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!