Where Is Ron?
Latin America, 10 November 2008 - 3 March 2009
Ron in Sipascancha, Peru, November 2008
Belo Horizonte and Ouro Preto, Brazil, February 2009
20 February 2009
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
Ron leaves Ouro Preto tonight on an overnight bus for Rio de Janeiro, where he will be staying with friends he met during Carnival. Ouro Preto is a colonial town about 6-7 hours by bus north of Rio. THere are two short messages from him from earlier this week, plus an update from Laurie in Peru.
My week has been marred by the failure last Monday of the hard disk on my home laptop (I'm currently reading email on Ron's computer). This weekend I will be reinstalling things on a replacement hard disk. I bought my laptop in 2004, replaced the hard disk once before in 2006. By replacing the hard disk again, I should be able to hold out until I can get a new laptop running Windows 7, due in mid-2010. If I bought a new PC now, I would have to have Vista as the operating system, something everyone I talk to says I want to avoid if at all possible. (For you Mac fans, I did consider getting a Mac, but decided it would be too much initial and ongoing hassle to make it compatible with printer, scanner, external hard disks, file-sharing, etc in our existing all-PC network.)
My brave daffodil bulbs have sent up leaves, now about 9 cm (3 inches), but it is still way colder than I want it to be -- high today of ~5C/41F and windy as well. I am more than ready for warmer weather!
Love to all,
Ellen
17 February 2009
To see photos of Belo Horizonte, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Belo HorizonteHello, my dear,
I know there is some more email to read but I thought I would respond to this one and let you know how I am, where I am, and where I am going.
At the moment I am in Belo Horizonte. Yesterday I arrived and checked out the city and go my bearings. Today I was a tourist with a camera all day, on my feet when I wasn't riding a bus.
By bus I visited Pampulha which is a large man-made lake designed by Oscar Niemeyer, who seems to be a favorite landscape designer here. It was impressive. The Cathedrale, Igreja de Sao Franciso de Assis, was on the other side of the lake and I just couldn't walk that far. I finally found a tourist office and learned about a bus around the lake but ran out of time and returned to the city central to visit the Parque Municipal - their central park - before it closed.
The park was impressive with the large trees and other vegetation. Several lakes with ducks and lots of park-cats to remind me of George's. I wanted to walk back just after dark to take some pictures of a church and a couple of other buildings lit up at night, but got run out of the park when it was still light. So my pictures are at dusk.
Since I had checked out much of the town yesterday, today I felt at home. When I left the park I bought a bag of popcorn that lasted till I got to the church, than across from the church I knew where to get an ice-cream cone that lasted till I reached the small juice shop that sold large glasses mango juice for one Real, about 45 cents. I am now at the Internet Cafe in the main bus station which is near my hotel.
Belo Horizonte is a large city but it is easy to get around the center. Like DC, they have a grid of blocks but also have another grid of streets at 45 degrees so many intersections have three streets crossing. It is great for walking since one can walk a straight line to most places instead of going around the block.
My plans are to go south tomorrow to Ouro Preto, a small colonial city, for a couple of days and then figure out when I am going to Rio for Carnival.
Stay tuned.
Love and miss you and there are less days before I return,
Ron
19 February 2009
To see photos of Ouro Preto, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Ouro Preto, BrazilHello Ellen, my dear-
This morning I went down to the 4th level in an old gold mine that was started by a German in 1819 and produced 35 tons of gold before it became economically infeasible to continue. Now they take tourists down in the mine on the old rail beds. There is a lake at level four where divers go down. They have been down 70 meters (I think - but my numbers are vague) but have never reached the bottom which might be more than 200 meters. Hard to believe.
I went with my hostel roommate, Keith, a 61 year old theologian from Ottawa who grew up his first 15 years in Cape Breton near our favorite campground, the Jumping Mouse in Bay St. Lawrence. He is traveling around Brazil and Argentina for about 6 months. A really interesting guy who has been to many more places in the world than I, including two around the world trips.
Now I am in Ouro Preto, an old colonial mining town two hours south of Belo Horizonte. And I have purchased a ticket for Rio leaving tomorrow night. I talked to Walter (my bus friend from Rio) yesterday and he said that now he was not going to Carnival but that I could still stay at his house. He is calling his wife and I am to call him today to make the final arrangements. We will see if this is going to work out! I came to see if I had email from him before calling him. My phone does not work from the Belo Horizonte area - something about the frequency here vs. the rest of Brazil. I spent a good morning trying to figure this out and finally was told my phone needed repair . But at the Motorola facility they explained about the frequencies. So now I need to figure out how to use the public phones again.
This is a really neat town - nothing flat and the hills are quite steep. Beautiful old colonial town that has been preserved. I am sure they must have a good web site that google could find.
Love and miss you - and hopefully you will hear from me next from Rio.
Ron
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Last updated: 11 April 2009
