My day at Inhotim
I was really excited when I heard I was coming to Inhotim. I didn´t really know what it was, but Vitor told me it was super cool and there was lots of space to play. Vitor came here once. Artur and I didn´t. Well, right after we got to the parking lot and walked to the park, I was really excited with that huge pathway, covered with trees. When the guys put the visitor sticker on our shirts, we heard there were some special activities for kids during the day. When we got there, they told us there would be a treasure hunt. They divided the kids into groups. The smaller kids went somewhere to play and we, the big kids, got together to start the treasure hunt.
There were two teams. Each team had to find all the clues and discover the surprise at the end. The assistants helped us solve the riddles. We started running to find the clues really fast. There were five clues. They had notes that told us how to find the treasure. Each clue told us to go north, northeast, northwest all directions. I found three out of five all on my own. I was really smart. The clues were hidden in the middle of the vegetation, tied to the plants. All you had to do was to slide your hand along and look real good and you could find it. Some clues made us really tired, because we had to run and really look for them. After we found everything, we went to get the treasure, seeds of the Tamboril tree. This big tree behind us.
After all this, we went to visit the whole park. I didnt really know what I was going to find. When I arrived there, I thought I was going to see art, animals, and lots of trees Id never seen before. Artur really just wanted to go see Saci1, and his story. Someone told him he was going to see Saci at the park. Ow, Vitor also said there was a tree here that moves every month. I don´t really believe that. If the tree started moving around, I’d be really freaked out. But one thing we did a lot was walking. We walked, and walked, and walked… my leg even hurt at the end.
Artur (6), Vitor (10) e Eduardo (10) enjoyed their day of visit at Inhotim Photo: Rossana Magri
The Cosmococa was the thing I liked the most. We entered there and there were five rooms: one with balloons, another one with foam, another one with a pool, another with hammocks and another one with movies. We even went for a swim in the pool. Artur and I swam in our shorts. Vitor was here before and he knew about the pool, so he brought his swimming suit. Also, we strolled around lots of cool places and saw lots of different flowers, like cactus and others. We went to a room where the floor is covered in broken glass. We went to another room that was really dark. We saw a shock ball too. I was afraid the water was going to fall on me and Id get shocked!
But there was something I thought was really weird: the water in the lakes is green! What do they do to make it look like that? Another thing: that blue room, with tiles, with a wall painted with human organs inside. How did they do that? What about the shallow pool in this buildings entrance, are we allowed to enter or not? Another different thing I saw was the sculpture of a man mended to another man. I thought that was pretty crazy and we even took pictures trying to copy them.
At the end, we even saw Sacis house, but we couldnt see him like Artur wanted to. We didnt have the stuff we needed to make him appear, and the assistants were not there at the time to help us. But I thought Inhotim was really beautiful. The art, the environment, everything was made with a lot of care, wasnt it? When I first got here, I thought it was kind of weird, because Id never been to a place that big. But now I know how it is and I want to come back. I couldnt see everything yet, like, for example, a room that is all red. I really enjoyed it!
Statement given by Eduardo, age 10, about his day of visit to Inhotim.
1 Saci is a Brazilian´s folklore character. He is a one-legged youngster who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red cap that enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes.