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...