Perhaps travel, like life, is a unique journey towards a banal conclusion. From the airport in Rio de Janiero our taxi drove us to the hotel. For a short period of time we whizzed along a highway that ran parallel to a black polluted canal that was lined by precariously constructed homes. Three-hundred pound black [...]

We arrived in Ouro Preto, Brazil, yesterday at about 3pm. We flew into Belo Horizonte from Rio and then took the BR040 south from Belo Horizonte to Ouro Preto. The journey was a winding trek through steep but verdant mountains. The sides of the roads and the bordering vegetation were both dusted with the indigenous [...]

With the morning comes illumination. Yesterday, Ouro Preto seemed like a sleepy little town in the tropics and although it is still picturesque after today’s explorations, I have discovered that its history reveals a very different past. This town produced 80% of all the gold produced in the world between 1700 and 1820. In 1750 [...]