If anyone out there is as into Anthony Bourdain as Duck is, you probably know that he did an episode of Parts Unknown in Minas Gerais. He spends a good long time in the Mercado Central (central market) and this episode was one of the first things Duck watched in preparation for coming here, so naturally going to the Mercado Central was high on his list of things to do. When we discovered that there was a Mass he also wanted to go to at a church not far from the market, our Sunday outing planned itself!
The first aspect of the adventure was riding the bus. I didn’t really elaborate on this in the last post, but the bus ride was its own adventure, really. I treated the whole excursion as an ever more elaborate series of accomplishments, a sort of Dayeinu if you will. That is, if we had only figured out how to ride the bus, it would have been enough. If we had figured out how to ride the bus AND arrived at our intended destination, it would have been enough for us. If we had arrived AND explored… AND arrived back home safely… etc. So: we rode the bus to church AND went to church AND went to the Mercado Central AND got home safely – Dayeinu!
Ok, so riding the bus. You get on at the front, on the right side (though sometimes if the bus stop is on an island in the street, you get on the left side). Sometimes you give the money to the driver (4.50 reais, about $1.10) and sometimes there is another bus employee sitting about 3 yards in with a turnstile (ON the bus!) and you pay that person or tap your card (we still need to figure out how to get a bus card – looks a lot like a CharlieCard). Then you go through the turnstile, or if you’re elderly/handicapped/have kids with you, you can sit in the front of the bus. When you ring the bell to get off, it buzzes really loudly and annoyingly instead of a simple ding. Sometimes the bus driver even comes to a stop BEFORE opening the doors. It seems that almost all vehicles here are manual transmissions, so in addition to the very hilly terrain and cobblestone streets makes for a very jostly ride (and a very carsick Amy). I have to say that the bus doesn’t seem to take very long here, which is good. In addition to the bumpy roads and manual transmissions, they also drive like bats out of hell. So it’s awful, and it’s more awful, but at least also it’s over sooner? I dunno.
We went to Mass at a Lebanese Maronite church, trying our best to fumble along with the congregation at the responsive readings in Portuguese. Duck and I stood across the street and tried to watch the crowd milling about outside as inconspicuously as possible. (At one point, I realized I had never taken off my Star of David necklace as I had meant to, so I ambled down the street and around the corner, popped it off and into my bag, and meandered back casually.) It looked like there was a group baptism of babies before the 10am Mass, and then about 40 people (mostly middle-aged and older – only one family with kids) stayed for the regular Mass. There’s also a 7pm Mass on Sundays, so Duck was satisfied that he would be able to do some meaningful research there.
Then we went to the Mercado Central, which was a bit overwhelming. It was sort of like a cross between Faneuil Hall and a sports stadium, but with more cheese. Like, lots of cheese. It was big, or at least we kept going around and it all looked new and at the same time the same – so many places with cheeses and salamis, or bins and bins of bulk herbs, or touristy tchotchkes, or… It’s very hard to say how much of it we saw but eventually we disentangled ourselves and made our way to the outside world and home… by Uber.
Horntoes in Brazil 