Well, we finally made it to Vicosa!!! I have been looking forward to seeing a different side of Brazil. Don't get me wrong, Sao Paulo is a cool city but I grew up in the country and have spent most of my life running around in the woods so it is nice to take a break from the concrete jungle. Vicosa is Jimmie's home town and his family still lives there.
Jimmie has a unique upbringing. His father is from the United States and came over in the 60's with the Peace Corp. He met his wife (Jimmie's mother) who is from the Northeastern part of Brazil. They moved to Vicosa a little over 30 years ago and still live here today. I am not doing the Griffith family story justice by giving you such a short explanation. A book could be written about the entire family, and believe me you would be highly entertained. That story is for another day but believe me when I say that you will be in for a treat if you ever have the pleasure of meeting them.
Daniel dropped us off to meet the Griffith family (Jim, Betty, and Alan) in the historic town of Ouro Preto. We did not spend much time there because this would be one of the places we would be coming back to later on in the week but there are a few teaser pics for you to take a look at below. We headed down the twisted windy roads of Brazil along the mountain ridge line all the way in to Vicosa which took about 2 hours. Jimmie and I were beat because of all the recent late nights and travel we had been involved in. I about did a back flip when I saw the room I would be sleeping in and could not wait to get some rest.
After a good night's sleep Jimmie's parents took us for a stroll through their neighborhood and hiked through some trails that were at the top of the ridge that the development back up against. It was a real treat to get to see some of the landscape of the country here. The vegetation is so different - fruit trees of all sorts line the landscape along with a new trend of eucalyptus tree farming that has been made very popular here. Eucalyptus grow very well is this area and very quickly. They can be fully mature in 7 years, and these are big trees!!! Time and time again, the landscape reminds me a lot of the country side of Australia, where I studied for a semester during college.
We both will be catching up on some much needed rest this week. I look forward to meeting some of the locals and exploring more of the country side of Brazil.
The pictures kind of give you a run down of the drop off point and the hike we took in Vicosa. Most of the pictures are from the hike and overlook the neighborhood where they live and where we are staying now.
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