Qualla: Pirenópolis https://qualla.com/pirenopolis en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/j/pirenopolis-wk/hero-small.webp Qualla: Pirenópolis https://qualla.com/pirenopolis Pirenópolis: Introduction https://qualla.com/pirenopolis/ Photo credit Eliane de Castro, CC BY-SA 4.0. The stone-lined streets of Pirenópolis will punish bad shoes. Three centuries of mule hooves, ox carts, and Sunday processions have polished the quartzite blocks until they shine in the rain, and walking here is less strolling than navigating - watching where each foot lands, feeling the small dips where a thousand doorways have worn a path. This is what eighteenth-century Brazil actually looked like, and Pirenópolis kept it because the alternative - tearing it all down - was never affordable once the gold ran out.

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Image: Eliane de Castro | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/j/pirenopolis-wk/6vjj-piren-polis-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Pirenópolis: A Town Founded on Gold https://qualla.com/pirenopolis/ Photo credit Marcosviniciusrs, CC BY-SA 4.0. Exploration for gold in the Serra dos Pireneus began in 1728, one year after prospectors fanned out around the nearby city of Goiás. A bandeirante named Manoel Rodrigues Tomás, working with the famous Bartolomeu Bueno da Silva - called Anhanguera - founded mines he named the Mina...

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Image: Marcosviniciusrs | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/j/pirenopolis-wk/6vjj-piren-polis-a-town-founded-on-gold.mp3 0:06 2 full Pirenópolis: When the Gold Ran Out https://qualla.com/pirenopolis/ Photo credit Jataí, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the end of the 19th century, the veins were gone. Families left for the new capital at Goiânia, or pushed south to Jataí, Rio Verde, Itumbiara, Catalão. The population shrank. The churches stayed - and because no one had the money to modernize Pirenópolis, no one modernized it...

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Image: Jataí | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/j/pirenopolis-wk/6vjj-piren-polis-when-the-gold-ran-out.mp3 0:06 3 full Pirenópolis: Cavalhadas https://qualla.com/pirenopolis/ Photo credit Rossyni Gomes Pompêo de Pina, CC BY-SA 4.0. Every year, fifty days after Easter on Pentecost, the Festa do Divino Espírito Santo takes over Pirenópolis. The centerpiece is the Cavalhadas - a three-day mock battle between Christians and Moors, performed on horseback by riders in papier-mâché helmets. The Christian knights w...

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Image: Rossyni Gomes Pompêo de Pina | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/j/pirenopolis-wk/6vjj-piren-polis-cavalhadas.mp3 0:06 4 full Pirenópolis: Churches and Rescued Altars https://qualla.com/pirenopolis/ Photo credit Marcosviniciusrs, CC BY-SA 4.0. Three churches anchor the historic center, all built between 1728 and 1755 by enslaved African laborers. The Igreja Matriz was partially destroyed by fire in September 2002; the altar was lost entirely. A separate church, the Matriz dos Pretos, had fallen to ruin with nothing lef...

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Image: Marcosviniciusrs | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/j/pirenopolis-wk/6vjj-piren-polis-churches-and-rescued-altars.mp3 0:06 5 full Pirenópolis: Waterfalls and a Return https://qualla.com/pirenopolis/ Photo credit Angeladepaula, CC BY-SA 3.0. Within fifteen kilometers of the center, more than twenty waterfalls spill off the quartzite of the Serra dos Pireneus. The Cachoeira do Abade drops 22 meters. Others are strings of cascades, plunging through farmland and public parks and the boundaries of the 2,833-hectare Piren...

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Image: Angeladepaula | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/j/pirenopolis-wk/6vjj-piren-polis-waterfalls-and-a-return.mp3 0:06 6 full