Belo Horizonte in photos

In addition to our adventures at seed-saving conferences and supporting student parties, Avery and I spent a few days exploring Belo Horizonte, Brazil's third largest city.

We are naturally drawn to markets: whether they be of the open-aired, souk variety, the wide-aisled supermarket, the farmers market, or the close-quartered municipal market. When everyone in BH was telling us that we needed to check out the central market, in naturally jumped to the top of our to-do list. 

You can find anything in the Mercado Central. Pet birds—dozens of species. Felafel and hummus—of course (though, that does not make them good). And steroids, lots of steroids.  This market has more nutrition and supplement stores than it does produce stands!

You want a shofar or split hoof bottle? They have them, too.

They also have bars in the middle of the market. I don't know if they set this up so all the husbands can drink while their wives go buy veggies or if it's set up like this for another reason.

Either way, Avery really liked the idea. In this photo, Avery is drinking a beer that was good but could really use an orange to bring out the flavor. (Think really weak Blue Moon, or painfully weak Oberon)

He said that he had never seen bars in markets during the day, but he really liked the idea.  It would probably go over very well in Burlington, Boulder, and Portland.

Normally, I'm told not to feed the lions. I wonder if the lion recycling can receives less material because people are afraid it will bite their hand off. 

Avery and I were impressed by the cacti in the botanical garden in BH. We had to find the proper angle to take this picture so the light would come out good but would also hide the grafitti smothering this cactus. 

This is Maleta, a shopping mall in BH that has turned into one of the best uses of aging commercial space I have ever seen. During the day, the place is full of used book stores and antique shops. At night, the place is full of bars and cool restaurants. 

The shopping complex also has this great store that specializes in street art supplies. We have been quite impressed by the quality of street art throughout Latin America. That work would not be possible without suppliers like these guys, Real Vandal.

Belo Horizonte boomed as a city at the beginning of the 20th century, so many of the old government institutions look like this. I don't really remember what this building was, but it doesn’t matter, because I probably just  said to Avery, "That's a cool-looking building. Can you take a picture of it?"