We chose to hitchhike from the Chapadas and our next destination was Pirenopolis to see Pavel’s friend Monika, who makes really good pizza. It took us 2 days through some shit holes of Brazil down to Pirenopolis - more about our hitchiking experiences later.
After riding two trucks, a church charity van and a friendly brazilian’s of russian origins, Juri, old Ford, we made it to Pirenopolis on Thursday 03/11/16 just before the sunset. We sat with Juri over some cold cerveja, talked about travel and learned a few things about Brazil. Cool. We were met by smiling Monika, her daughter Oriana along with her boyfriend Dante and went to the street market to eat. Kuba had a Pastel, a meat filled deep fried pocket and while Simon opted for a gluten-free Tapioca, sugar cane suco was a perfect complement to both. After 3 nights of wild camping, sleeping at the back of Oriana’s restaurant felt really nice :)
Restaurant life
We offered help to Oriana. We were eager to learn something about Brazilian cuisine. What’s more, she offered to give us as much food to us in exchange for taking some pictures of the restaurant and meals. And we also helped with a wedding, which took place at tha restaurant.. The food was so good, heavenly delicious that it really was an honour to take pictures of it! Oriana, Monika and Dante were really hospitable, always giving us something new to taste, so nice from them. Staying in a restaurant was the best, we were eating non stop.
We discovered fruits we never heard of before. Jabuticaba - similar to blackcurrant in taste, quite bigger tho and growing on tree’s stem. Acerola, which we’ve never seen before actually grows everywhere, looks like mini overgrown tomatoes and grows on a tree. Barú nuts. Farofa. Kuba’s new favourite substitute to Nutella Doce De Leite. The best thing was that Jabuticaba, Mango and Bananas were growing in the garden, so we were constantly eating some.
The city
Pirenopolis is a former colonial city made rich thanks to gold. Its 18th century houses are painted white and blue, streets are paved with fancy stone and surrounded by good looking restaurants and palm trees. It felt very touristy and was a huge contrast to the not so rich cities we visited before. Maybe it’s because it’s so well preserved that it is protected as a historical, architectural and natural heritage site. In the city centre, up on a hill, stands the city’s dominant - beautiful church. It’s nice to go for a walk around the city.
Pirenopolis is surrounded by mountains (that’s where Pireno comes from) with a few nearby and public cachoeiras (rare in Brazil). We spent a day walking around the mountains (nice views) and then down the creek with cachoeiras to cool down under the waterfall. This place was also made for an ideal running destination at 5km away from Pirenopolis, it was awesome to lay down in lukewarm water, as tested by Kuba.
Goodbye
The day before we left, Monika invited us for pizza at her pizzeria (Simon had salad). Again, it was so tasty. Brazilians are used to order a big pizza to share. So Monika and Kuba shared half of shiitake mushrooms and half of spinach pizza. We only wished beer was better as American Budweiser doesn’t stand for what it says on the label - the tastiest beer in the world - and it indeed tasted like water. The next morning, we had a goodbye breakfast at Monika’s place. She lives in a beautiful light-filled house, surrounded by a patio, giving access to the garden. There we found Acerola, Jabuticaba, Bananas, Grapevine, Lime and Goiaba trees with plenty of fruits. On the table, we had oats, yogurt, honey, papaya, suco, fresh bread and coffee. That made a really good start to a chill Sunday and a perfect ending to our time in Pirenopolis :)