After I left Ouro Preto, I spent a night in Belo Horizonte, and then took a bus to Diamantina. I took the bus, which was at least an hour longer than the website had suggested, perhaps because the bus kept picking up people at places that were not stops. The bus also took a 15 minute stop at a halfway point at a place that is much nicer than where they Greyhound between Toronto and Ottawa used to stop (the Log Cabin in Actinolite) I could buy hot food if I wanted, or snacks and water.
Upon arrival, I had to make a telephone call in Portuguese to my airbnb so that my host could let me in (it was a small apartment on the first floor of her house). That was an experience I would like to have one time. It became clear to me that while my airbnb was close to the center, it was also downhill from the center (80 m elevation in a 1 km walk to the grocery store that would take a credit card). It was also in an area without cobblestones so that was a real upgrade from both places I stayed in Ouro Preto.
Over the course of several days I visited the attractions, made sure that I could in fact visit the archive on the days where I had an appointment, bought some bright green pants that pilled after one wash, and got a yellow fever vaccine.
The main attractions were the cathedral (the only church open during the day for visitors and personal prayers) and the house of Chica da Silva, which temporarily housed the Diamond Museum. She is a really interesting historical figure. She was able to wield significant power in spite of her status as an enslaved woman and is a highly romanticized figure in popular culture. The museum did not explain her life in any way. It had some furniture and some really weird paintings and poems about her (seriously wikipedia is doing a better job) and then a bunch of religious art from the Diamond Museum. I saw that they have an archive so if I were to go back perhaps I would be able to visit it and ask the staff some questions.
I also booked a tour to the nearby state park. I happened to arrive at the travel agency at the same time as a retired couple who had been on my bus. This was handy because they had lived in the US so spoke English (our guide did not), and because it was a lot cheaper than a private tour. It looked so much like the mountains in upstate South Carolina and North Carolina that I felt like going camping!
The tour guide talked about the history of the region – how the Portuguese crown wanted to keep the Catholic Church out of the area because they wanted all the money from diamond mining for themselves, and how a priest in the 17th century had realized there were diamonds in the area because people were using them as part of a card game. I enjoyed the storytelling and, because it was in my wheelhouse of church/mining/archive/health center vocabulary, I was able to understand and ask a few questions.
The tour also took us to Vila Biri Biri, a company town started by a priest to bring investment and industry into the region after diamond mining ended. It is always interesting to see different ideas from different time periods about how to improve a region – and how fickle industry is – I am sure the owners of the factory for example became much, much wealthier than the people who worked there.
I enjoyed my visit and would like to go back.
Rebecca J 