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The Road to Rio
Palin travels from the mining area of Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro., Michael Palin goes to Minas Gerais to learn about Brazil’s wealth of minerals, visiting an old gold mine and learning how the profits are spent in Rio de Janeiro., The shanty towns of Rio de Janeiro are rife with extreme violence and a no-go area for the authorities, but things are gradually changing., In the third part of his Brazilian odyssey, Michael Palin visits the source of Brazil’s great mineral wealth, Minas Gerais, and then travels to one of the world’s greatest cities, Rio de Janeiro, to see how this new-found wealth is being spent, changing the lives of millions of its inhabitants. Michael visits an old gold mine once owned by the British, before going to see a vast opencast iron ore mine that is such a feature of the Minas landscape, and he meets some ordinary Brazilians who are dedicated to preserving the natural beauty of the state. Then it’s on to Rio, where the authorities have decided to spend some of Brazil’s new money on healing the rift between the favelas and the rest of the city. He also finds time to visit some of Rio’s best-known locations, learns how to celebrate a goal like a Brazilian radio commentator, and books a room in one of the city’s infamous ‘love hotels’.
