# Inside Brazil's Abandoned Santa Claus Theme Park > A look at the abandoned Santa Claus park beside the road to Rio de Janeiro, with eerie figures among the palm trees. Find out what it looks like inside. - URL: https://langandtrip.com.ua/en/article/parku-santa-klausa-u-brazyliyi/ - Language: en - Published: 2023-08-05 - Categories: Travel, Historic Sites, Leisure, Tours, Brazil, Events --- Driving through Brazil toward Rio de Janeiro, you might catch a chilling sight by the roadside: a gang of abandoned Santa Clauses sprawled out among palm trees and greenery. Look a little closer and you'll notice these Father Christmas clones aren't alone. Nearby sit forlorn sleighs and worn-out reindeer. Before long you'll spot faded candy canes, battered slides and a house straight out of a nightmare. Welcome to Albanoel Park in Itaguai, Brazil, an abandoned Christmas theme park. The park was the brainchild of politician Antonio Albano Reis, popularly known as the "Santa Claus of Quintino" because he dressed up as Santa every Christmas. It was meant to be a series of fun theme parks across a huge site, more than 30 million square metres, but only the Santa zone was ever finished. After Reis died in a car crash in 2004, Albanoel Park closed and fell into decay. A few years later, British schoolteacher Christopher Jones was driving from Rio to Paraty with a group of friends when they noticed the creepy Santa Clauses. Jones, a keen photographer, took a striking series of shots that captured the park's unsettling atmosphere. Here he shares his nerve-racking experience. ## An Eerie Sight ![Abandoned Santa Claus figures among palm trees at Albanoel Park in Brazil](/storage/image/prev/Brazil-1-s-Park-1024x683.jpg) Stepping out of the car and getting closer, Jones and his friends were stunned by what they saw. "It's a massive complex that's completely open to the road," Jones recalls. "I think there was a very small wall, maybe a foot or two feet high, and it's just completely abandoned. Behind it there's some kind of big house or residence, but the lawn out front is totally open." Exploring the park felt surreal, thanks to the clash between what many people associate with Christmas, joy, new life, celebration, and this gloomy, sinister setting. "\[Christmas\] is supposed to be so happy, isn't it? And joyful," Jones says. "And yet these things are covered in cracks and mould." "We were just completely mesmerised by it all." The idyllic natural surroundings, Jones says, only heightened the effect. "There's actually a pretty steep valley slope behind the place, and there's a beautiful waterfall in the background. Since it was quite far away, it was hard to fit it into a single frame." Some parts of the park stood out in particular. "The Santa Claus in a helicopter that had almost burned up looked especially surreal," Jones recalls. Albanoel Park seemed completely abandoned. "If you look at some of the buildings and peer through the doorways or open windows, you can see smashed Christmas statues and other things inside, and it looks particularly creepy," Jones says. "It doesn't look like they cleared anything away after the construction. Some parts had simply crumbled to pieces and been shoved inside." The group was cautious, not daring to venture too far into the park without knowing what they might find there. "We didn't want to go too far into the park, just in case," Jones says. "We really stuck to the edges, but who knows what else is in there?" ## Urban Exploration ![Decaying Christmas figures and structures at the abandoned Albanoel Park](/storage/image/prev/Brazil-2-s-Park-1024x576.jpg) Back in the UK, Jones edited and posted the photos on his Flickr page, desaturating the shots and boosting the red to emphasise the eeriness. Internationally, the park isn't as well known as other abandoned sites around the world, and information online is fairly limited, as are the photographs. As a result, Jones's photos often turn up on social media. They've been shared by prominent figures on Twitter, including Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro. "I think it's a place that few people know exists, and that few people have visited to photograph," Jones says. A few years on, the unexpected trip still haunts Jones. "It's striking, isn't it? It's just visually stunning," he says.