As today is a Monday, all the museums are closed, so the
ones we didn’t get to yesterday can’t be visited. And because the rain is still around, we
can’t even hang around Ouro Preto waiting for better photo shots, so we leave
early and head to Belo Horizonte. This
time on the road back in the daylight we see one of the reasons our bus was
going slow, there are a number of places where the recent rain has caused a lot
of subsidence. Some of the road is under
repair, but the damage is quite extensive.
Once in Belo we go to our hostel and check in. This is in a part of town called Santa
Teresa, which is supposed to be a nice part of town, yet the hostel, and all
its neighbours, are behind massive security fences topped with electric
wires. Yet we are assured by the owners
it is a safe area. It is not very
confidence inspiring. I think the
Brazilians have a different view of what safe mean. We ask about getting into the centre of town
and they advise us to take the metro, but when we begin to walk to it the road
looks so dodgy we turn back and instead take the bus, which isn’t much better,
but otherwise we would be stuck in this neighbourhood.
The centre of Belo isn’t that attractive. There are some nice old buildings knocking
about, but it is mostly high rise developments, and the buildings are too far
apart to walk to. One or two plazas look
good, but that is about it. Also it is
extremely hilly (San Francisco style) and is therefore tiring to walk around,
so all in all we don’t really spend too much time sightseeing.
Instead we go to the cinema. The film is Safehouse starring Denzel
Washington. That is not really
important, but what is interesting is a fact I picked up about the film. Part of it is set in the shanty towns of Cape
Town, but originally it was to be set in the Favelas of Rio. However it was deemed to be too dangerous to
film in Rio. Rio needs to take a look at
itself with the big sporting events coming up.
You know you have sunk to new lows when South Africa is safer.
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