Day 88 - Where cares will drop off...

I woke up at 5AM today to get on a 7AM bus to Tiradentes (pronounced Chiradentes) located in Minas Gerais state west of Rio. Traffic in Rio is terrible even at 6AM! At some point I thought that the bus would leave without me, but - thank God - we made it on time. The bus ride is 5 hours. I'm gradually preparing myself for the 22-hour ride from Buenos Aires to Patagonia that I'm planning to perform in a couple of weeks. I actually like being on buses here - they are fairly comfortable and make stops at places with clean bathrooms and good food, and - most importantly - provide unbelievable views!

Tiradentes is a very tiny (6,000 people) and charming small town with lots of preserved architecture in the Baroque style, beautiful façades, old churches and homes with their colonial shingles and adobe walls. Horse is still a real means of transportation here! In addition to cars, of course, but still impressive. The town received its name after the main character in the “Disloyalty Mineira”, a political movement that fought for Brazilian independence from Portuguese rule. Literally, "tiradentes" means "teeth puller", and the real name of the hero is Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, but during the trial against him this pejorative denomination was adopted (he was a dentist).

Although this town is generally known for its rich historical and cultural value, to me the main attraction here is the nature. Mountains and forest again! Cannot get better than that. The temperature is much lower than in Rio (thank God!) and lingers in the upper 70s during the day dropping to about 65 at night.

The minute I arrived to my pousada (bed and breakfast), I was presented with a challenge: the receptionist does not speak any English or Spanish. Here we go with the gestures and a language mix again. This time there's also a little bit of French in it, since she claims to speak French (really, she doesn't:)). Fun. Thanks to all the available brochures though I was able to fairly quickly figure out all the interesting things I might consider doing here during my stay.

It turned out that a group was going out on a night trekking trip in the mountains. Being a master of spontaneous decision making, I chose to join right away. So I had to skip lunch, thinking that I would snack on my Finn Crisps crackers (thanks, Tatyana!!!) in the mountains and then have dinner upon returning to town. Jumping ahead, let me reveal that when I came back from the mountains at 9PM, everything in town was closed and there was no sign of food life anywhere in the vicinity, so I had to diet.

Trekking... This word sounds so much more challenging than just "hiking". You feel athletic right away. Why don't we use it in the States? Anyway, the trip was abosolutely fascinating in many ways:

1. The group consisted of 10 people plus the guide. Nine of us were girls. I find these statistics very interesting.


2. Everybody was local except for me. I received a round of applause for being a tourist and being from New York.


3. Nobody spoke any other language but Portuguese, which gave me the opportunity to enjoy the 5 hours of "silence retreat" that I had always wanted to practice.


4. And of course, the main fascination was the path itself. Going through the forest, ascending alongside age-old impressive rock formations, passing by the fields of unknown beautifully fragrant flowers, descending at times to the waterfalls and little springs, ascending again through the darkness of the falling night, and eventually gorgeously moonlit by a totally RED FULL MOON... How much beauty there is in the world!

Curiously enough, this morning I read a John Muir's quote that goes like this:

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you...
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.