Around The World Trip: Celebrating Carnaval de Vitória

Read more about our previous destination, Rio de Janeiro, in the following blog post: Around the World Trip: Exploring Rio de Janeiro’s Icons

We landed safely in Vitória after a short flight. Gustavo’s sister came to the airport and picked us up. The other half of the group stayed with Gustavo’s friend from Madrid. She was also originally from Vitória. Gustavo had planned that we would all participate in the carnival. Thus walk in the march with one of the samba schools. The excitement was intense!

The city in general does not have to be on your bucket list. However, if you would like to experience a smaller scale Brazilian carnival Vitória is an excellent choice in my opinion. For us it was a once in a lifetime experience. It is not as massive and maybe not as dangerous as the famous carnival of Rio. Still you celebrate all night until the sun rises and beyond. Read more below.

Upon arrival we enjoyed Brazilian hospitality – of course with a barbecue!

Enjoying barbecue with Gustavo and his family. Oscar from Madrid was the chef. After a Thursday clubbing night in Vitória it was finally carnival weekend!

February 5th, 2010: Preparing for the carnival in Vitória

Gustavo rented a “camarote” for all his guests and his family. A camarote is a sort VIP lounge directly overlooking the sambadrome where the carnival takes place. A sambadrome is a purpose-built parade area, basically a special street with grandstands on the left and right. It was probably one kilometre long.

Of course our “camarote” needed to be stocked with the supplies for the festivities. So we went there in the afternoon to deliver drinks and food and expected the sambadrome.

In-between I was also able to call my Mom as it was her birthday on the 5th of February. Throughout our all around the world trip she was rather worried that something might happen to us. Luckily we proved her wrong during the whole around the world trip.

Inside the samba school of Mocidade Unida da Glória

Friday afternoon we went to the samba school of Vila Vilha to get our costumes for the carnival parade. It was a bustling place. Locals ran around, knitted, cut pieces of cloths, glued beautiful decoration on helmets. Everywhere you saw different parts of a large variety of costumes. For us it was impossible to find out how it would all fit together.

February 6th, 2010: Carnival in Vitória

Very late on Friday evening we finally received our costumes. Gustavo was stressed out a bit. The event started on Friday the 5th at around 10 pm. But we had to sleep a little to be prepared for a long night. After coffee we rushed to the venue where it was was already very busy. The samba schools and groups got prepared for their turns. We were due at 2 am!

Each of the samba schools of the region had one hour to present themselves. They had composed own music that was played by their own orchestra. It was accompanied by very skilled samba dancers. Some of the schools had wonderful floats.

In the end every school got rated and a winner was announced. We participated with the samba school called “Mocidade Unida da Glória”. They got rated third and sometimes I wonder if it was us preventing a victory as they were only short by 2 points to win!

The festivities went on all night until noon but at 8 am we were so exhausted we had to go to bed. We rested well throughout the remainder of the day before we were invited to a good-bye barbecue. The next day we continued our around the world trip: two months in Buenos Aires in Argentina were awaiting us.

Watch where we were – the proof from Brazilian television

Watch us dancing in front of the camera: Gustavo on the left, Michael in the middle and Christian on the right.