Where I Find Out I’m Taking The Bus To “Bea-gá”

“Going to Bea-gá?” the bus driver asked me, tagging my backpack and loading it in the luggage compartment below.

“No, Belo Horizonte,” I replied.

He looked at me, a little bemused.

Turned out that “Bea-gá” is Belo Horizonte—”BH,” “Bea-gá” in Portuguese.

How was I supposed to know? I pick random cities to explore and I find a way to get there, I don’t research local slang!

Maybe I should have, though, because “Bea-gá” is a bit of a culture shock.

I left Petrópolis at 8 a.m., called an Uber and got to the bus terminal perfectly on time. The bus was coming from Rio de Janeiro but it was on time as well and it showed up at 9:45 a.m. just as planned.

So far, so good. I’d get to Belo Horizonte at 4:30 p.m., hopefully more on or less on time, hopefully rested enough to tackle a brand-new city for me.

Why Belo Horizonte? Same as usual, why not. The state of Minas Gerais is huge and I’ve met “Mineiros” all over Brazil, most of the time at the beach—it’s a landlocked state so they tend to flock to Rio de Janeiro State or the Nordeste, desperate for salt water, and they are invariably friendly, cheerful folks.

“Tem que ir!” they all told me about their homestate.

This was my chance. Sure, no beach, potentially cooler weather and rain. But on the other side, Brazil’s second-most populous state invented the delicious pão de queijo, this amazing cheesy bread, and the food is supposed to be the best in Brazil.

So I bought my bus ticket to Belo Horizonte, the first planned modern city in Brazil.

The bus stopped around Juiz de Fora, right across the state border, for the usual 30-minute Brazilian lunch break. The comida por kilo buffet was cheap and absolutely amazing with giant pães de queijo, huge cakes and a bit of every local specialty. I can’t picture service stations offering the same kind of food anywhere in North America…

The bus was right on time. “Perfect,” I thought. “Plenty of time to drop off my bags at the Airbnb, explore and buy something for dinner.”

Except I had forgotten a few details.

I made it to the Airbnb just fine but I discovered the local accent with the Uber driver. I’m not entirely sure it’s Portuguese.

Then I started to look for a supermarket to buy everything I needed for the week. The thing is, going to a new state is like going to another country. Everything is different, starting with supermarket chains. Google Maps showed me a million supermarkets around me, but which ones were actual supermarkets, not convenience stores? Should I go to Verdemar or Super Nosso? No idea, and never heard of them—in Rio de Janeiro State I shopped at the Pão de Açúcar, the Extra, the Hortifruiti or the Princesa. In Foz, I discovered the Super Muffato and in Floripa, we’re used to the Angeloni, the Hippo or the Imperatriz, while in São Paulo, I often end up at Carrefour.

Oh, and obviously, brand names are often different, ah, ah.

Mind you, the trickiest part was to get to the supermarket. And this is the third point I had conveniently overlooked about Belo Horizonte—it’s a planned city with a symmetrical array of perpendicular and diagonal streets. Looks great on paper or from above but it’s maddening because it’s very easy to get lost. To top it all, it’s a hilly city with steep streets.

Feng couldn’t stop laughing when I told him about my first evening in Belo Horizonte.

Wish me luck.

I’m here for a week.