We have been itching to explore the mountains near Ouro Preto and today we got a chance. We opted for 10 miles on mostly dirt roads, which we have had more luck with than pure single track. We couldn't shut up about the rocks along the way. We toured an old gold mine yesterday and our guide explained that the sparkle in the rocks is mostly exposed graphite and that the impressive pieces of quartz are essentially valueless. Knowing these things didn't make the rocks sparkle any less or stop us from bringing home chunks of quartz in our pockets. Our guide also demonstrated a wide array of pigmented minerals by smearing different clays from the mine on the back of his hand.
Somehow having had the pigment demonstration made the colors even more surreal. We are going to be leaving Minas Gerais, the state of general mining, in two short days. It's been a trip. We are currently on the border between two Brazilian biomes, the Atlantic Forest, which is mostly all we have ever known of Brazil, and the Cerrado, which we are becoming fascinated by. Hopefully it is a long life and we get a chance to poke around all of the biomes of Brazil.
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