Congonhas is a town of steelworks and iron ore in the hills of Minas Gerais, and on its highest ridge stands one of the great works of Brazilian art. The Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos is a pilgrimage church that looks out across the valley, and in front of it, along a stepped terrace, stand twelve Old Testament prophets carved from soapstone by the sculptor Antônio Francisco Lisboa, known as Aleijadinho, the Little Cripple. Their gestures are dramatic and slightly twisted, their faces intense, and they seem to speak across the town below.
The story of the sanctuary is tied to the gold rush. A Portuguese miner, Feliciano Mendes, is said to have vowed to build a church after recovering from illness, and the sanctuary was built from the 1770s with money from the mines. The prophets were carved in the early 1800s. Below the terrace, along the hillside path, six small chapels, the Passos, hold life-size wooden figures of the Passion of Christ, also attributed to Aleijadinho and his workshop. Aleijadinho was probably the son of a Portuguese builder and an enslaved African woman, and he worked despite a disease that deformed his hands, using tools tied to them, according to tradition. UNESCO inscribed the sanctuary in 1985.
For riders, the approach is along the BR-040, the busy highway between Belo Horizonte and Rio, or through smaller roads across the Serra de Ouro Branco, with views of rolling hills, mines and eucalyptus plantations. Traffic includes heavy lorries, and the weather can be wet from November to March. The town centre is steep, and the sanctuary's cobbled forecourt can be slippery after rain. Mornings are quiet, while weekends bring pilgrims and school groups.
Congonhas has fuel stations, restaurants and hotels, and Ouro Branco, a larger neighbour seventeen kilometres away, has more. Try pão de queijo, warm cheese bread, and tutu de feijão, a bean dish with pork, which are staples of Minas cooking. Leave plenty of time to walk the terrace slowly and look at each prophet in turn.