Ouro Preto!!!

The Baileys, Tiffany, Audrey, Angel, Gisele and I toured the city of Ouro Preto. Found in the book Ten Thousand Places To See Before You Die, it is an old, beautiful, and unique place that I won't forget. The huge, never ending hills gave us sore muscles we will not forget soon either. The churches were beautiful, and the scenery breathtaking. Ouro Preto is a mining town, so they sold a multitude of different precious stones and rocks.

The Imperial Topaz sold there is mined only in Brazil - you cannot find it in any other place in the world. There were a lot of pretty carvings and such made from soap-stone, a softer, pretty stone that is easy to carve from.The chocolate was probably some of the best I've had- chocolate balls, hot chocolate, chocolate fondue that you cover strawberries with...

We ate at a restaurant made from an old debtor's prison. We took pictures in the gallows, but they are on Angel's camera. They had a lot of carvings of girls staring wistfully off in the distance- apparently they are supposed to be waiting for their lovers, or waiting to have a lover; I'm not sure which one it was.

The second day, we went down in one of the old mines that they let people visit. They stopped actually mining it because they could only find 4-8 ounces of gold for every ton of dirt that they sifted

. To get down into the mine, we rode on a rackety, old, seatbeltless cart that somehow managed to wind its way slowly down the deathly-steep hill. There was a lake in one of the caverns that our guide said people actually go diving in.