Long, Awesome Day

We didn't go to the beach last week, so we had to go today. Again my apologies for those wintering.

We took a new route that was just beautiful. Winding roads through hills and little towns. Amazing purple flowering trees were all along the road and hillside. It was lovely until we came to this road. 

It was only 3 km of road but it was super steep and had lots of hairpin turns. We could smell our brakes halfway through and had two kids car sick at around that same time. We pulled over for a bit. We avoided any throwing up which was great, but I don't think we will take that route again, we may not be so lucky.

We went to this amazing turtle center in Ubatuba.

We decided to visit because Oliver had seen a movie at school about baby turtles just hatched trying to make it to the ocean but being thwarted (and eaten) by seagulls.  He was so sad and upset by it.  I said I wonder what people can do to help the turtles and came upon this organization TAMAR (for tartaruga (turtle) marinha (sea)).  They had one about 20 minutes from our favorite beach so we decided to visit.

It was awesome.  We had a great guide who spoke english (what a blessing!)  He told us so many interesting things that I am going to tell you all about right now, so if you don't care about sea turtles jump down to where it says, "When we were done . . . "

There are 7 kinds of sea turtles in the world and 5 species of them beach in Brazil.  Awesome.  There is the leatherback.

Massive isn't it.  That is actual size.  What would you do if you saw that in the ocean? 

There is the hawksbill and the loggerhead. 

And there is the green turtle and the olive turtle.

And this is the liger of turtles, a hybrid of a hawksbill and a loggerhead.

 Did you know turtles don't become adults until they are 25 years old.  Did you know they live until 70 or more?  Did you know one turtle was once tracked from Australia to Brazil?  Did you know we saw them eat a squid popsicle?  Did you know their shell was actually their backbone and ribs?

Did you know the shell is made up of keratin and a little cartilage at the edges?  Did you know they employee the former turtle poachers as guides to help find the turtle nests so they can protect them from crabs, birds and stray dogs?  Did you know they breath air but can be submerged for so long because they slow down their heart rate to beat as slow as once per minute? 

I didn't know any of that and I thought it was all so interesting!  We had a great time at the center.  They even had great places for the kids to play.

When we were done it was time for the beach, but it was raining too much for our tastes. So instead of trying a new beach we drove to our favorite beach, Lagoinha. By the time we got there the rain had stopped. Lucky us. Today the waves were huge and plentiful. Again, lucky us. We had a blast body boarding again. We didn't spend as long because we needed to get home early. Grace had a birthday party to go to.

Biggest waves at Our Beach we have seen. 

(We listened to Shakespeare for children in the car today. I learned things I never knew from Romeo and Juliet, and I never knew the story of the Tempest. Oliver couldn't understand why Romeo and Juliet was so sad, so we had a good family discussion on Tragedy.)

We got cleaned up at home and took Grace to the party. I noticed lots of little kids there too, plus parents sitting at tables, and when I met the birthday girl's parents they said I should stay (but Jamison was home with the other kids) so I said we would come back.

How nice is that?! Paying all that money (probably over $1,5000) and then inviting complete strangers with a whopping 5 kids (it is still shocking to Brazilians) to come to your party. They were such lovely people. The kids had a blast. Dunking booths into ball pits. Bouncy houses. Trampolines. Trains you can ride on. Arcade games. Amusement park rides. Plus those inflatable kid sized hamster balls that go on water. Unbelievable. Wish we had a camera.

And I was able to chat with some friends and arrange playdates (FYI Jamison hates that word) for Abby. They also served us skewers of bacon wrapped chicken, beef and sausage, plus soft drinks, or juice, or wine (not for us, don't worry). Little desserts. And gifts bags of candy and little toys to take home.

Amazing. Awesome. Long.