24-hr operation because of repeated hold-ups.

"The robbers were surprised by the arrival of a police car and they fired back with a revolver 38 special. There was a real gun battle on the early hours of Sunday. They arrested three of them".

He shook his head. Crime had arrived in Ouro Preto.

"There have also been robberies in a sandwich shop and the Banco do Brasil. This never used to happen".

Nossa Senhora da Conceição is next to Rua Aleijadinho; the approximate location of the master's house should be between current #2 and #8. One shop in the corner selling crafts claims to be the one. Why not pretend it is? The church hosts a small museum containing the pick of Aleijadinho's statues, including a stunning São Francisco de Paula and two lions similar to Daniel's in Congonhas. Funny that he of mixed race always sculpted pure white figures—the only black being a tiny statuette in the Inconfidência museum. Did he consider whiteness prettier? Imagine how ugly he must felt during the later years. None of the orders whose churches he decorated so lavishly would let him join. He became eventually a member of the Brotherhood of São José dos Homens Pardos (St José of the mulattos) whose small, single-towered modest little chapel lies not far from Nossa Senhora do Rosário.

I walked into the church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição—the main parish church of Antônio Dias. Its exterior is lovely, painted in a vivid rosy red with its outline touched up on white giving it a two-dimensional fairytale feel. This is an older church, built by Aleijadinho's father. There are no less than eight lateral altars including superb polychromatic depictions of St John the Baptist, São Gonçalo, São Miguel das Almas and São José. I walked around ignoring the congregation of tourists in front of the altar of Good Death. What a choice of statues to flank the retable: St Nepomuk of Bohemia. patron of confessors, and Santa Barbara. patron of artillery.

The noise behind me subsided. The tourist party had left. I walked to the spot they were standing. There was something I'd missed last time.

Down, in front of me, panels covered the church floor below the altar of the Society of Good Death. I read one inscription: "Aqui, jaz A. Fo. Lisboa o Aleijadinho 1738-1814". I wanted to remain respectfully quiet for a few minutes but the noise of more visitors disturbed my thoughts. I only had time for one: despite its external striking beauty and ornamentation this church's main claim to immortality and fame is that it is the resting place of the town's little cripple.

Outside the sun was setting quickly as it does in the tropics. I looked at my watch. Can I fit anything more? I laughed. I always leave Chico Rei's mine for last.

It was easier to find the mine this time as it was signposted and clearly marked on the maps; yet it still felt as if you're trespassing. An old African-Brazilian woman short, lanky, slow-responding and toothlessly-smiling let me in with a nod. It's amazing, I was there again about fifteen minutes before it closed. I walked into the garden; there was a small pie and beer bar on my left where two waiters were washing the dishes. The entrance black-and-white statue had been painted over gaudily. The mine loomed open in front of me. I made a move to enter.

The silence was broken by a furious bark. A black dog, as big as a sheep was barking at me behind a chicken wire fence. I instinctively pulled back. The dog became nastier and started jumping on the wire like mad. Behind me the two waiters stopped their work and came over to watch. Would the fence hold? I checked whether I was safe—it seemed so, although the dog's barking became more intense and its movements more frantic. The old woman behind the counter rose and stood by mesmerized.

What had I done?

The dog's maniacal barking and leaping came to a stop when a topless, sweaty young black guy emerged from behind him and grabbed his leash. The dog immediately calmed down, buried his head between the man's legs and started wagging its tail.

An uneasiness overcame me. The waiters behind me were standing immobile, rooted to their spots. The dog handler caught my eye; his stare was hostile like the dog he had just tamed. The old African woman moved away from the door.

She pointed at the exit.

***

The bus to Belo Horizonte stopped and the resulting commotion woke me up. What? I had fallen asleep on my seat? There's always a first time for everything.

I climbed out dozily, several maps of the town in hand. I went straight to a coffee shop and had a double espresso which I gulped down hastily like cough medicine. I looked at my watch. The night was still young. Club Mix-Excess would not be getting busy for a good few hours yet.

John, will you do it?

I walked out of the Belo Horizonte rodoviária for the last time and took a left. It was dark. I checked my map. So much has changed and so much has remained the same. It must be here.

Rua Curitiba.

Why am I waiting for something to happen? Nothing ever does.

I was wrong.

I saw a cockier, younger and more handsome version of myself—hey, I didn't look as bad as I thought at the time—walk amongst the piles of garbage in a rage. I saw him in a fit, which would be called pique if it had remained with no consequence. He flung an unopened can of Coke onto a mountain of rubbish.

I heard a cry of pain.

A shadow who was sleeping under the slimy cardboards and the rotting fruit rose and held it out accusingly.

"Why me?", he asked. "Why me?"

I could see the beggar more clearly than I could see my old self who I knew was frozen with fear. He was not wearing a shirt. His trousers were torn and hanging by a thread. His long hair was stringed in filthy knots that might once have been dreadlocks. He was ugly. He was unshaven and his curly beard made him look menacing. Part of his right hand was wrapped up in bandages that must once have been white and covered a circle of dried blood that had seeped through, like the fresh blood that was now gushing down his face. How can human beings live like that?

I watched myself run away half-frightened, half-guilty, trying to dismiss and forget the whole incident. But the truth is, I have never been able to erase it from my mind.

The squalid shadow turned to where I was now standing. He looked at me and at the can he was holding and let it drop without a sound on the moldy cardboard below. He stood there for a minute and then shrugged his shoulders and slowly walked away, taking with him the decomposing refuse mounds, the pestilential smell and the naked street children begging for worthless notes, as the city's darkness lit by bonfires turned into the brightness of the electric lights under which I was now standing—for this was not a filthy side street in a town ravaged by galloping inflation any more, but a tidy alleyway in a booming state capital, shaking off the nightmare by exorcising its ghosts.

Things I Don't Like About Brazil: Indexation

This has been the deep cause of Brazilian inflation, which at the time of my trip to Brazil in 1993, ran to 2567 percent per annum. Wages, pensions and absolutely everything under the sun had to catch up with rising prices by law. Hundreds of items of indexation run into complex pieces of legislation and have been the cause of institutional inflation for decades. There are such vested interests—from political capital as the poor see indexation of the minimum wage as the litmus test of a government's commitment towards social justice to pensioned military officers who want to keep their buying power intact—that extreme freezing measures (such as the shock of President Collor's) were tried from time to time; but indexation eventually destroyed any short-term benefits.

Things I Like About Brazil: Ghosts

Indian myths may be alive in the Amazon and African Gods may stroll in the streets of Salvador, but Brazil—white Brazil—has its own ghosts. In Minas Gerais they're a white man's ghosts and they talk of greed, poverty and revenge.

For what are ghosts but tales which capture the imagination—for good or for bad—and live in our minds forever? Ghosts aren't physical but they sure have presence for they live as long as a memory is told and retold.

One of them belongs to me.

JohnM is a computer programmer and occasional journalist working in London, England using his earnings to travel between contracts. A fluent Portuguese speaker, he has traversed the whole of Brazil from Manaus to Porto Alegre and from Recife to the Pantanal sampling the life and history in the course of four separate journeys. The author can be contacted at john@scroll.demon.co.uk 

This is an extract from his extensive Brazilian travelogue, which will be published by Summersdale in June 2003 entitled Brazil: Life, Blood, Soul. Many pictures from the travelogue appear in http://www.scroll.demon.co.uk/brazil/index.htm

His personal site is in http://www.scroll.demon.co.uk/spaver.htm  

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