seekingmygreaterperhaps

Oi gente! Tudo bem?

Over a three day weekend from school, I met up with my friend from Rio in Vitoria! Never heard of it? Well… I hadn’t really either. We both wanted to explore a new place, so we looked up cheap tickets from both airports and picked. Honestly, it probably isn’t on the top of international travelers “must see” places for a reason, but it was quaint.

When I was looking up things to do, the thing to see was the Garoto chocolate factory located in Vitoria. For you non Brazilians or South Americans reading this, it is essentially the Hershey’s of Brazil. It started in Vitoria, and I was ready to live my Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory dreams.

So I dragged my friend to the Garoto chocolate factory, we booked a tour, and were ready! It was… underwhelming. While the tour was in Portuguese, I could understand a good bit of it, but I got bored and my brain got tired. She explained how chocolate gets processed from bean to factory… but it was with a diorama and we didn’t get to see it. Then she took us into the museum, which is cool to see old chocolate and how logos and brands transform. But then she said, “Tchau” and I was like… wait, no. Where are the oompa loompas? Where is the chocolate river? Or at the very least… can we see into the factory? They made us wear shoe covers and hair nets… to lead us into a museum. We didn’t get to see ANY of the factory. So it was a major let down. If you go, I wouldn’t bother with the tour, but definitely supermarket sweep in the store like I did.

After our lame tour, my friend (his name is Leon) and I went in search of lunch. We found a nice beach spot. It was a little rainy, but we enjoyed the sand and the view. When I was trying to plan, I asked Leon what kind of stuff he likes to do while traveling and he said, “normal stuff.” So helpful. But drinking beer and hanging out was normal stuff, so we were both satisfied.

The next day we had better weather, and there was a little music and beer and churasquinhos happening in the park right by our hotel, so we spent most of the day there. The live music was pretty good, the beer was cold, and a churasquinho is a meat skewer that is grilled. It was all we needed. Leon spotted those giant colorful caterpillars and they were covering the tree. I didn’t touch them, but they were very neat.

YUM. The biggest thing we agreed on was that we wanted to try Moqueca in Espirito Santo. Moqueca is a stew usually made with seafood, and different regions all make it differently. It was truly delicious, and enough to feed an entire family. But it was just us two, so we gave it our most valiant effort. The mini pot next to it is something very Brazilian as well. I don’t actually know what it’s called because I don’t like it at all. It has the texture and consistency of snot, and I can’t get over it. So Leon had to tackle that one on his own. And of course, no Brazilian meal is complete without rice.

The weather wasn’t nice enough for us to actually swim in the ocean, but a stroll in the sand is always welcome. I love water (and yet I live in Brasilia- landlocked).

OOH! While we were walking, we walked down a pier and stopped to sit for a minute. Then we saw SEA TURTLES swimming up to the surface! There were many of them, and it was such a cool sight to see. I tried getting a picture, but I was never very quick with it, so you’ll just have to trust me. The sea turtles were definitely a highlight for me.

Vitoria is a regular Brazilian city, which was great for a quick weekend away. But they didn’t sell any postcards, so they lose a point.

Tchau!