With my 4.5 months Latin America 2018 journey ending, I want to share with you my experiences of my final destination: Belo Horizonte (BH), Brazil. In total I stayed 6 weeks (42 days) in Lima, Mexico (Guadalajara + CDMX) & Belo Horizonte each.
Disclaimer: So you can put this post in relation, I had good success with girls in Peru, left Mexico empty handed and got three bangs in Brasil, one in BH and two in Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, I had some really good success in Colombia two years ago. This trip was essentially my first time in Brasil, besides a short 4 nights tourism trip in 2016.
Before you continue, I highly recommend you to read Titus' excellent post about Brazil vs Colombia. I agree with almost everything he says. More information can be found in the Belo Horizonte general thread.
Executive Summary:
Week 1-2: Being totally new to BH and Brazil, I spent the first two weeks just exploring the city and get comfortable with the environment. Rough times though. No number, no kiss, no nothing. Also faced some very serious language barriers.
Week 3-4: Transition period. Started to understand the game in town and kisses & numbers came in. Attended many of the FIFA World Cup public viewings and parties around the city. Fun times.
Week 5-6: With Brasil out of the FIFA World Cup, I got slightly bored of the city. Did side trips to Ouro Preto and Rio de Janeiro during the week and returned to BH for weekends. All bangs happened in this last two weeks.
The City:
BH is Brazil's third largest city with over 5 million habitants. The city is quite hilly and very car-driven. There is a reason why there are basically no tourists as the city itself is ugly, boring and very generic. Interestingly there aren't any real busy districts with many people on the street, besides it being the country's third largest city. Be prepared to find at least 50% of restaurants and shops to be closed any time of the day (yes, even in Savassi). On the positive side, the city is very safe for Latin American standards.
This short video basically covers everything of interest in BH. As the city itself is boring as fuck, its people / girls is the only attraction.
So who is the city for? If you like other non-touristy 2nd tier cities such as Cali or Guadalajara, then there is a chance you might also like BH. Otherwise better stay away.
![[Image: Captura_de_pantalla_2018_07_25_a_las_22_52_00.png]](https://preview.ibb.co/fCsHR8/Captura_de_pantalla_2018_07_25_a_las_22_52_00.png)
During my stay in June & July the weather was literally perfect. An always perfect blue sky and stable 28°C. However, when looking at the weather table above, other months seem to be hot and rainy. Taking into account the hilly and boring nature of the city, I can recommend to go to BH only during maybe May to August.
As a good German, I of course did my accounting and tracked my daily throughout the whole journey. So he an overview of my expenses in the different locations.
My lifestyle: AirBnB apartment in a central and nice location. Go out eating twice a day and party 3-4 times a week. Usually don't drink alcohol, neither smoke cigarettes. Almost always take Uber.
![[Image: Captura_de_pantalla_2018_07_25_a_las_23_15_56.png]](https://preview.ibb.co/bGvyYo/Captura_de_pantalla_2018_07_25_a_las_23_15_56.png)
*Rio de Janeiro housing and transfer costs not included
As you can see BH (or Brazil) is quite a bit more expensive than the other two places. The worst part: approximately 1/3 (no precise data) of the expenses have been spent on Uber.
Logistics
Savassi is BH's most upscale district and frequently recommended in the Belo Horizonte general thread.
![[Image: Captura_de_pantalla_2018_07_25_a_las_23_25_39.png]](https://preview.ibb.co/mNmQeT/Captura_de_pantalla_2018_07_25_a_las_23_25_39.png)
I recommend to stay as close as possible to Praca da Savassi, which is next to the above highlighted McDonalds. My apartment was at the location with the heart. We are going to talk later about the other two favourited places.
Logistics will probably be your biggest headache while staying here. For this we have to understand that a) public transportation sucks big time, b) the spread out nature of venues and girls and finally c) the location of Savassi within the city. Let's look closer into point c.
![[Image: Captura_de_pantalla_2018_07_25_a_las_23_34_58.png]](https://preview.ibb.co/dU5Mm8/Captura_de_pantalla_2018_07_25_a_las_23_34_58.png)
Savassi is actually located in the very south-east of the city. This makes it very difficult for girls to come to see you. Even a direct Uber ride can easily take up to 30-45 minutes. Don't even think about public transportation. I'm almost sure there must be a better, more central location, but haven't found it so far.
Language (skip if you know Portuguese)
When I landed, I though Brazil will be easily doable with my English and Spanish language skills. What I've found was the heaviest language barrier I ever encountered, especially in the first two weeks (yes, even more so than 2nd tier Japan.
Look, the thing is this, maybe 1 out of 10 speaks some English. This doesn't necessarily mean they want to speak English. Opening people / girls in English will lead in at least half the cases to an instant termination of the conversation in a very direct way. Probably accompanied with an angry facial expression. There are less total English speakers in Japan, but at least they are so polite to stop and listen.
With Spanish it's a bit more tricky. Sure, those two languages are close to each other, but you have to get accustomed to the Portuguese pronunciation. People are very direct and don't have any patience to explain you things or repeat themselves, so the ability to understand is far more important than to express yourself. After roughly three weeks, I finally 'got' it and started to understand the people around me. In the end, people applauded me on how good my Portuguese is.
If you already speak Spanish, make sure to invest some time beforehand into Portuguese as it will make your trip infinitely more better. For example you could follow my short guide. I'm going to be honest with you: if you only speak English, your trip to BH will probably end in being miserable. And yes, people in Rio speak much better English (we will cover this later).
Girls & Game
Finally this dude starts to talk about girls. The part we all waited for. To sum it up, girls are hot. In average comparable with Medellin, but with a higher deviation on both ends. This means, more very hot 8+, but sadly also a lot more girls outside the acceptable range. Also they are in most parts white, European-looking and as Titus wrote in his Brazil vs Colombia post, not the most feminine.
Game in Brazil is very unique. I think it's very different from all places I've been before and I want to share with you some points I learned. Please keep in mind, that I had limited success and there are a lot of other threads covering these in more detail.
1.) You are in BH for a reason. You are here either for work on project for yourself or a big multinational or you are here to learn Portuguese at a language school. Never ever say you are in BH for tourism. You will be marked (rightfully) as crazy. The city is ugly and boring and there are no tourists for a very good reason.
2.)
Those two Gentlemen say it the best. Be direct and go early for the kiss. Girls will be confused if you don't. Even worse, every word you say (especially if not in Portuguese) will pull her away from you. You can read this 100 times, but in the end you have to experience this in real life. At the very end, I got a couple of zero-word makeouts. No "hi", no nothing. It's very special.
3.) Her friends are the best wingmen you could ever wish for. In other countries you usually want to separate the girl from her friends, but not here. In BH (and maybe in all of Brazil) the group want to see its friend to hookup. It goes like this:
Me: Hey guys, cool party, isn't it?
They: ??? Where are you from? What are you doing? ...
Me: Your friend is very cute
They: Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!
The friends will put a lot of pressure on her to hookup with you, even if she puts some resistance. Just keep calm and let them do the work. Unique.
4.) The real battle starts after the kiss. So, you finally got this cute 9, made out with her for 20 minutes and she even let you grab her ass. Great. Now the real work starts. ONS happen in Brazil, but I think it's reserved for Sampa and Rio. At least I didn't manage to get one in BH. This means you have to get her WhatsApp and set up a date.
You will battle against three things:
a) logistics as described above
b) her preference for work / university over you
c) lost of interest as soon as you are in the digital realm as Brazilianguy mentions here
Never really had a problem to set up a date with a girl I already kissed before. Cant't give you any tips about this. Just be prepared it might happen.
Tinder
A word on Tinder. I pipelined a couple of days before and got a good amount of quality matches. Quantity wise it's good. The thing is, I find Tinder boring and see it exclusively as an hookup app. This is an example conversation:
Me: Hey cutie, wanna come over to my apartment and hang out?
She: What are we going to do?
Me: I'm going to kiss you
She: I'm not that kind of girl / Ok, where do you live?
In short, this does work well in Lima and Bogota. Not so much in BH.
Nightlife
Even if you have solid Daygame, Nightlife will be your most important stream to meet cute girls. During my 6 weeks in Brazil, I attended all kinds of parties. Forro dance party, drug infused electronic festival, posh nightclub, poor working class party. You name it. In BH, good options are usually available from Thursday - Sunday (yes, Sunday also!).
Instead of listing a couple of places, I will give you something far more powerful. You need to download the Sympla either for Android or iOS. Sympla is an online ticket vendor for events. Most major events will be announced here. Together with Facebook Events, Sympla is the best way to find out what's 'happening' at night.
How to find a hot place to go out:
1. Check Facebook Events and look for events with at least 300+ people 'interested'
2. Make sure they play 'Funk' as music. This is important as only Funk will put girls in hyper-slut-mode. Exception if you know how to dance Forro.
3. Lookup the attendance list. If people are good looking, go. Usually I like to go to working-class parties as they tend to be more fun. That's not the case in BH. It's also not easier to hookup, quite the contrary.
4. Check Sympla for events. Not all events show up in Facebook events.
Tickets are sold in different batches called 'lote', with earlier lotes being priced cheaper than later ones. The early lotes will always only be available to purchase through Sympla or Central dos Eventos. You are always going to pay the latest lote, the maximum price, at the event site. Here is how it looks in practice:
![[Image: rsz_1screenshot_2018_07_13_17_38_34_459_...ickets.png]](https://image.ibb.co/ek10Do/rsz_1screenshot_2018_07_13_17_38_34_459_comsymplatickets.png)
A big problem for foreigners to purchase a ticket online is the need for a CPF, a Brazilian tax number. Without you can't buy a ticket online, even if it's free. So what you need to do is to find some Brazilian who will buy you a ticket online. Most events will sell tickets through Sympla and you are most probably be fucked and have to pay the maximum price at the door. For Central dos Eventos exists a physical offline store. Remember the two favourited places in the Google Maps screenshot above? The direction: R. Fernandes Tourinho, 470 - Savassi
A handful of places never publish any event on Facebook Events or Sympla, so I'm going to list them here:
Woods: A Forro place with a very hot crowd.
Raro Skybar: Nice bar. Only opens on Thursdays.
Paco Pigalle: Got this as an recommendation, but never went. Supposed to be a place that places only Reggeaton.
Rio de Janeiro vs Belo Horizonte:
I always read "if you do good in Rio, you will kill it in BH", but never see an actual Datasheet of these claims. In the following table I tried to compare those two cities with each other as objectively as possible. To keep it short, I use a point system: things that will influence your chances will get assigned 1 point, while important factors get 2 points.
![[Image: Captura_de_pantalla_2018_07_26_a_las_3_07_05.png]](https://preview.ibb.co/drNAeT/Captura_de_pantalla_2018_07_26_a_las_3_07_05.png)
I hope the points mentioned above are self-explanatory as explaining them would be out of scope for this data sheet. Only advantages that one city has over the other is listed. Obviously both Rio and BH are very different from each other and are good for different type of people, I think the table above should give an idea why Rio is the better choice for most people. For me it translated into two bangs in Rio in 4 nights and only one bang in BH in 6 weeks.
Miscellaneous:
- Don't change any money at the airport. They will rip you off. There are multi-bank ATMs in Diamond Mall and Patio Savassi. Also you can buy almost anything directly with credit card.
- Beef is good and reasonable priced. The good stuff is called 'Picanha'.
- Are you like me and like to sit down at an all-you-can-eat buffet for hours and eat kilos? Bad news, buffets are usually weighted. But fear not! The last favourited place on the Google maps screenshot at the beginning of the post is a restaurant called Pinguim. 26,99R$ for a decent buffet.
Final thoughts:
Will I come back to BH? No way! Will I come back to Brazil? Hell yes! Somewhere on this forum read "Compared with the warm and friendly Brazilians, other Latinos are like ice cold serial killers". So true. I myself wrote about Guadalajara:
While this is true, the people in Guadalajara are only friendly to you because you are a foreigner. In Brazil however, everyone wants everyone to have fun. That's even much better. Even though I just had mediocre success with girls, I think there is still a lot potential. Furthermore as a Spanish speaker, it's almost irresponsible not to learn Portuguese as it gives you basically a free language for very little effort.
For me, Brazil might have been one of the best travel experiences so far as I've grown and learned something through it. Quite similar to my first Japan trip. The next time, however, I will for sure choose a beach destination (Rio?).
Read here my opinion about Modern Day Brazil.
Disclaimer: So you can put this post in relation, I had good success with girls in Peru, left Mexico empty handed and got three bangs in Brasil, one in BH and two in Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, I had some really good success in Colombia two years ago. This trip was essentially my first time in Brasil, besides a short 4 nights tourism trip in 2016.
Before you continue, I highly recommend you to read Titus' excellent post about Brazil vs Colombia. I agree with almost everything he says. More information can be found in the Belo Horizonte general thread.
Executive Summary:
Week 1-2: Being totally new to BH and Brazil, I spent the first two weeks just exploring the city and get comfortable with the environment. Rough times though. No number, no kiss, no nothing. Also faced some very serious language barriers.
Week 3-4: Transition period. Started to understand the game in town and kisses & numbers came in. Attended many of the FIFA World Cup public viewings and parties around the city. Fun times.
Week 5-6: With Brasil out of the FIFA World Cup, I got slightly bored of the city. Did side trips to Ouro Preto and Rio de Janeiro during the week and returned to BH for weekends. All bangs happened in this last two weeks.
The City:
BH is Brazil's third largest city with over 5 million habitants. The city is quite hilly and very car-driven. There is a reason why there are basically no tourists as the city itself is ugly, boring and very generic. Interestingly there aren't any real busy districts with many people on the street, besides it being the country's third largest city. Be prepared to find at least 50% of restaurants and shops to be closed any time of the day (yes, even in Savassi). On the positive side, the city is very safe for Latin American standards.
This short video basically covers everything of interest in BH. As the city itself is boring as fuck, its people / girls is the only attraction.
So who is the city for? If you like other non-touristy 2nd tier cities such as Cali or Guadalajara, then there is a chance you might also like BH. Otherwise better stay away.
During my stay in June & July the weather was literally perfect. An always perfect blue sky and stable 28°C. However, when looking at the weather table above, other months seem to be hot and rainy. Taking into account the hilly and boring nature of the city, I can recommend to go to BH only during maybe May to August.
As a good German, I of course did my accounting and tracked my daily throughout the whole journey. So he an overview of my expenses in the different locations.
My lifestyle: AirBnB apartment in a central and nice location. Go out eating twice a day and party 3-4 times a week. Usually don't drink alcohol, neither smoke cigarettes. Almost always take Uber.
*Rio de Janeiro housing and transfer costs not included
As you can see BH (or Brazil) is quite a bit more expensive than the other two places. The worst part: approximately 1/3 (no precise data) of the expenses have been spent on Uber.
Logistics
Savassi is BH's most upscale district and frequently recommended in the Belo Horizonte general thread.
I recommend to stay as close as possible to Praca da Savassi, which is next to the above highlighted McDonalds. My apartment was at the location with the heart. We are going to talk later about the other two favourited places.
Logistics will probably be your biggest headache while staying here. For this we have to understand that a) public transportation sucks big time, b) the spread out nature of venues and girls and finally c) the location of Savassi within the city. Let's look closer into point c.
Savassi is actually located in the very south-east of the city. This makes it very difficult for girls to come to see you. Even a direct Uber ride can easily take up to 30-45 minutes. Don't even think about public transportation. I'm almost sure there must be a better, more central location, but haven't found it so far.
Language (skip if you know Portuguese)
When I landed, I though Brazil will be easily doable with my English and Spanish language skills. What I've found was the heaviest language barrier I ever encountered, especially in the first two weeks (yes, even more so than 2nd tier Japan.
Look, the thing is this, maybe 1 out of 10 speaks some English. This doesn't necessarily mean they want to speak English. Opening people / girls in English will lead in at least half the cases to an instant termination of the conversation in a very direct way. Probably accompanied with an angry facial expression. There are less total English speakers in Japan, but at least they are so polite to stop and listen.
With Spanish it's a bit more tricky. Sure, those two languages are close to each other, but you have to get accustomed to the Portuguese pronunciation. People are very direct and don't have any patience to explain you things or repeat themselves, so the ability to understand is far more important than to express yourself. After roughly three weeks, I finally 'got' it and started to understand the people around me. In the end, people applauded me on how good my Portuguese is.
If you already speak Spanish, make sure to invest some time beforehand into Portuguese as it will make your trip infinitely more better. For example you could follow my short guide. I'm going to be honest with you: if you only speak English, your trip to BH will probably end in being miserable. And yes, people in Rio speak much better English (we will cover this later).
Girls & Game
Finally this dude starts to talk about girls. The part we all waited for. To sum it up, girls are hot. In average comparable with Medellin, but with a higher deviation on both ends. This means, more very hot 8+, but sadly also a lot more girls outside the acceptable range. Also they are in most parts white, European-looking and as Titus wrote in his Brazil vs Colombia post, not the most feminine.
Game in Brazil is very unique. I think it's very different from all places I've been before and I want to share with you some points I learned. Please keep in mind, that I had limited success and there are a lot of other threads covering these in more detail.
1.) You are in BH for a reason. You are here either for work on project for yourself or a big multinational or you are here to learn Portuguese at a language school. Never ever say you are in BH for tourism. You will be marked (rightfully) as crazy. The city is ugly and boring and there are no tourists for a very good reason.
2.)
Quote: (03-05-2017 01:46 PM)LINUX Wrote:
Quote: (03-05-2017 01:36 PM)DigitalNomad Wrote:
Turn your normal pick up brain off. A friend and I were so damn frustrated the first day of carnival because everyone was making out, and we were getting shut down after a really good "western style" 10 minute pick up attempt. I'd estimate you have two freebie sentences, then it's -10% chance every sentence after that, with the odd exception
Well said and 100% true.
Pensive and analytical guys will get eaten alive in Brazil. Take everything you've learned and throw it away, start from scratch,
You: "Hey , you're hot, give me a kiss."
Her: Ok.
You: Nice meeting you, hit me up later if you want to party.
Her: Whatsapp me.
Those two Gentlemen say it the best. Be direct and go early for the kiss. Girls will be confused if you don't. Even worse, every word you say (especially if not in Portuguese) will pull her away from you. You can read this 100 times, but in the end you have to experience this in real life. At the very end, I got a couple of zero-word makeouts. No "hi", no nothing. It's very special.
3.) Her friends are the best wingmen you could ever wish for. In other countries you usually want to separate the girl from her friends, but not here. In BH (and maybe in all of Brazil) the group want to see its friend to hookup. It goes like this:
Me: Hey guys, cool party, isn't it?
They: ??? Where are you from? What are you doing? ...
Me: Your friend is very cute
They: Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!
The friends will put a lot of pressure on her to hookup with you, even if she puts some resistance. Just keep calm and let them do the work. Unique.
4.) The real battle starts after the kiss. So, you finally got this cute 9, made out with her for 20 minutes and she even let you grab her ass. Great. Now the real work starts. ONS happen in Brazil, but I think it's reserved for Sampa and Rio. At least I didn't manage to get one in BH. This means you have to get her WhatsApp and set up a date.
Quote: (01-12-2015 11:48 AM)Brazilianguy Wrote:
My problem lies in getting the bang: I can approach, create attraction and make out with hot girls, but I lose the game as soon as they start communicating with me through whatsapp.
In the past 3 weeks I must have picked up about 8 girls, but couldn´t get the bang.
You will battle against three things:
a) logistics as described above
b) her preference for work / university over you
c) lost of interest as soon as you are in the digital realm as Brazilianguy mentions here
Never really had a problem to set up a date with a girl I already kissed before. Cant't give you any tips about this. Just be prepared it might happen.
Tinder
A word on Tinder. I pipelined a couple of days before and got a good amount of quality matches. Quantity wise it's good. The thing is, I find Tinder boring and see it exclusively as an hookup app. This is an example conversation:
Me: Hey cutie, wanna come over to my apartment and hang out?
She: What are we going to do?
Me: I'm going to kiss you
She: I'm not that kind of girl / Ok, where do you live?
In short, this does work well in Lima and Bogota. Not so much in BH.
Nightlife
Even if you have solid Daygame, Nightlife will be your most important stream to meet cute girls. During my 6 weeks in Brazil, I attended all kinds of parties. Forro dance party, drug infused electronic festival, posh nightclub, poor working class party. You name it. In BH, good options are usually available from Thursday - Sunday (yes, Sunday also!).
Instead of listing a couple of places, I will give you something far more powerful. You need to download the Sympla either for Android or iOS. Sympla is an online ticket vendor for events. Most major events will be announced here. Together with Facebook Events, Sympla is the best way to find out what's 'happening' at night.
How to find a hot place to go out:
1. Check Facebook Events and look for events with at least 300+ people 'interested'
2. Make sure they play 'Funk' as music. This is important as only Funk will put girls in hyper-slut-mode. Exception if you know how to dance Forro.
3. Lookup the attendance list. If people are good looking, go. Usually I like to go to working-class parties as they tend to be more fun. That's not the case in BH. It's also not easier to hookup, quite the contrary.
4. Check Sympla for events. Not all events show up in Facebook events.
Tickets are sold in different batches called 'lote', with earlier lotes being priced cheaper than later ones. The early lotes will always only be available to purchase through Sympla or Central dos Eventos. You are always going to pay the latest lote, the maximum price, at the event site. Here is how it looks in practice:
A big problem for foreigners to purchase a ticket online is the need for a CPF, a Brazilian tax number. Without you can't buy a ticket online, even if it's free. So what you need to do is to find some Brazilian who will buy you a ticket online. Most events will sell tickets through Sympla and you are most probably be fucked and have to pay the maximum price at the door. For Central dos Eventos exists a physical offline store. Remember the two favourited places in the Google Maps screenshot above? The direction: R. Fernandes Tourinho, 470 - Savassi
A handful of places never publish any event on Facebook Events or Sympla, so I'm going to list them here:
Woods: A Forro place with a very hot crowd.
Raro Skybar: Nice bar. Only opens on Thursdays.
Paco Pigalle: Got this as an recommendation, but never went. Supposed to be a place that places only Reggeaton.
Rio de Janeiro vs Belo Horizonte:
I always read "if you do good in Rio, you will kill it in BH", but never see an actual Datasheet of these claims. In the following table I tried to compare those two cities with each other as objectively as possible. To keep it short, I use a point system: things that will influence your chances will get assigned 1 point, while important factors get 2 points.
I hope the points mentioned above are self-explanatory as explaining them would be out of scope for this data sheet. Only advantages that one city has over the other is listed. Obviously both Rio and BH are very different from each other and are good for different type of people, I think the table above should give an idea why Rio is the better choice for most people. For me it translated into two bangs in Rio in 4 nights and only one bang in BH in 6 weeks.
Miscellaneous:
- Don't change any money at the airport. They will rip you off. There are multi-bank ATMs in Diamond Mall and Patio Savassi. Also you can buy almost anything directly with credit card.
- Beef is good and reasonable priced. The good stuff is called 'Picanha'.
- Are you like me and like to sit down at an all-you-can-eat buffet for hours and eat kilos? Bad news, buffets are usually weighted. But fear not! The last favourited place on the Google maps screenshot at the beginning of the post is a restaurant called Pinguim. 26,99R$ for a decent buffet.
Final thoughts:
Will I come back to BH? No way! Will I come back to Brazil? Hell yes! Somewhere on this forum read "Compared with the warm and friendly Brazilians, other Latinos are like ice cold serial killers". So true. I myself wrote about Guadalajara:
Quote: (05-17-2018 08:34 PM)semibaron Wrote:
Guy friends:
For all the hate I gave GDL so far, the city is home to maybe the coolest guys on the planet. Every man is happy that you visit the city and wants that you have as much fun as possible. In clubs you get invited to tables & drinks, restaurant owners want to talk to you (and invite you for drinks), even random guys on the street are super cool. I've met some really cool dudes in Strana Guadalajara, who invited me to a house party the next day. In Lola Lolita I met another one who invited me to his ranch. The local men have just the right combination of being down to earth, traditional world view and a relaxed but outgoing personality. GDL is a place to make male friends and that's a big plus over Lima.
While this is true, the people in Guadalajara are only friendly to you because you are a foreigner. In Brazil however, everyone wants everyone to have fun. That's even much better. Even though I just had mediocre success with girls, I think there is still a lot potential. Furthermore as a Spanish speaker, it's almost irresponsible not to learn Portuguese as it gives you basically a free language for very little effort.
For me, Brazil might have been one of the best travel experiences so far as I've grown and learned something through it. Quite similar to my first Japan trip. The next time, however, I will for sure choose a beach destination (Rio?).
Read here my opinion about Modern Day Brazil.