Bus Terminaled

Well here I am again- alone again. I have spent the last couple of days with a girl that I met in Rio. While it was good to have some company she was a little erratic to say the least with a habit of speaking only German whilst drunk (she is English). We arrived in Ouro Preto just after six in the am and went to the hostel. Not finding anyone around despite our reservation we just let ourselves in, helped ourselves to bed linen and crawled into bed. The staff didn´t find us until after ten.

We spent the day walked around the city, it is very hill! It is a UNESCO World heritage site so quite easy on the eyes all in all. In the evening we went to a bar and the guys took it in turns to come over to our table. That is until some sleazy old guy decided that he wanted to talk to us, hum, where were our knights in shining armour now? Long gone it seems as this guy would not leave us alone for over an hour until we invited ourselves onto someone else´s table.

Fortunately the new table was very cool and we went with them to another bar. Which did mean that our sightseeing plans for the next day didn´t go entirely as planned!

In fact, yesterday was a day of very little acheivement. There were a very more people in the hostel by the time that we woke up so we all went out for dinner and beer last night- back to the same bar but minus the sleazy guy.

During the day we had bumped into a Brazilian girl that we had met in Rio and she explained some of the strange goings on that we had seen around the town. Namely, all the young boys with strangely shaved heads carrying signs. Apparantely this is a ´battle´for a place in the uni fraternities. There are limited places so each fresher (in this town known as~´bixo´or child) has to prove his worth.

He does this by having the initials of the fraternity shaved into his head and basically taking a lot of crap off everyone for up to six months. And carrying a sign- often larger than the bixo himself, which declares that he is a bixo and wants to get into a particular frat house. This sign goes everywhere- even to the loo- for around six months! That is hardcore! And at the end of that time they may have to start all over again if they don´t get accepted by the fraternity.

Dani, the Brazilian girl, also took us into one of these frat houses- a surprisingly clean and nice place to live!

Brazil was playing Colombia last night but we didn´t see the match as I elected to stay in the bar with a German girl from the hostel and a table full of Brazilian guys- I am getting a little better at understanding Portuguese but the Spanish still comes more easily.

Now I am in the bus terminal in Belo Horizonte, just a couple of hours away from Ouro Preto, waiting for my bus to Porto Seguro in Bahia... which is quite a long way away if you care to look at the map. I have quite a lot of time to kill as the tourist information centre in Ouro Preto told me that the bus would be at three but actually it isn´t until 6.30.

It was a bit of a struggle buying the ticket as I ran around different counters trying to find someone that would sell me the ticket that I wanted.. got it in the end and went and put all my carefully packed bags in a locker. Walked away feeling quite smug, then realised that I have left my suntan lotion, sunglasses and USB cable in the bloody locker. Damn it! It is 33 degrees outside so I will finish this, buy some lunch and indulge in some heavy duty cowering in the shade somewhere for a couple of hours.