Brazil: Ouro Preto

Although Ouro Preto lies only 200 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, its rustic tranquility is about a million miles from that city’s raucous exuberance. In the early 1700s, Portuguese explorers discovered gold in the area, and the ensuing rush led to the creation of Ouro Preto, which translates as Black Gold. Visitors can now tour Ouro Preto’s oldest goldmine, a strange, subterranean experience that testifies both to past glory and past cruelty; African slaves did most of the work to exhume the thirty-five tons of gold lying at the bottom of the mine. When the mines were depleted and slavery abolished, Ouro Preto relinquished its role as economic bastion to become a sleepy town.

Today, however, visitors flock to see Ouro Preto’s stunningly baroque houses of worship. The town owes its twenty-three Catholic churches to the influence of eighteenth-century missionaries, and the grandeur of those churches to local artist Aleijadinho. Despite a crippling physical disability, this sculptor created life-like statues and cherub-covered arches that attest to a deep spirituality. While the wooden carvings have aged more than their European marble counterparts, this authenticity only makes them more accessible.

Ouro Preto’s cuisine tends to be as baroque as its religious sculptures. The combination of heavy sweet bread and various meat dishes could easily cause blood sugar to soar and arteries to clog. Even the native liqueur, jabuticada, has a cherry-like flavor. Lighter meals are available at local cafés, the best being on the Rua Direita, where bands play jazz and bossa nova into the early morning hours. Savor the heady drink and the scintillating music, and you, too, will agree that Ouro Preto remains a goldmine.