Carnival long weekend

The weekend before this last one, we enjoyed a 5 day long weekend due to it being the real carnival weekend in Brazil in the lead up to the start of Lent. We had hoped to use the long weekend to travel, but going anywhere over this period was crazy expensive, even when we looked to book before Christmas. So we decided to stay in Vitoria and do some of the things around here we have been meaning to do but haven’t yet. What followed was a well-balanced weekend with relaxing, lots of World Cup Cricket, movies on the couch, photo sessions, yummy meals out, yummy meals in, home-made hot cross buns and pancakes, lots of long walks, skype chats with family, ice-cream dates, and also catching up on some admin.

View over Vitoria from Convento do Penha

View of Convento do Penha and the bridge from Ilha da Vitoria

View of Curva da Jurema from Ilha da Vitoria

View of Praia da Camburi 

One of the things we have wanted to do here is visit the Vale Museum. Vale was established in Itabira in the neighbouring state of Minas Gerais in 1942 and has since grown to be the third-largest mining company and the largest producer of iron ore in the world. Minas Gerais is still a top iron-ore (and other mineral) producing state accounting for 60% of Brazil’s output. The 905 km Vitoria-Minas Railway connects the Iron Quadrangle region in Minas with the Port of Tubarão in Vitoria. Opened in 1966, Tubarão is the port we can see across the bay from our apartment and was transformed into the Tubarão Complex with the installation of iron ore pelletizing plants from 1969. The port has been economically good for Vitoria and the state of Espírito Santo but it is not great for the environment and there is constantly a thick layer of black dust everywhere. It is only marginally better that the coating red dust in Saldanha Bay. Vale gives the impression that they are environmentally friendly and they give back to the environment and invest in communities but we feel this is mostly smoke and mirrors as it almost always is with these large corporations.

The old train station at the Vale Museum 

Inside the museum 

View down the river and Vitoria city centre from the Vale Museum 

The Vale Museum is located down the river from us across the bridge in Vila Velha. The museum is mostly focused on the railway network of Vale and transporting the iron ore around. The railway network used to be much more passenger oriented than it is now and the museum is housed in one of the old train stations. It is a bit sparse but the old building itself is beautiful. We also enjoyed the view down the river of the city centre and the other port over the river. Our favourite part of the museum was the 1:87 HO model railroad. It fills an entire room and models the Vitoria-Minas Railway complete with a model mine, bridges, tunnels, towns, refinery, people, cars, houses and ends at the port. It is very well done with acute attention to detail. The museum also has a new building where it hosts art exhibitions. We were not impressed with the random modern art on display so we went to enjoy a coffee on the waterside in an old carriage converted into a café instead.

The model railroad at the Vale Museum complete with iron ore mine and port

The other thing we have wanted to do is visit the Tamar Project close to our apartment. Projeto Tamar is a non-profit organisation established in 1980 to promote the recovery of 5 endangered sea turtle species that occur in Brazil: the green, loggerhead, leatherback, olive ridley and hawksbill turtles. They protect ~1100 km of coastline and oceanic islands throughout 9 states. There are 23 bases located in important turtle nesting, resting and feeding areas. Tamar’s efforts have a large focus on education and working with and directly involving the local communities in sea turtle conservation and that of their habitats. This has had a large impact on their success and after 30 years of operation they celebrated the release of 15 million hatchlings. This is really important since only 1 in a 1000 is expected to survive. Prior to the establishment of Tamar, nearly all the turtles that came to nest on the Brazilian coastline were killed and populations were in crisis. Today Brazil is a world leader in turtle conservation and has one of the 12 healthiest turtle populations in the world, all thanks to the Tamar.

The Tamar visitor centre near us is a relatively small one but definitely worth a visit. One of the Tamar people guided us around and we were still able to learn something despite our lack of Portuguese. The visitor centre has a small pool of hatchling loggerhead turtles, 4 juvenile green turtles and one adult hawksbill turtle. We loved watching the baby loggerhead turtles swimming around. About the size of an adult palm, they are seriously cute and already look like their species. When they rest they pull their fins close to their bodies so they look like leaves floating on the surface as a predator defense mechanism. At this stage they clearly associate humans looking into their pool with food as they all gathered round and stuck their heads out expectantly. They are about 4 months old and will be released back into the ocean in another 4 weeks or so.

It was the green turtle we saw nesting in Costa Rica but we didn’t see much in the dark other than the rear and flippers. It was lovely to see a juvenile green turtle up close, they are really beautiful, much more so than I imagined. We sometimes see green turtles in the bay here but the water quality is not great and you can’t really appreciate them in the few seconds they come up to take air. This one was in a smallish pool by itself. The last pool we visited was also the largest and home to an adult hawksbill turtle and 3 more juvenile green turtles. While the 3 juveniles have more space and were merrily swimming about, the adult hawksbill looked unhappy and mostly stayed at the bottom of the pool. We were lucky to see him come up for air as he only needs to do this once in 4 hours. We felt really sad for him as he will spend his whole life in a small pool. We can only hope that one day he will have a bigger pool.

The cutest baby loggerhead turtles 

Gorgeous juvenile green turtle 

Not so happy adult hawksbill turtle

The stones in the pools are for the turtles to scratch themselves on 

Another green turtle 

View of Convento do Penha from the Tamar Visitors Centre

View of a favella and fishing community from the Tamar Visitors Centre

The other fun part of the weekend was a return visit to Convento do Penha across the hill from us in Vila Velha. It really is a lovely old church with simply stunning views across the whole of Vila Velha and Vitoria Bay area. We decided to have lunch on the Vila Velha beachfront and revisited a popular restaurant Niels and Vivian introduced us too for creamy coconut shrimps served in a coconut! I am not a shrimp (or prawns if you are South African) fan but this meal was delicious we will definitely be back again. There was a long walk on the promenade after lunch to justify an ice-cream for desert.

Convento do Penha 

View over the Vila Velha coastline 

Coconuts! 

Fishing boats in Vila Velha 

In other news the clocks turned back on Sunday confirming that Brazilians think it is winter immediately after carnival despite the continuing 30°C plus temperatures. We are now 5 hours behind SA, 4 hours behind NL, and 3 hours behind the UK. 

Next time: a long weekend in Buzios!