August 18,

Transition day. I awoke by 0630, having slept very well, because of the knee brace and anti-inflammatories. Jeff had been awake since 04-something. I got around and showered. (Jeff’s opting to wait for his shower.) We had our Javas and breakfast of the last of our pizza and left over Greek salad. Breakfast of champions, or maybe sumo wrestlers! (LOL emoji) After we finished Jeff left. He had to walk about 10 minutes away to pick up our car rental. I started packing – at least getting things together. Just before ten he texted me that the car rental was still processing. He had been gone for one hour!

Then twenty minutes later, he was coming back walking without the car (they had a conflict that they had to call IT to solve). We finished packing and were out by 1054. Now Jeff went back to get to the car, as they texted that it was now ready. I sat in the lobby of our apt building with our stuff, and texted our host that we were out. Jeff pulled up at 1155. Our car is a Chevy Onix, dark gray colored. We were on the road, finally at 1200. Just outside of Belo Horizonte, we climbed, hitting over an elevation of 4468 ft (I did not get the app opened until we had already crested and on the way down). We stopped at what we thought to be a lunch place in the town of Itabirito. A food specialty here is Pastel de Angu, which is a deep-fried cornmeal pastry stuffed with savory filling; and this place had a large monument of the pastry. But it was just a monument and the place was the bus station! The little shop there did not have the pastry. So we took advantage of a bathroom and left. In a short distance we found Peixaria, or Fish Shop. We stopped and they had the Pastel de Angu. So we had a small order of five, traditional fries, and a small portion of sausage (linguica, a homemade coarse ground sausage). We paid 85 BRL, or $16.21 and hit the road again. We were glad to try the Pastel de Angu but aren’t planning on ordering it again.

The drive is very hilly/mountainous. There were gorgeous yellow, purple, and red blooming trees along the route we were driving, which is 356 – Estrada Real (the Royal Road). We spotted several mining spots also and many dump trucks hauling to and from the still active mines that this area is known for. The road can be pretty curvy suddenly, and there were lots of speed cameras (thankfully our mapping program notified us of them).

We arrived at Ouro Preto, our destination for the next three nights, by 1515; and drove around a bit. It is a very hilly town with very steep roads and at least three churches dominating hill tops – very picturesque! Unfortunately I may not be doing much walking about!!! (sad emoji). We found our place. It was on the second floor and there were only stairs to access the place…Oh my!! OK, I can and did do it – very slowly, one step at a time! Jeff brought in our stuff and we settled in. He found a close grocery place three tenths of a mile away and bought stuff for breakfast. Our place is a cute two bedroom flat, with a kitchen/dining area and a living room.

Thanks to everyone praying for my knee…still awaiting the MRI results.