(WARNING: Disturbing image in link at end of article)
A Funk DJ in Belo Horizonte was shot dead outside his house in Pampulha last night by two motorcyclists that rode past him, confirmed it was him and then circled back to open fire. He was shot ten times and died at the scene.
Although police say they don’t know the motive for the killing, rumours are that DJ Paulinho was mixed up with the wrong girl – a girl already attached to someone dangerous. His death could have been as petty as that – seems ridiculous, doesn’t it?
The worst thing about it is that this motive has been seen before in the Brazilian music scene.
The rumours echo the murder of MC Daleste a few years back, a huge Funk star making $60,000 a night when he was murdered (reportedly by cops) live on stage. MC Daleste was supposed to have been fooling around with a girl attached to a big drug-trafficker. For that, he was killed.
DJ Paulinho wasn’t a mega-star DJ in Brazil, but he had enough sets that he would work the local Funk circuit in Belo Horizonte, and he’d toured in the US, Portugal and France. He had a song called “Vai Paulin Vai Paulin” which got pretty famous.
Below is a video of him doing a Funk mix at Conexão Rio. The crime-scene image for DJ Paulinho is here – don’t click the link if you don’t want to see a dead body or blood.
Savassi , an area of Belo Horizonte that has been the centre of street-drinking for tens of thousands of locals and tourists during this World Cup, was almost completely empty of fans just a few hours after Germany lifted the trophy. The party is definitely over here in Brazil.
It did not look like this last night, as it had done every other night during the 2014 World Cup:
Savassi in Belo Horizonte was the scene for huge parties when Brazil was winning, but the place they emptied once they dropped out of the World Cup.
Street vendors desperate to rid themselves of ice-boxes full of Brahma and Stella Artois were off-loading beers at three for 15 reais, then three for 12 reais, and finally three for 10. On what was a chilly night in Belo Horizonte the few fans left still partying in the street were huddled together, a few German and Argentinian flags scattered around, singing that Pele scored a 1,000 goals whilst Maradona only ever sniffed coke. Around them the big-screens that had shown all of the Brazilian games were being disassembled and trucked away.
With Brazil out in the semi-final so shamefully, and then losing again so pathetically in the third-place play-off, Brazilians had lost all enthusiasm for the World Cup they had held so brilliantly in their own back-yard. The bars weren’t packed for the third-place play-off like they were when Brazil was still in the Cup, and drinkers only half-heartedly kept an eye on the Cup final to make sure Argentina didn’t win.
And so, for a few more generations, there’ll be no more World Cup in Brazil. No more afternoons off, no more street-parties (until Carnaval, at least), and no more sea of yellow shirts.
Well done, Brazil, for hosting a brilliant World Cup. Now back to the real world.
You came for the World Cup, and now you want to stay in Brazil and live there forever. Your 90-day tourist visa runs out so you need to renew it, and fast. Your only option is to head to a Policia Federal.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how British, American Nationals and most other countries can get their 90-day tourist visa renewed in Belo Horizonte.
1) Fill in this online form. You want the “PEDIDO DE PRORROGACAO DE PRAZO DE ESTADA” option.
Print it off. This is an invoice you have to pay at a bank before they will process your visa at the Policia Federal. It costs 67 reais to renew your tourist visa.
If you don’t have a printer go to a “Lan House” or walk around your area until you see a shop with a “Xerox” sign. I brought my computer to the shop and emailed the document to the manager who printed it off for me. For this he charged me the princely sum of 1.50 reais, about 40p or 60 cents.
2) Take this document and 67 reais to any bank – Itau, Bradesco, Banco do Brasil, Santander… Go early in the morning because banks have a take-a-ticket system and they get incredibly busy (a friend and I once went to a bank which had a two-hour wait to see a cashier). Don’t do any of this at lunch-time, either, or you will wait an extra hour.
3) Pay the cashier 67 reais. She will stamp your document and tear off the slip you need to show to the official at the Policia Federal.
4) Go to the Policia Federal with your paid invoice, your passport and the entry document you got when you arrived in Brazil.
The address is Rua Francisco Deslandes, 900. Shopping Anchieta Plaza. Bairro Anchieta, Belo Horizonte. It’s in a nice shopping mall and the bank is opposite. It was already full of people when I arrived, most of whom were Brazilians getting their passports renewed.
There is a separate line for gringos/estrangeiros. Ask the attendant “Onde está a fila para os estrangeiros?” or look out for a sign. I did not do this, and I subsequently waited in the wrong queue for 40 minutes, only to reach the counter and be told the tourist visa line was actually a row of seats around the outskirts of the room.
I waited in this queue for 40 minutes only to find out it wasn’t the line for gringos renewing their tourist visas.
5) Sit in the row of seats, shuffling over to the next seat as it’s vacated by the foreigner ahead of you. Wait maybe an hour. Bring a book or watch Brazilian daytime TV. Talk to your fellow gringo.
6) You’ll be called in to the room when it’s your turn. Here is my interaction with the official as I remember it:
Official: “Did you fill in the document?”
Me: “No.”
He hands me a piece of paper and I fill in the top-half. Name, age, marriage status, address and contact in Brazil.
Official: “Are you sad England played badly in the World Cup?”
Me: “Yes.”
We get to talking about Brazil’s chances, how good the Netherlands team is, Manchester United, Van Persie. During this five minutes the visa application isn’t progressed in any way. It’s all very relaxed.
Another official comes by with a huge box of fruit. He asks if I want something. I take an orange and he tells me an estrangeiro brought it in. I’m presuming handing tourists oranges isn’t normal protocol at the Policia Federal but it’s a nice gesture.
7) He fills in the lower half of the form. He ticks that I have a return ticket and I have sufficient funds, although he doesn’t ask me to prove any of this. He taps at the computer and uses no less than seven stamps to certify my passport and entry paper.
8) We shake hands and I leave. I wish Brazil well in its future sporting endeavors.
A few points:
1) Get your tourist visa renewed as close to the end of your 90 days as possible, because the new 90-day allowance starts when your application is processed (so if you renew your visa at 80 days you can only stay a total of 170 days).
2) Most nationalities, and definitely the case for Americans and British, can only renew the visa once in a one-year period (so you can stay as a tourist here for 180 days out of 365 days).
3) Have a contingency plan if you’re rejected, although I reckon it unlikely you will be unless you’re doing something particularly nefarious here.
If you only do one thing during your visit to the 2014 Brazil World Cup in Belo Horizonte, visit Inhotim Art Gallery.
Fruit of the Palmeira-barriguda tree.
It’s about a two-hour drive out of the city (it’s only 70km away but traffic takes care of the rest) but it’s definitely worth it. The art gallery/botanical gardens is built within the huge grounds of the former English mining magnate Senor Tim (pronounced “In-yo-cheem” in old Brazilian, hence the name).
The surrounding mountains around Inhotim.
Dotted around Inhotim are modern art installations of glass, mirror, water, brick and sound buried deep in lush Brazilian forest. It’s a really beautiful place to walk around on a sunny day.
This huge tree-hugger truck sits forever tipping over in a glass dome structure in the middle of the jungle.
Paths lead through thousands of different types of flowers and trees as you look for each of the hidden installations.
A tree held up by four others.
The art installations are really, really cool. Photography inside the galleries is banned but I managed to snap the Cildo Meireles installation below.
Looks like the moon’s surface.
Another installation has you walking across broken glass (you’re wearing shoes).
The Dr. Seuss-style Paxiuba tree, which looks as if it’s dancing on its roots.
A spectacular sound installation called The Murder of Crows has you sat facing fifty different speakers in a dark warehouse as a girl recounts a dream beginning in the warehouse and moving through jungle to a beach.
There are 5,000 types of flowers at Inhotim, including this one with blue tiger-print petals.
Another has you in a pitch-black room as a strobe-light illuminates a fountain, making the water look like molten glass. In another you enter a room with a mirror, but you can’t see your reflection. You can literally step through the mirror, as crazy as that sounds.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s a really cool place.
A few tips: wear a good pair of walking shoes, tickets are 30 reais to enter and the best place to eat is the Oiticica self-service restaurant (where they weigh your plate; it’ll cost about 40 reais for a really nice meal and a drink).
A ticket for the final of the 2014 Brazil World Cup will cost three times the monthly minimum salary of the average Brazilian.
This is the face-value cost, too. They’ll be exchanging hands for ten times that when England get to the final against the Socceroos.
Teachers in Minas Gerais are still on strike, incidentally, asking for a 15 per cent increase in salary after three years of no salary increased and inflation running at 8 per cent per year.
They join sanitation workers on strike. The timing of the strike is well-chosen. There is no other job that more visually impacts a city than when sanitation workers go on strike.
With tourists set to arrive in two weeks the mayor of Belo Horizonte wants it all wrapped up, but he still won’t agree to the salary hikes.
And people ask why Brazilians are angry about spending all that money on stadiums… It’s great for tourism and the “image” of Brazil, but where does it leave ordinary people?
Residents of a favela in northern Belo Horizonte built a barricade of burning tyres across one of the main motorways out of Belo Horizonte yesterday to protest the forced removal of 8,000 families from their homes.
The burning tyres shut off the road throughout the evening outside the iconic Oscar Niemeyer-designed Cidade Administrativa building, the offices of the government of Minas Gerais.
Considering the motorway is the only route from the airport to Belo Horizonte’s downtown, it raises implications for tourists arriving for the World Cup if they do the same thing.
Residents of favelas are generally tolerated until the land becomes valuable as urban sprawl spreads to the outskirts of the city. The 2014 World Cup and Brazil’s economic boom since 2008 have raised property values into the stratosphere, and all those favelas sit on now-prime valleysides with beautiful views over the city.
When Belo Horizonte was built 115 years ago it was its central neighbourhoods that were prime real estate, as delineated by Avenida Conturno, which formed a barrier around the city. Only government workers could buy properties in the centre of the city, which is why the most-fashionable area of BH is still the “Funcionarios” neighbourhood, literally, “Government workers”.
The residents of Zilah Sposito say the ground they built their homes has never been used by the city. As favelas grow they become mini-cities, complete with eletrical and water systems, roads, bus routes and all of them have little bars and supermarkets.
Ultimately, however, the land is the property of the government, and the favelas are considered illegal settlements.
Praça do Papa in Belo Horizonte is a great, FREE place to visit and look out across the city if you’re here for the 2014 World Cup. It was once visited by the big man himself, hence the name.
View of the city from Mirante, Mangabeiras through an abandoned gate.
It’s an incredible view and if you bring a bottle of wine or some beers you can spend a few hours there and watch the sun-set.
Even higher up in the mountains surrounding BH is Mirante, in the Mangabeiras neighborhood, with an even better view of the city. Both free and accessible by car or walking. The view will blow your mind, it’s like looking at a city made out of lego.
Look them both up on Google Maps and take a bus over there. If you like hiking you’ll love the hills.
It’s difficult to take a photograph of a hill that perfectly captures its gradient. But if you level the camera with the street you can let the new angle of the buildings show it for you…
The hills of Belo Horizonte are ridiculous. As the city has spread out its property-developers have had to be inventive about housing, considering the city is surrounded by steep folds of mountainous valleysides.
I’m going to write a separate article about the unbelievable level of security Brazilians like to have – this apartment block looks like a prison.
That leads to steep roads like the one seen in these images. Car-tyres screech and smoke as they skid downwards and residents near enough collapse walking to the top of these streets.
Steep hills surround Belo Horizonte’s city centre, and chic, wealthy neighbourhoods such as Savassi and Funcionários lie at the bottom of these valleys.
During heavy rain-storms water flows downhill, and just a few weeks ago downtown Belo Horizonte was completely flooded following two days of heavy rain, which led to cars bobbing around like rubber ducks.
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