Let's start with Saturday. On Saturday, a few us decided to head on down to the Central Market in downtown BH. We decided to walk today since the market is only a couple km away. Yep, I am now using the metric system. :) The walk was nice. I feel like this is the first time I actually got to really see the city of BH, especially outside of the Savassi neighborhood.
The market is very large, almost supercenter-like place which sells everything from food and crafts to live animals. The thing that shocked me the most was that the market had food vendors and live animal shops right across or next to each other. Trust me, I stayed far away from either of those places. Don't need to get food poisoning or some type of bird flu. The food vendors (not by the animal shops) were amazing, though. They had everything from nuts, to dried fruit, peppers, cheeses, meats, etc. It was amazing! I basically had lunch there by walking around and tasting everything. Definitely one of the best lunches yet!
The down side is that the market is very repetitive and doesn't have much else. A great place for food and cooking items. They had great clay pots which would have been great for my kitchen. Too bad they weigh a ton and would probably break on the shipment home.
On Sunday, we strolled on down to the Hippie Fair. The fair only occurs on Sunday mornings from 6am til around 2pm. We were advised you should get down there before 10am to avoid the crowds. Of course, we don't get there until just after 10am and immediately realize why we should have gotten there earlier. The place was packed! All kinds of vendors with their own tents selling mostly goods for women. Not really a man's fair. haha!
They did have all kinds of shoes, jewelry, and clothes (woman and children mostly). I think all of the ladies bought most of their items here. They had a ball getting all kinds of shoes and jewelry for really cheap. I am pretty sure the quality of the product goes along with the price, though. I was able to find a couple of things for myself. Found a really cool bead braclet, which I wish I would have bought 20 of since they were only $.50 US a piece. But oh well! I also bought a really cool painted carving of Ouro Preto for only R$25. Not to bad at all! Sorry, don't really have any pictures. There really wasn't much to see anyways.
After the fair, we strolled through the park that was close by and relaxed. It was a great time to reflect and have a more in-depth conversation which we haven't really had a chance to do. Definitely a nice treat after a busy time at the fair. Our relaxation period led us to meet up with almost the entire group an eat lunch. Pretty soon lunch turned into a few drinks which led us to a champagne and cigar bar. Before we knew it, we all had champagne and cigars in our hands. Good cigars too! Cubans. I think we all felt on top of the world at that moment. We treated it as a celebration to all our hard work and realized our time together was running short. For me, the "Champagne Sunday" was one of the best. We all seemed to drop our guards for that afternoon and really bond and have a good time. A good way to start the last week in the BH.
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