Black & Gold
After a lovely month at home visiting family and friends, I've come back to Brazil, if only for a short time this time.
Whilst I was back I was telling most people I would be heading to Salvador because I was keenly interested in both the culture there and the history of the sugar plantations. However as money IS a thang, I opted for a shorter, less expensive bus ride to the small old mining town of Ouro Preto, translated to 'Black Gold' due to its gold's distinctive darker colour.
A photo was here; it wasn’t in the backup.
For anyone who saw me in the last few weeks of my UK visit, you may have heard me talking about the book 'Open veins of Latin America: The Pillage of a Continent' and it was indeed that. Of the many sites of the plundering from Western Europe and later on the USA, this town caught my eye. Not only was it in Brazil but it had links to British history.
In the late 17th century the Portuguese 'Bandeirantes', in charge of hunting runaway slaves, stumbled upon, well a gold mine I guess... in the town of Ouro Preto and began to extract it; as the town grew, slaves began to be imported to do the extraction. It actually had the most amount of gold mined, but in the shortest amount of time, leading to an incredible gold rush that saw a lot of profit for Portuguese merchants.
2 photos from this gallery weren’t in the backup.
During the time it was being mined it's name was 'Vila Rica' or 'Rich Village' and had a higher population than that in New York or Sao Paolo. The town expanded rapidly; many churches were built and houses became more and more extravagant, regularly being passed by by large processions and a host of festivals.
Meanwhile back in Europe and thanks to some savvy work from the British, we brokered a treaty with Portugal which allowed them privileged access to trade their wines in our market with less taxes than France, who we were at war with at the time. In exchange for this and for military alliance, our textiles and manufactured goods were to be traded free of duty in both Portugal and it's colonies resulting in the shutdown of production across all their countries.
Now our cloths had a bigger market and allowed production to develop in Britain more so than the wine production did for the Portuguese. Our exports began to outweigh their exports and they fell into debt to us as they became dependent on our fine imports. For a while they paid with the gold from ol' Ouro Preto until it began to run dry.
As the gold dwindled so did the profits of the town's merchants and because the Portuguese crown took a hefty tax, these merchants became frustrated. Thus inspiring a failed independence movement from Joaquim Jose da Silva Xavier, lovingly known as Tiradentes or “tooth puller” due to his previous job being a dentist. Him and his posse each faced a brutal end, Tiradentes being drawn and quartered with his head then being remonstrated around Ouro Preto in order to deter future attempts. It is in the square named after him that I would enjoy my coffee, books and beer.
A photo was here; it wasn’t in the backup.
In a paragraph titled 'How Brazilian Gold helped progress in Britain it claims that the majority of Brazilian gold ended up in our hands helping us develop our industries and also gain control of the Portuguese Trade. This treaty gave us vast amounts of wealth and allowed us to flourish rapidly reportedly moving Europe's financial center from Amsterdam to London. So if this book is to go by, we owe a lot to this lil' town back in the UK. As we became wealthier the only remnants of the gold in Ouro Preto was inside of the many churches previously designed by the towns many artists. Quite a spectacle.
3 photos from this gallery weren’t in the backup.
Nowadays it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site holding its colonial architecture, it's cobbled streets and it's impressive house fronts. If something is to be built here, it must keep with the theme.
7 photos from this gallery weren’t in the backup.
So I was drawn to this place and as I explored each day, loving the cobbled streets but hating the steep hills, I found my own little golden spots in the cafes and the restaurants as well as the best routes which required the least climbing. I would work morning and night leaving me about 6 hours in the day to visit churches, squares and bars. I spent a lot of time doing nothing but reading in the Sun, which during the day counteracted the coldness of being at a higher altitude.
Despite the cold nights, there appeared to be a Winter Festival going on throughout Ouro Preto and the next town along. I couldn't believe my luck as my 2nd and 3rd favourite band were both playing it! The chance to see them both whilst I was there and on two different nights, either side of a weekend I was mostly working, seemed like the perfect opportunity.
But it started off terribly.
As I explored the neighbouring town awaiting my 3rd favourite band 'Melim', increasing amounts of young Brazilians descended, dressed in a similar fashion to that of the 'chav' that many of us dressed as in secondary school. I'm talking, caps, trackies, gold chain 'n' all. Although considering this was the gold capital of the world for a short time I kinda hope it holds some more heritage than our Argos links did.
Despite not being terrible themselves, Melim were largely disappointing. So I left early to get the last bus back. Now bad things happen in threes. The first being that I had missed the last bus home, due to the shitty app Moovit just being plain wrong. I had to pay my lengthy bar bill in cash so I had little left and upon entering the bank and pressing the ATM the alarm began sounding. Loudly. So I had the equivalent of £2 to get back to the next town, or have to pay on card for a hostel, which I was not keen on.
After the policeman had told me to just wait for a lift off of somebody, I did so for over an hour before a man with a minibus took a bunch of us back.
Beautiful. I was tired but back in the town, just down the steps to home.
Walking down the steps I moved to the side to make way for another and stepped in the gutter which had no steps, so as I stepped my foot slipped from underneath me and I fell, caining my elbow.
I trotted back tired and in pain, aching for my bed, when in the street next to my house I saw a pack of 3 dogs all combine and head towards me. Fuck sake, not tonight, leave me be.
I covered my arms with my jumper and tried to just walk past calmly, I leave you and you leave me kinda deal. the Alpha of the pack didn't agree to this deal and began jumping up at me, for what I now presume was the shitty vegetables in my back pack. Now he wasn't super aggressive and he didn't get me but I was having to parry his attempts away trying to keep him down. In a moment I saw my gap and I began to run. I sharply realised this was a bad idea, so I turned and began parrying again, telling him to calm down. Thankfully this time he did and the three dogs then escorted me back home to where I quickly unlocked the door and swiftly entered. Finally home.
As I got undressed, I thought I'd better check that there was no marks and as I saw a small hole on my jumper and a cut/burn on my elbow where I had fallen. I began to think that maybe he had nipped it. I was positive it was just the fall, but late at night, alone in the room, the mind can try to convince you otherwise.
To be sure I spent the next day going to the hospital where I was given the all clear, some reassurance and some cream/antibiotics to fix up my cut.
Over the rest of the weekend I began to relax about it more and more each day, but as it was again quite a solitary weekend working a lot, the niggle of doubt was still there despite professional advice and extremely slim chances.
As Sunday rolled around, I took the evening off and headed downstairs to drink with the students I'm staying with before heading to see my 2nd favourite band 'Lagum' who despite playing in a strange arena both thin and long, put on a great show and created a great atmosphere.
3 photos from this gallery weren’t in the backup.
It seems Melim's show begun what was to be a weekend of work and worry which was then book-ended by Lagum's fantastic show to really bring me back to normal.
The rest of the week has been spent back to reading in coffee shops and exploring ever more as I wait for my bus-ride back to Rio where I will encounter one Harry Sinclair-Waugh and begin a month of frivolous enjoyment.
