Carnaval: Day 2

Sunday morning we decided to all go to Tiradentes. It is another colonial town that is just about 10 km from São João Del Rei. There is an old fashioned train that runs between the two cities, so we decided to take the 30 minute ride and enjoy some countryside on our way there.



Both Tiradentes and São João Del Rei have rotundas to get the engine turned around for the return trip. It is kind of interesting to watch, as they just have guys get down and spin it around instead of using a motor or something less labor intensive.

We spent the day walking around Tiradentes, checking out little shops, eating some lunch, and seeing some rather intriguing decorations for Carnaval.

This one just made me feel skinny-a good way to start your day, don't you think? It is a good example of the Brasilian bikini though. I've seen quite similar things on real people.

Much like Ouro Preto, another colonial town we visited a few weeks ago, there are a whole bunch of churches. None of them were quite as ornate as the ones in Ouro Preto, but they were still very old and pretty.

This first one was the first one we've been in that allowed you to take pictures inside. Not nearly as impressive inside as the ones that don't allow pictures, but still nice.

The shot below is of the ceiling.

This next one was interesting. It looks like the right side fell off...

We are always amazed at the transportation and some of the ideas we find. This trike had an add-on motor kit on the front end. Eric was very impressed.

Yeah, no explanation at all for this one, sorry.

Tiradentes has one of the prettiest settings: tucked away with beautiful views of the mountains!




I like it that even the animals get into Carnaval. This first one is just a random street dog that someone decorated.

And even though the horse's hat fell off to the side before we took this picture, we thought it was fun. We saw this horse and buggy several times and the little dog was always riding right there!



When we got back to our pousada in São João Del Rei that afternoon, it was just starting to rain. It rained, and rained, and rained hard for the next 16 hours or so. (Carnaval really shouldn't be during the rainy season!!!) The six of us went out to supper downtown that night, but decided to just call it a night afterwards since none of us were really feeling like partying in the downpour! It didn't stop the mass majority of people though. From the restaurant on the second story, we sat next to the window and did a lot of people watching. The one on the right with the crown and the one on the left in the fuchsia colored outfit are not girls...they are 13 or 14 year old boys! The bloco that night had a cross-dress theme: funny stuff, wish I had seen more of it!

So Day 2 of Carnaval we did lots of sight seeing, but we were back at the pousada by 11:00 pm. (Yeah, the rain made party-poopers out of us all!) Eric and I watched a movie in our room and then just as we were about to go to bed, we remembered it was Superbowl Sunday! We flipped around channels and found a replay of the superbowl with Portuguese commentary. They sped it up so that there were no commercials (dang it, the best part!) and they cut out all the play clock time, only the actual plays were shown. So we watched the entire superbowl in about an hour and a half. At 2:30, we decided we should probably get some sleep so we could make the most of our last full day of Carnaval!