As an aside, I think everyone here knows about Arbuckle's Coffee, Most don't know what the ARIOSA on the bags stood for. Well that's simple, Rio South America, The original blend they made was for around the Rio area.
HA!
I knew! I think YOU may have told me. It may have been (or is still) made from beans grown near where I was. Or mebbe not.
Uh ... after looking at the website and maps, it seems my 51 year old memories (well, I'm 59, but not my memories) are a bit OFF regarding how close to Rio that Vicosa really is. Sorry.*******************************
Brasil is a study of contradictions. Our house was the last one on our road/street.There was a big coffee field on one side, but the National Bird Sanctuary was on the edge of that field. On the end of our road, they had cleared out some more land (a few acres.) Then, a jungle started. Yep - a JUNGLE! Animals and all. Pretty odd for a kid from W. Lafayette, Indiana! And fun, too! Needless to say, we (kids) didn't stray too far into the jungle, but the "entrance" (really, the last part of what had been cleared for our road) was overgrown with bamboo. We made all kinds of things from bamboo.
And to tie this up to the "Real Cowboy" picture that started this post, alongwith numerous acreage of coffee and sugar cane, was a fair amount of grazing land for cattle. LOTS of Brahma Bulls in with the long-horned cattle. There were many herders who. except for their hat style, could pass for cowboys of our Olde West. The hand made and tooled custom boot business was in full swing in our town. I remember getting a couple pairs of custom-made boots for the princely sum of 400 Cruzeros. A dollar brought 212 Cruzeros at that time! Don't you (and I) wish you could get a hand-made, well-tooled (read: fancy decoration/carving) for one
dollar? Boy, I wish that was still available.
IF interested, here's a Wiki link to the University there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universidade_Federal_de_Vi%C3%A7osa The whole place has expanded tremendously. The University, of course, was the main focus of town. There were very few paved streets and mayhaps 2,000 (non-University) residents. Now it's a real city. See what happens after I leave a place?
Enough of my memories ... but they had
Real Cowboys there.