Qualla: Araçuaí https://qualla.com/aracuai en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:09 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/4/0/aracuai-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Araçuaí https://qualla.com/aracuai Araçuaí: Introduction https://qualla.com/aracuai/ Photo credit Andrevruas, CC BY-SA 4.0. On November 19, 2023, a thermometer in Araçuaí registered 44.8 degrees Celsius - 112.6 Fahrenheit - the hottest air temperature ever recorded in Brazil. For a town of roughly 36,712 people tucked into the arid northeast of Minas Gerais, that record was not an anomaly. It was a concentration of what Araçuaí had always been. The Jequitinhonha Valley bakes. The wind shimmers above the red soil. People learn to move in the morning and sit still at noon. And yet somehow this small, hot, dry place has managed to produce both gold rushes and lithium booms, a town founded by prostitutes, and a museum built by a Dutch Franciscan friar who fell in love with Brazilian popular religion.

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Image: Andrevruas | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/4/0/aracuai-wp/7j40-ara-ua-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Araçuaí: Only Gold There https://qualla.com/aracuai/ Photo credit Hedwig in Washington, CC BY 2.5. Two competing stories explain the town's name. According to the French naturalist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, who traveled these valleys in the early nineteenth century, paulista prospectors found so much gold in the river here that they cried out 'ouro só ali' - 'only gold there' ...

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Image: Hedwig in Washington | CC BY 2.5

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/4/0/aracuai-wp/7j40-ara-ua-only-gold-there.mp3 0:06 2 full Araçuaí: The Priest and the Prostitutes https://qualla.com/aracuai/ Photo credit LucasMartinsZelo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before the Europeans, the Tocoió and Botocudo peoples lived along these rivers, hunting and gathering in valleys that had supported human habitation for thousands of years. European settlement came in fits and starts. A priest named Carlos Pereira de Moura founded the Aldeia do P...

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Image: LucasMartinsZelo | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/4/0/aracuai-wp/7j40-ara-ua-the-priest-and-the-prostitutes.mp3 0:06 3 full Araçuaí: The Heat Record https://qualla.com/aracuai/ Photo credit Helio Costa15 from Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0. Brazil is a big country, and the hottest corner of it is the sertão - the semi-arid interior of the northeast. Araçuaí sits at the southern edge of that zone, inside Minas Gerais but sharing the climate of states much farther north. The municipality covers 2,235 square kilometers...

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Image: Helio Costa15 from Brasil | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/4/0/aracuai-wp/7j40-ara-ua-the-heat-record.mp3 0:06 4 full Araçuaí: The Lithium Boom https://qualla.com/aracuai/ Photo credit Andrevruas, CC BY-SA 4.0. Between Araçuaí and the neighboring town of Itinga lies the largest lithium mine in Brazil, operated by Sigma Lithium Resources. The region has long been known for its mineral wealth - pegmatites dense with tourmaline, emerald, and aquamarine - but lithium is the metal of the mom...

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Image: Andrevruas | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/4/0/aracuai-wp/7j40-ara-ua-the-lithium-boom.mp3 0:06 5 full Araçuaí: A Museum in the Valley https://qualla.com/aracuai/ Photo credit Andrevruas, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not all the stories here are about money. The artist Lira Marques, a local daughter, and Frei Chico - a Dutch Franciscan friar who spent his life studying Brazilian popular culture and religiosity - founded a museum together in Araçuaí. He came from Europe and never left. She sta...

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Image: Andrevruas | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/4/0/aracuai-wp/7j40-ara-ua-a-museum-in-the-valley.mp3 0:06 6 full