Ringing in 2025 in BH

So, we reached out to friends, the Yates, a few months ago and threw out the idea that we should visit Minas Gerais together on a whim...definately not expecting it to happen. But then the Yates are so cool that they said yes and joined us on a really fun vacation that expanded to not only Minas Gerais, but Rio de Janeiro as well. We ended up taking a little over 2 weeks to do it all, so I am going to break the vacation up into parts based on cities and activities. On our to Belo Horizonte (BH) flight we saw a beautiful sunset. But when we got to our airbnb we were pretty disappointed by the dirtiness and lack of being able to close or lock the door. We also saw some mouse droppings and a cockroach. So the next day after a lousy nights sleep and a yummy bakery breakfast we left the airbnb for the local Holiday Inn (luckily it still had openings for new years eve).

After figuring out lodging we started exploring. We thought it would be easy to visit the sights, but didn't think about all the closures around New Years, so we got creative and still found some really fun things to do. On our first day we decided to visit Lagoa da Pampulha, and we started in a city park there hoping to see some capybaras. We never saw any, but instead found some pretty awesome birds. I never realized it, but I guess I love birdwatching. Here are a few of our favorites.

After the park we headed over to Igreja de Sao Francisco de Assis. It was a modern architecture building, very unique from any other catholic church that I had seen. We even learned that it wasn't recognized as a church for a few years. I really loved the blue and white tiles. I don't know the story of Sao Franscisco, but the murals were lovely. After we ate at our favorite restaurant of the trip, Resaurant Xapuri.

That night the Yates arrived and it was a party...really we rang in the new year together. We celebrated with reece's, root beer and other american treats that they so kindly brought for us.

We spent the next couple of days we went to BH central market twice, tasting cheese, dolce de leite, candy, and more. They had souveneirs aplenty, and louis even bought himself a horn made from a cow's horn.

We also swam in the hotel pool, ran in the rain, played tag in a mall, went to an overlook where we could see all of BH, visited the temple that is now being constructed there, and went back to Xapuri(it was that good). Pretty sure the running in the rain might have been the kids favorite part.

We had so much fun playing in BH, but Grant was a bit bummed we couldn't do the mines and mineral museum. But since our road trip took us north before we went south, we decided to stop back in BH after our adventures in Serra do Cipo. But as I am trying to keep things cronological, those will be included in my next update.