clog blog: Vitoria: The First Weeks

per·e·gri·nate

/ˈperigrəˌnāt/

Verb: Travel or wander around from place to place.

Synonyms: travel - journey - tour - itinerate - rove - wander

So, here we are, back in the Southern Hemisphere. Where the sun always shines, the people are relaxed and friendly, and the pace of life is comfortably slow.

After a wonderful two week holiday in Scotland, it was time to head back to reality. But first, an epic journey! We travelled from Glasgow to Amsterdam arriving around lunch time and made a quick trip to Rotterdam to pick up our extra suitcases before heading back to Schiphol airport. We then caught an evening flight to Paris, followed by a connecting flight to Rio and a final connection to Vitoria. That’s four flights in a travel time of about 30 hours.

We were expecting the worst with such an itinerary, but everything went very smoothly. All the trains were running on time (always a worry with airport missions on a tight schedule), we managed to check all 4 of our bags in ok and within the weight limit, they didn’t weigh our hand luggage we so carefully prepared, no alarms going off or body searches at security (we’re becoming pro’s), passport control was a breeze, and we walked straight through customs in Rio with our mountain of luggage. We even managed to sleep most of the long haul flight. We were extremely surprised that it all went well and we arrived safely in Vitoria with no frayed nerves and feeling a lot less tired than we expected. Touch wood! May every long journey be as smooth as this one.

We arrived at our accommodation at about 10:30 and spent the rest of the day picking up supplies from the supermarket, seeing how far it is to the beach and back, having a first swim in the pool, and having dinner with two of Justin’s colleagues who are also staying in the same block. And then it was time to get back to work.

From the next day, Justin was back into his work routine of leaving home at 7:30 and getting back at 19:30, which hasn’t changed much except that he no longer works weekends. Bron’s task in the first few days was to unpack and get our not-exactly-clean apartment into order. Although small and thinly furnished, our apartment is cosy and adequate for the two of us for the next few months. The apartment has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, an open plan dining room/lounge, a small kitchen, and a balcony with lovely views. It has the feel of a holiday apartment though, for temporary stays and for people just passing through, no one has made it into a comfortable home, which is fine for us for now. The block also has a pool, small gym and entertainment area. But I do find myself missing our well kitted out kitchen.

The kitchen here could be better equipped and I miss a lot of our appliances and cool gadgets. Even just a kettle would be nice. Kettles, een waterkoker for my Dutch friends, are not very common here; people use a coffee percolator to make hot water. That’s half the problem, hot and not boiling. So combined with no fresh milk and luke-warm water a decent cup of tea is hard to come by. We do have an oven though, something our Rotterdam apartment was missing, but not much in the way of baking or roasting dishes to be able to make much use of it. We have picked up some bits ‘n bobs to make the kitchen more workable, such as an actually sharp knife and a decent chopping board, but there are limits to what we will invest in for this temporary stop since it will be left behind in the end anyway. So for now we will have to do without a kettle, toaster, cool coffee machine, decent thick-base pots, blender, baking equipment, and casserole dishes.

A cool thing about our apartment is that we can hear the drums from the local samba school practices a few times a week. It is so rad and just makes you want to dance! Apparently carnival is not only big in Rio, all Brazilian cities have carnival and the local samba schools compete for top honours in the week before Lent. Apparently not much happens in Brazil in the New Year until carnival is over. Less cool than samba drums is the noise from planes approaching and taking off from the nearby airport and the traffic from the busy streets around us. Double glazing is not very popular here. But you get used to it and it’s not so bad.

Our new front door

View from our balcony

....and at sunset.

Bron’s other task was to negotiate the minefield that is grocery shopping in a new country and stock up the kitchen. Easier said than done. The first few times I went shopping it took hours to find and purchase even the simplest items. Deciphering what everything is and finding anything familiar looking was a real challenge. The first time I did a serious food shop it took more than two hours to gather a modest amount of groceries only to discover at the check-out that I didn’t have enough money to pay and my Dutch bank card wouldn’t work! I was a) mortified, I have never not had enough money to pay for groceries before, and b) helpless, Justin was at work and I had no-one else and no phone to call. The lady was very kind and understanding though and even unpacked all the groceries to give me my own bags back.

Grocery shopping has gotten a lot easier since then. Some items still remain elusive. On our most wanted list is fresh milk, rooibos tea, fresh mushrooms, dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, feta cheese and basmati rice. One of the supermarkets nearby has an aisle of imported goodies and here we are able to find couscous, pesto, risotto, Lindt chocolate and Ceres fruit juice. We have three supermarkets nearby and I generally shop at all three during the week as I find none of them to be a one-stop shop. Judging by what can be found on the shelves, Brazilians like to eat a lot of beans, garlic and tapioca. You can buy garlic in kilogram bags here, it’s crazy. I pick up one modest bulb and it lasts us a more than a month! In general groceries and eating out is a lot more affordable than in the Netherlands. Fruit, vegetables and meat are a lot cheaper. For example, in the Netherlands we pay about €2.00 for one mango, here we pay about €1.00 for a whole kilogram of mangos. We can also pick up an entire fillet steak for about €20! The meat in general is pretty good but most of the meat is frozen; only a small selection is available fresh. I am yet to find fresh fish, so far I can find frozen fish which is strange considering we are on the coast.

We recently discovered an excellent bakery nearby, something we really missed in the Netherlands. They have excellent fresh bread, cakes, savoury snacks and Justin’s favourite Portuguese custard tarts. They also make a very good Pannetone, all year round it would seem. We also discovered a really good deli with lots of imported products. I found basmati rice and pecan nuts there and… Mrs Balls Chutney! As soon as I have enough courage to pay ~R70 for a bottle I will get one (they cost about R20 in SA). We also found the local tapiocaria, we still have to investigate it to see what the craze is all about.

Enjoying treats from the bakery on our balcony

At the moment we are 5 hours behind South Africa and Europe and 4 hours behind the UK. This will change soon when daylight savings time starts here and ends in Europe. When we went on holiday to the States last year, I remember it only taking two good sleeps to feel adjusted to the time zone but going back to Europe it took about three weeks to adjust. When we arrived in Brazil it took a bit more than week to feel adjusted to the time zone, so much longer than when we went to the States which I found odd.

Vitoria is the capital of the state of Esperito Santo, is 14^th largest city in Brazil and apparently the fourth best Brazilian city to live in. Our apartment is in a suburb called Barro Vermelho and we have been told it is a good area to live in. Within the radius of a 15 min walk there are 3 supermarkets, 2 excellent bakeries, a really good deli, 2 post offices, a decent hardware store, many boutique clothing stores and an area known as triângulo das Bermudas, or the Bermuda Triangle, since there are so many restaurants it’s easy to get lost. There is also a cool street with bars that are very open-plan so when their doors are open the terraces empty out on the street and back-up onto each other. There is often live music and screenings of big football games; it’s very vibey. Eating out here is much more affordable than in Europe. We are enjoying trying out the local restaurants and catching up on sushi! We already have our favourite local sushi place. Red meat is also a popular menu item and the usual bar snack food of chicken wings and chips.

Enjoying a beer and peanuts at one of the local bars

A guy not associated with the bar walks around selling roasted peanuts. We weren't sure how pc this was selling goods on another proprietors property, but even the waiters buy nuts from him!

The beach is about a 15 min walk from the apartment and we go down most weekends. There is a paved promenade area with bars scattered here and there. The beach is very popular on the weekends and there’s always a good atmosphere. One can also rent stand-up paddle boards and kayaks and there is always someone playing volleyball, a popular variation is no‑hands volleyball. Beach attire here is completely different to what we are used to. Almost all the guys wear tight fitting Speedo type costumes and ladies string bikinis. Said speedos and string bikinis seem to come in one size only: extra small. Everyone dresses like that on the beach and no one seems self-conscious, it’s amazing and refreshing. I don’t think Justin would ever wear a Speedo and it will take a long time to convince me that a super small string bikini not covering much is a good idea, lol. Coconut water is a popular refreshment especially on the beach, every few metres is a coconut water stall. Green coconuts are used for coconut water before the water thickens into the creamy milk. It’s not my favourite but Justin finds it refreshing.

Camburi beach

A tough winter's day in Vitoria

Justin at Camburi beach

Justin trying out the stand-up paddle board

In general we feel pretty safe here, I feel much safer than I thought we would. I think we are in a good area but there are also more dodgy areas which we avoid. In our area I feel safe walking around alone in the day but if I go to the beach I stick to the promenade with a busy street next to it; although the beach is busy on the weekends, it’s quiet in the week days and we have seen some suspicious characters lurking around there. In the evenings we feel safe walking to a restaurant in the dark but I avoid walking around by myself at night. Whether it’s necessary or just how we are as South Africans, I’m not sure.

People here are very warm and friendly. It is very common for strangers to just start chatting to each other in the supermarket, on the beach, at the pub or anywhere really. I have had a number of occasions where people just start chatting to me. This would be ok if I could actually understand what they were saying! Portuguese is the official language of Brazil and English is not very big here, maybe in one of the bigger cities like Rio or São Paulo but definitely not here in Vitoria. We have started learning some Portuguese but we are finding it a difficult language to learn and it’s going to take a long time before we can actually say or understand a whole sentence at one time. At the moment we only know enough words to get around and most of those relate to food and numbers. One of the first lines I always learn in a new place is ‘I cannot speak language x/my x is not very good, do you speak English?’. This is met with mixed reactions here. Some people ask where I am from; most people think I am American for some reason, maybe Americans are the only English speaking people they come across, and are usually surprised when I say South Africa. Some people repeat themselves slower and much more loudly, this apparently helps a foreign person to understand you. Believe me, it doesn’t (I thought only Americans did that?). Other people smile, say sorry no they don’t speak English and walk away leaving me to do my shopping. Even with the language barrier, people try their best to help you and appreciate when you try, even in your very broken Portuguese. One friendly guy did point out to us that we should be careful how we use the word ‘cool’. We shouldn’t say cool in the normal short English way, but rather with plenty of o’s as in ‘cooooool’, otherwise we would be calling someone an ass! Thanks for the tip!

The climate in Vitoria is tropical and temperatures do not vary very much throughout the year. The average temperature in winter and summer are about 26ºC and 32ºC, respectively. Summer is the rainy season with December being the wettest month with an average of 180 mm of rain. Since we have been here, temperatures have been between 25ºC and 32ºC. We have a lot of sunny days and some cloudy days but even when it is cloudy it is still warm. Compared to Rotterdam which has an average summer temperature of 22ºC, this is a very welcome change. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t mind cold weather: as long as it isn’t for longer than two weeks at a time. Being in the cold makes you feel alive, but after a day in the sun I feel so healthy. I don’t handle 8 months of the cold dark Dutch winter very well. We are loving the sun and warmth here, are looking forward to a proper hot summer and are very happy to have a reprieve from the European winter this year. Brazil has one time zone and Vitoria is on the Eastern edge of the country. As a result the sun rises early here but also sets early, around 18:00, and this doesn’t change much through the year. I think we will miss the long days of the European Summer but it is a small trade for year round good weather.

Public transport is not very big here. Vitoria doesn’t have a tram or metro system but I think other Brazilian cities do. There seems to be a good and well connected bus system but I’m not sure how safe it is for a gringo; I would certainly get lost and wouldn’t be able to ask for or understand directions. As a result, it’s more challenging to get around than in Europe. We mostly walk places but this limits us to things within walking distance. Taxis are fairly inexpensive here and we do make use of them. We investigated getting a car here but it is quite expensive. Instead we plan to use taxis and hire a car for days/weekends away. People drive like crazy here, really fast and with a lot of lane changing. Even if we had a car, I’m not sure how confident I would feel driving it!

With Justin working so much and being away in the UK for a week, we haven’t explored much out of our walking distance circle yet. We did visit the Convento da Penha though. Set up on a hill overlooking Vitoria and Villa Velha (the neighbouring town on the next island), the convent commands the most amazing views of the two cities and all the beaches inbetween. The convent was built between 1652 and 1660 and is still operational today. A green forest surrounds the convent on the hillsides and we enjoyed the antics of little marmoset monkeys feasting on bananas.

Convento da Penha

View from Convento de Penha

View of Ponte Terciera connecting Vitoria and Vilha Vella

Ponte Terciera

View of Vilha Vella from the convent

Boibs at the convent (it was very bright)

Cheeky little monkeys!

We have also hopped to the other end of the island to Ilha de Carreira for a traditional moqueca. We were told this is the best place to go for moqueca and we were not disappointed. Served in a steaming clay pot, moqueca is a fish stew of white fish of your choice with prawns, tomato and onions and other yummy things. It is served with rice and cooked banana (most things here are served with banana and/or coconut). Our table was plastic garden furniture set on a jetty jutting out into the sea giving it a comfortable Strandloper feel. Many guests arrived in board shorts on their jetskis! A glorious downpour shortly after our meal prevented any further exploring of the area but we were advised to head out by 15:00 anyway since it’s not apparently the safest area.

Moqueca

Bron trying to tell the waiter she doesn't understand anything he is saying

Bron and Tim tucking into Moqueca!

Views across to the mangroves from Ilha de Carreira

So far I would say that we are happy here. Life is pretty good if the sun always shines and the only thing we have to complain about is the lack of fresh milk and kitchen appliances. I think we handled the transition here better than our first relocation to the Netherlands which was very overwhelming at the time. Maybe we are getting better at international relocations. At the moment we have mixed emotions and sometimes feel a bit homeless. We are not sure how long we will be here for or where we will go next. Sometimes we think about it and don’t come up with any answers, but most of the time we don’t let it bother us and enjoy the time we have here. Brazilians do life and business differently; sometimes it is frustrating and other times refreshing. For now we are enjoying discovering the differences and look forward to travelling around the country and the continent more.

Watch this space for more of our Brazilian adventures!