Jeri and Barra Grande

After a few days hanging around in Jeri we have the feeling to do something. Jeri isn't the great spot for kitesurfing because it is too gusty and choppy with one exception: the place where the windsurfers ride. But the windsurfers don't accept kiters at their place. So we decide to do something else - some touristic things. First we go to the dune Duna Pôr-de-Sol to see the sunset with hundreds other tourists, later a Capoeira show takes place at the beach.
The next day I have the chance to bring Beat on a horseback. He's afraid, because it's his second time on a horse. In gallop we ride to Pedra Furada a special formation of stones. On the way back Beat misses the beat of the gallop and fall almost off the horse, but he manages it well. After one hour on a horseback Beat is so happy to chill again in a comfortable hammock and we can mark the touristic things in Jeri off... :-)

As we are looking for some good kitespots we leave Jericoacoara and are up on the drive towards Barra Grande which is 150 km northerly from Jeri.

Barra Grande is a small and therefore quiet fishing village in the state of Piauí where the thermometer indicates sometimes 40°. It's a upcoming place for kiters. Flat water, huge space plus a lagoon next to the mangroves. Big playground for freestylers! As I learn some jumps Beat enjoys to slalom in the mangroves.

Hoohooohooo it's end of November and it's around 32° celsius hot with a humidity of 80% during the day in Jericoacoara. Jeri is only accessible by 4wheel drive or the Jardineira bus a 4wheel drive that reminds me to the Unimog a swiss military vehicle.

We left our car in Jioca and enjoyed the one hour drive by the Jardineira bus. We arrived well shaken and even our kiteboards had to pay for the honour to be transported in this bus.

Like Canoa Quebrada Jeri was owned by Hippies in the 70s and even today it's a peaceful place with around 250 nice pousadas and restaurants.

Julien a friend which I know from the IKO teacher course gave us the opportunity to live for little money in the extravagant „Casa da Gwen“ a house that belongs to a french owner. At the moment we speak more frenglish (french-english) than portugues since we live together with Julien, Pierre, Selina and Benôit.

Julien and Pierre are crazy about windsurfing and Selina and Benôit both are kitesurfers. In the evening most of the time we cook something nice together or enjoy an incredible bbq with fresh fish.

Despite the fact that Brasil is a beautiful country with warm water Sabrina and me realize that we fell deeply in love with South Africa especially Cape Town. We are missing the big waves and the perfect wind without having the impression that the place is overcrowded. But it's complain about the price of champagne since we have the pleasure to stay at the most beautiful places and most of you guys have to sit in the office and maybe starring at a boring computer :-)

Bye Bye Cumbuco

Thanks god tomorrow we leave Cumbuco despite of the nice sunsets from the dunes. Cumbuco is one of the places you will find all around the world. Very touristic and....boring!  Sabrina and me would not recommend to come here neither for kitesurfing nor for anything else.

Cumbuco is well-known among kitesurfers and therefore completely overcrowded and it's definitely one of the choppier spots we've ever seen. Cumbuco is half an hour drive by car from Fortaleza  and in the evening and especially during the weekends you will see lots of piriguetes (ladies of easy virtue / leichte Mädchen) from Fortaleza trying to find a Gringo.

If you want to see Brazil and get in touch with the people from here avoid to go to Cumbuco. Sad to say but it lost it's charme of a little fishing village.  I hope we will not see the same shit gonna happen in Barra do Cunhaú with all these stupid Gringos not willing to speak one word Portuguese staying in their 24 x 7 secured apartment complexes.

However we checked out some delicious kitespots around. Paracuru is a great spot to play in flatwater and in waves up to 3 meters but can get very crowded during high season. Many thanks to Aryen to show us this spot.

My personal favorite is the bay of Taiba (Image 2). We have seen perfect waves with wind from side-on to side-off and not to many kitesurfers. All in all a relaxed place and atomsphere. It has a lot of surfers in the water as well. Make sure you stay on the left of the surfers in the bay.

Ladies and gentlemen sorry for the inconvenience gotta go back to the liquid office not least to work hard on my tan in brasiwonderland. Let's see how deep the rabbit hole goes......yiiiiiiiiiihaaaaaaaaa!

Don't be gentle it's a rental

We left Canoa Quebrada and landed in Cumbuco three days ago. It was a little mission to find a pousada that fitted our needs. We don't need a beachfront appartment for 250 Reais where the wind is hammering 24 hours against the window.  Most of the nice pousadas were all fully booked. An older dutch lady sent us to Manfred's Pousada and adviced: "Don't take the next road to the right, take the second to the right since the first is full of sand.

Can you imagine what I did? - It's like if you tell a little boy not to touch the hotplate.  I took the first road and honestly I almost made it ;-)  Thanks to two friendly Brasilians the last then meters took us only half an hour. Sabrina was not in a very good mood. Driving this car now feels like walking at the beach since there is sand everywhere inside.

A lot of the roads along the shore are dirt roads out of sand and stones. And we have to treat our rental sometimes like a little offroader. As the world famous kite dude Heneee Filleeee would say: "Don't be gentle it's a rental!"

Today we enjoyed a nice session in Taiba with some good waves and steady wind for the 9m2 and the 7m2 Kites.

Flying in Estevãos

Children are crying while running towards the beach and a buggy with a massive soundsystem is passing the road next to our pousada Quebramar. We hear a cock that lost one's voice and dogs from the street are barking it's another day in Canoa Quebrada. It's 9 o'clock and time to get up.

But we strongly miss something the wind is not blowing trough our room and we clearly can hear the noise of the shorebreak. In a couple of seconds I'm standing at the window watching the sea. There's not enough wind for kitesurfing but could be a perfect day for paragliding.

After a quick breakfast we are on the way to the dunes (Dunes de Estevãos). The first ten minutes by car and after we almost stuck in the fine red sand half an hour by walking along the shore. The wind is not to strong and we play a bit around with our paragliders (groundhandling). Half an hour later we are completly exhaustet the sun is burning from the zenith and what a big mistake we only have a liter of water for the two of us. Later in the afternoon the wind is freshing up and suddenly we see another guy soaring along the shore towards us with a old paraglider and two big holes in it. Thanks to that local we now know how to fly the Dunes de Estevãos.



In the evening we enjoy a delicious Fish-Curry at Cabana's and finish the day with some nice Caipirinhas. Muito legal!

Hippie Hippie Hurra

We left Barra do Cunhau. It's not anymore a place of tranquility since 40 people of an organized kitetour overflooded the nice spot.

Two days ago we landed in Canoa Quebrada. Canoa used to be a little fishing village until the hippies and dropouts discovered the secluded place in the 70's. In 1982 the government built a street to Canoa. More and more tourists visited the place with it's magnificent beach. The hippies detected the capitalism and opened restaurants, bars and pousadas.

Canoa is also well known among paragliders it's a great place to soar along the coastline.  Actually the wind is way to strong for paragliding and we go for a nice kitesurf-session. I played a little bit around with my GoPro HD cam and mounted it into the kite while Sabi trained to go biiiig!

Canoa has some excellent barracas (simple restaurants or bars with fresh seafood and drinks) at the beach but... damn it... today the place was full of police and people from the press! - What happened? - A week ago Dilma Rousseff has been elected as the new president of Brazil. Since most barracas in Canoa were built illegal Mrs Rousseff decided to close them all and 600 people lost their work.

Hope the local government will find a solution the next couple of days... no hipp hipp hurrah today

Galinhos and São Miguel de Gostoso

Tuesday the 19th October: The wind goes down in Barra do Cunhau the forecast looks really bad for the next couple of days.

We decide to check out the paragliding spot close to Pipa called Praia de Madeira. The wind is strong but not to strong and luckily there are still two guys at the spot with a tandem paraglider. Luc the tandem pilot gives us some useful tips like don't fly into the rotor over there above the cliff (i would have flown there instantly after takeoff). Luc helps us to start and Sabrina and me fly for 1.5 hours along the shore in a beautiful scenery.

21th October it seems that the wind will not come back the next days in Barra do Cunhau so we plan a little trip towards the north together with Claudio and his buggy. But never trust a buggy and much less the mechanists maintaining the buggys. The buggy is not ready the other day and we take a taxi to Natal. Somehow we manage to get a rental car for an excellent price. Our next stop is Galinhos. The advertisings for Galinhos promise pure nature "A place of pleasure and tranquility!" Our first impression of Galinhos is the pure nature of donkey shit. Galinhos is only accessible by 4 wheel drive or boat taxi. Means that the little hicktown is almost free of cars but full of donkeys. Even a taxi consists of minimum one donkey. Anyway Galinhos is the only place with wind along the north coast of Brasil and we have a couple of days with nice winds and unfortunately lots of choppy water. After three days we leave this place that reminds us to the Dark Ages.

After two hours of driving we arrive at a charming little village called São Miguel de Gostoso. The pousadas at the beach are incredible expensive but we find a superb pousada  along the main road of São Miguel called Vila Bacana.

In the afternoon there's still some time for a nice kitesession. Claudio Sabrina and me stay on the water until the full moon rises behind the palm trees ohhh damn it's so romantic :-)

Some nice restaurants, kitesessions, beers and caipirinhas later we are back in Barra do Cunhau planning a bigger trip towards Canoa Quebrada, Barra Grande and Jericoacoara.

Pura vida...

Coco verde gelado

I took part at an International Kiteboarders Organisation Training Course IKO ITC to learn a bit more about the educational aspects of teaching kiteboarding. The course started Monday morning at 8 o'clock and as you might imagine it was windy like hell. After two days of boring theory and an even more boring presentation of the Theory held by our Examiner Joseph Carneiro we spent the rest of the week with some useful hands-on-teaching and training at the beach. At the end of the week I was among the three happy guys (out of eight) that passed the course and exam immediately. So if you are keen on how to learn kiteboarding let me know ;-)

In the evening we had to celebrate it. First we started at Roman's bar called Piratas and then headed to Pipa. It was a long night....

After partying we recommend coconut water for hangover!

Before coconut water

After coconut water

 

Passear na praia - walk at the beach

This week is a long one for Beat. He has his course for teaching kitesurfing. As our pousada is 2kms away from the center of town and where the kitespot is, we're able to organise a buggy for over the nights to be faster in the morning. So monday was the first day when the course started. And Beat has to get up early - it started at half past eight :-) Beat was excited because of his first school-day and get even more excited when the buggy didn't start. The gardener and I had to push the buggy over 10 minutes! Yeah folks, that's the brasilian way to be sportive! Finally he get it started and we were all happy...

During this week I had a lot of time for myself. My daily programm: I enjoy the rich breakfast than I walk at the beach to the kitespot (see the picture) and spend three or four hours with kitesurfing on the water. And after kitesurfing I learn portuguese and relax.

The evenings we spend together with Beat's fellow sufferer Claudio who participate also the course. They tell me the funny storys who happen in the course during the day. At least both aren't happy with the course and they looking forward when it ends tonight.

Arrived in Brasil

First we apologize that we didn't have the chance to say Goodbye to everybody personally. But as usual we were in a big hurry to get everything fixed (i.e. subleting our apartment in Zurich).

Sabrina and me don't like to make big plans and arrangements ahead and until end of August we were still not sure whether we go to Brasil or to another beautiful place somewhere in the world.
The intent of our sabbatical is to have the luxury to spend a lot of time together. To have the passion to kitesurf and travel and on the other hand to have the peace to think about the past, the presence and the future and the way how you want to navigate the tiny little boat towards the future called life.

And of course not to forget we fell in love with paragliding. I still do not know how we did it but we managed to become certified IPPI level 4 paragliding pilots within four months. If you want to learn paragliding we strongly recommend paraworld.ch these guys do an excellent job.

Finally we are in Brasil and decided to bring our kitesurfing and paragliding equipment with us.

For the next two weeks we stay in Barra do Cunhau a little fishing village in the federal state of Rio Grande do Norte. Happily we stay at the Pousada dos Peixes which is owned by Mavi and Tatjana a super nice couple. Unusual in the northern part of Brasil but both speak perfect English.

I decided to improve my kitesurfing skills from an educational point of view and will participate at an IKO teaching course which takes part the next week in Cunhau. Seems to be a pretty though course... let's see!

Since the wind was very weak yesterday we decided to go to Pipa to rob an ATM and second to drink some Caipirinhas at the scenic boarder at Praia do Pipa.

Life is sweet!