Ouro Preto, Day 8

We’d agreed to meet up for a leisurely lunch at 3:00 and Dave and I set off Saturday morning to do some serious touristing. We started at the intriguingly named Museu Da Inconfidencia (Museum of Betrayal) in the magnificent former prison that anchors one side of Tiradentes Square. Memorializing an unsuccessful separatist 1789 uprising inspired by the American Revolution, the museum is now an excellent history museum where you can see:

• Devices of deeply unsettling creativity and cleverness used to maintain control of those well-treated high-skilled Africans working involuntarily in the gold mines.

• An 18th Century sedan chair of heavy, carved mahogany with velvet padding that had to be torture for both the occupant and the two guys carrying it up the 22% grade

• Intricately carved and painted wooden statues of saints and generals by the inimitable Aleijadinho

• Unintentionally humorous descriptive text resulting from the use of Google translate or an equivalent to create the English language display boards (“The movement was discovered before the appointed day for hatching on account of a demarcation.”)

• Lots of objects made of gold and jewels, although not as many as you might think -- most of the gold is slathered on Basílica Nossa Senhora do Pilar

• The austere tombs of the 24 “inconfidents,” including an empty one for Tiradentes, whose head was stolen after his decapitation and never recovered

Suitably marinated in history, we set off to find the Museum of Pharmacy but it was closed so we headed back to the Teatro Municipal -- our third attempt to visit the oldest working theatre in Latin America. It’s wonderful. It has the look and feel of a beautiful wooden ship turned inside out with lacey balconies lining three levels of seats that face a deep, proscenium stage. The view of the theatre from the stage is worth the walk and the $2 entry fee.

Just across the road is the steep stone staircase up to the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Carmo, also home of the Oratory Museum. We threaded our way through the slowing growing crowd of extremely jolly families assembling for a graduation, stepped over a prostrate dog who’d helpfully positioned himself like a rolled up carpet across the doorway to the church and had a peek around -- there is definitely a style to these colonial churches. I’d call it aspirational European ostentation with a strong flavor of wax museum.

Across a small courtyard is the truly excellent Oratory Museum -- an exceptionally well displayed and well explained collection of private altars. Some were big -- like large cabinets that would be positioned in a home the way a flat screen TV would be today. Some were little bullet-shaped cases the size of a loaf of bread that split to reveal figurines inside. And some were absolutely tiny -- the size of a lipstick, but with little statuettes inside them replete with incredible details. There were super-gorey depictions of martyrs (including plenty of the sado-erotic crucified Christ that 18th Century Roman Catholics can’t seem to get enough of). Lots depicted the madonna wreathed in flowers and cherubs, though often standing on distressingly disembodied heads -- a detail we never did find an explanation for (I feel you, Tiradentes). Many others featured a specific saint or group of saints in various states of religious ecstasy or gruesome pain. There were formal altars for nuns and syncretic altars for African Christians and inspirational altars for teenagers. My personal favorite were three oratories made almost entirely from seashells -- they’d fit perfectly at the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore for their irresistible combination of obsessiveness, tackiness and truly weird beauty.

With a little more than an hour before we were to meet up for lunch, we decided to hike across town and up to the spectacularly positioned Church of Santa Efigenia. Sueli had pointed out this church (which perches at the top of one of the highest points in the city) because it was financed by the gold from Chico Rei’s mine and was the first built by the black residents of Ouro Preto (most of them still enslaved at the time). It was, uh, a steep hike. A motorcyclist with his girlfriend riding pillion zipped by us, but a few yards further up the hill stalled out and had to kick his passenger to the curb to make it to the top. And while the church has a commanding view of Ouro Preto (and is quite as gorgeously Baroque and Rococo as all the others inside), the surrounding plaza appeared to be mostly in use by some desultory drug dealers so after a relatively brief stint of admiring the ornate interior we headed back down the hill.

We arrived a few minutes early for lunch at Bene de Flauta, an absolutely beautiful restaurant near the outdoor market and the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. Despite our truly disgusting state of hot-and-sweaty-ness -- and the fact that a large party for what I assume was another graduation celebration was taking place on the ground floor -- a very kind waiter (with the help of Google translate) seated us at a big table in the airy, delightful upstairs dining room. Andy, Mary, Glenn, Holly and eventually Jeremy joined us in short order. We had a lot of good beer on this trip, but the one I drank at Bene de Flauta after hiking up and back to Efigenia was without question the best.

And our lunch was amazing. We all passed around appetizers of picked vegetables and (unexpectedly) chicken liver mousse. Dave and I shared a casserole of chicken and okra that was absolutely delicious. One item, described on the menu as cheese puffs, was a total fail -- packing peanuts with a less appealing aftertaste. But otherwise a fantastic meal.

After lunch we did a bit of shopping. I bought an absurd number of little bracelets made of local stones wrapped in gold wire, strands of stone beads and great, garish stone rings. I blame that awesome beer. Others in the group popped for more high end bling. We ended up back at the piano bar (still short a piano player) to compare purchases and, you know, drink.