Beautiful Horizons: Diamantina

It's summertime now and I suppose I'm entitled to a couple of reruns. As I can now include pictures on my blog, I'm going to rerun a piece I wrote on my Blogspot blog on Diamantina , a stunning colonial city in northern Minas Gerais, in February shortly after my visit there. Click on this photo album to see pictures of Diamantina.

One of the most consistently rewarding tourism adventures in Brazil I have had in all of my trips to Brazil have been the historic colonial cities of Minas Gerais.

On my first trip to Brazil, I visited Ouro Preto, unquestionably the most famous of these cities. Subsequent visits led me to explore Sabará, São João del Rei, Tiradentes (probably the city that exudes the most charm), Congonhas and Mariana. Most of the cities are situated fairly closely to Belo Horizonte and to each other, making it easy for day trips or a simple overnight trip from Belo Horizonte.

Consequently, I had never been able to make time to visit Diamantina until this last visit. Diamantina is in the opposite direction of the other colonial cities; a five hour bus ride from Belo Horizonte. The change in the scenery during the ride is very dramatic.

As you break free of the traffic and congestion of Belo Horizonte, you pass through an area called the Cavern Circuit. This is the location of approximately five caves, including Maquiné, Rei do Mato and Lapinha. Passing through farmland wedged between the highway and the undulating mountains in the distance, the road soon becomes lined with Acacia trees and their yellow blossoms as well as Ipê Amarelo trees that, as you can see, virtually explode in yellow. The roads are fairly straight at this point and if the scenery were not so lovely, the rocking of the bus would make you drowsy.

Gradually and subtly, the terrain changes. The low hills adjacent to the highway become pockmarked with gray stone among the greenery and the vegetation in patches begins to resemble the Brazilian scrubland known as caatinga. The road begins to wind a little more and the undulating hills that you have been admiring in the distance have taken over the road. The air becomes a little warmer, you tend to go a lot further between residential areas, and you see a few more urubus dotting the sky. The people getting on the bus seem a little more weary, indeed a lot more weary than you as they are not tourists, but have to rely on this bus to get around. Finally, you see the city in the distance, pass a restaurant with the curious name "Raimundo Sem Braços" (Raymond Without Arms - begging the question, according to my wife, "How does he cook?") and pull into the bus station on the street of irregular stones.

We exit the bus, get our bags and purchase our return tickets for the day after tomorrow. We get a cab to our pousada (inn), Pousada Relíquias do Tempo (Relics of the Time). As the link describes, it's a colonial mansion from about 1850 in Diamantina's historic center. It's beautifully decorated with colonial era furniture, jacaranda floors and folk art from the region, much of which consists of ceramics and weavings. I feel my blood pressure lower as we walk into our room and gaze through the open window past the shutters to the plaza across the street, the baroque church on the hill and the dizzyingly steep street that reminded me of my college years in San Francisco.

We waste no time and go for a walk with a map and guidance from the front desk. The streets are surfaced not with asphalt, but with iregular stones wedged randomly into the road bed in a style known as pé de moleque (feet of the street urchin). Pé de moleque is also a kind of sweet, like a softer and chewier version of peanut brittle. The level of the roads are fairly even, but the combination of the steep streets and the road surface make the auto traffic blessedly slow and makes for safe walking, although knowing where to step on the street is an acquired art. The streets are filled with pedestrians walking up and down the near-perpendicular roads. I comment to Mércia that the richest guy in town fixes shock absorbers and clutches, the next richest is the orthopedist who treats the tourists' sprained ankles and the poorest is the one who owns the gym.

There are some ten baroque and rococo churches (igrejas) in Diamantina. One which stood out for me was the Igreja do Rosário. This was the church built by the slaves at night in 1728 and it has a certain uneven beauty about it. The acoustics are reputed to be extraordinary; Milton Nascimento and Martinho da Vila have recorded inside the church.

Our pousada has afternoon tea at 6:00 p.m. and it is just one of the traditions that makes our stay so pleasant. Lemon grass tea and peppermint tea is served along with some small cookies. The staff rings a bell to let the guests know it's tea time.

One of the great features of Brazilian hotels and inns is that breakfast is virtually always included. At our pousada it is an extraordinarily sumptuous breakfast: fresh papaya halves, bananas (with a creamy, sweet flavor that will make you forget your average, bland banana you find in supermarkets), homemade jabuticaba and mangaba jelly, Brazilian style cheese rolls (pão de queijo), a hot corn meal dish (kind of like sweet polenta) warm rice pudding, several different types of bread, ham, luscious regional cheeses, hot coffee, acerola and guava juice. Just what you need to fortify you for the walks around the historic district.

One of Diamantina's most famous former residents was Xica da Silva, who was also the subject of this film. Her house is a museum and is worth a visit, with some of the best views of the region and the Serra do Espinhaço from the second floor.

Another former resident of Diamantina is Juscelino Kubitschek who was President of Brazil during the construction of Brasília. His childhood home is a museum. I do not mean to offend anyone from Brasília (I have several friends who live there), but I cannot fathom how someone who grew up in a town as charming and warm as Diamantina could be behind the construction of such a monstrously impersonal and cold city like Brasília.

As with so many vacations, in the short time we were there in Diamantina, there were so many attractions we missed: the festival known as Vesperata, hearing the serestas (serenades) on the weekend, visiting nearby Biri-Biri, Curralinho, and the waterfalls, caves and the Caminho dos Escravos; a pathway constructed by the slaves that led to the diamond mines.

This last issue is something that has gnawed at my conscience since my first visit to a colonial city. Much of the beauty of these cities was achieved as the result of slavery and, as much as I enjoy seeing the sites and the history, I cannot help but feeled pained and guilty as I enjoy the beauty. I suppose it's enough in this day and age to be aware of the history and consider that as part of the perspective while I wander through the past. The fact that so much enforced suffering had to take place to create so much beauty is brutally and cruelly ironic.

If you are interested in reading a great contemporary accounting of Diamantina in the 19th Century, you can do no better than this book.