14-days discovery-trip with beach-buggies by kitehouse.ch
If you´re in search of the ultimate kite adventure trip in northeast brazil, opt for a bunch of humorous kiters having plenty of time and at least one with a little idea about mechanics, rent a couple of those 15 years-old, loud FYBER beach buggies equipped with VW-beetle engines made in Latin America, pack enough drinking water, biscuits and suncream along with your huge bag for all your kite gear, some jerrycans of gasoline, spear tyres and the repair kit – and off you go on an epic journey along Ceará’s Sunset Coast all the way to the Parnaibá Delta in the neighbouring State of Piaui - through endless and nearly untouched beaches, along mangrove forests, across rivers and huge sanddunes, constantly searching for that one perfect kite spot of the day.
Romantic? I´d say so. Ask Anh-Dao, if you don´t trust me - she may have another definition for romantic . For sure it was a great adventure, and it felt at least as good as the Camel Trophy or the Fulda Challenge. The transitions onto rod-guided barques to cross the rivers and deep lagunes were peanuts compared with searching the way through sand dunes without any traces ahead (hey, GPS does not help on those constantly wind shaped wandering dunes…). The dirt tracks through soft sand and muddy mangroves were pretty hard to master with only rear-traction and unprofiled tyres, especially when stuck in boiling sand at high noon. Heat, wind, dust, salt and bumpy tracks wore our buggies to such an extreme extent, that praying for that bump at each time we started the engine, became something like a ritual. You must love to ride and care for a buggy. Fred, our eversmiling tripguide, and his future wife Sonia, surely did so, and therefore we were fortunate to enjoy an unforgettably great experience.
Every day we visited a different kite spot on the way. And as we were moving northwest, we followed the strong tradewinds that had left us rather too early in Paracuru. Nevertheless, thanks to the training in December, and a three days luxury stay in Fleixeras, we were ready to ride in different conditions, starting with 15 knots of wind and sweet, flat water lakes, and ending with impossible to ride gusts of 35 knots in bumpy waves. Most of the days, we had a rather moderate mix of both, allowing us to progress in our sport, as long as we still had some energy after the long, windy and very sunny buggy rides. On the way back, though, we stopped for a few days to relax at probably the best kiter place on the coast, a little fisherman village with a cosy pousada, and to enjoy 3 hours long, easy going downwind rides. The coastline would allow us to do much more, but for the sake of security, we thought 15kms were hard enough to keep the necessary concentration, without any help except for the four other fellow kiters along with Swimming-Pool Lifeguard Seb, the temporary driver of our onshore assisting buggy in case of emergency (like changing wind conditions leading now and again to difficult situations offshore like entangled, non-recoverable kitelines, or a lost kiteboard not being able to bodydrag back upwind, or a shock after having seen some dark shade under the water, with some triangle form shortly occurring in a trough…) We’ve actually sadly witnessed a stranded, dead potwale with a size of 12 metres! The local population had no other choice than to bury the huge marine mammal on the spot, in the sandbeach…
We wont unveal the different kitespots, nor will we show many pictures of the trip, since they disappeared with our digital camera in a rather unpopular(?) night action before we could save them elsewhere (check out the photo set buggy-trip). Just one advice: Whoever you are, and whatever your activities are, if you get to northeast Brazil, go and check out that famous village of Jericoacoara. No matter the people talking about the place to be too stuffed and too overpriced. We loved the mythical touch to the place, and we’re sure you as well will find something there to love and want to stay!!!
Our memory is filled with deep impressions of the rugged, yet beautifully pure and almost untouched nature, stunning experiences with the nearly unspoilt, at times extremely poor rural population and inspiring images of paradisiac properties along the coast. How long it will hold, depends on the amount of Cachaça and all the fantastic combinations created around this brasilian national spirit, that will or hopefully will not burn our brains… and the amount of crashs on front- and backloop attempts at 25m below a looping kite and 5m above the water…(ok, I exaggerate – right now it´s rather still 1m). Definitely, the wonderfully rich Feijoada (very tasty bean stew) and the healthy fruit juices of Sonia have temporarily helped us prolong that deadline.
For more information about adventure trips for kiters in northeast Brasil, check out kitehouse.ch or contact fred@kitehouse.ch. Great beginner's packages in Paracuru are proposed by the swiss kitesurf pioneer André Simone´s kiteboardbrazil.com.
If you´re in search of the ultimate kite adventure trip in northeast brazil, opt for a bunch of humorous kiters having plenty of time and at least one with a little idea about mechanics, rent a couple of those 15 years-old, loud FYBER beach buggies equipped with VW-beetle engines made in Latin America, pack enough drinking water, biscuits and suncream along with your huge bag for all your kite gear, some jerrycans of gasoline, spear tyres and the repair kit – and off you go on an epic journey along Ceará’s Sunset Coast all the way to the Parnaibá Delta in the neighbouring State of Piaui - through endless and nearly untouched beaches, along mangrove forests, across rivers and huge sanddunes, constantly searching for that one perfect kite spot of the day.
Romantic? I´d say so. Ask Anh-Dao, if you don´t trust me - she may have another definition for romantic . For sure it was a great adventure, and it felt at least as good as the Camel Trophy or the Fulda Challenge. The transitions onto rod-guided barques to cross the rivers and deep lagunes were peanuts compared with searching the way through sand dunes without any traces ahead (hey, GPS does not help on those constantly wind shaped wandering dunes…). The dirt tracks through soft sand and muddy mangroves were pretty hard to master with only rear-traction and unprofiled tyres, especially when stuck in boiling sand at high noon. Heat, wind, dust, salt and bumpy tracks wore our buggies to such an extreme extent, that praying for that bump at each time we started the engine, became something like a ritual. You must love to ride and care for a buggy. Fred, our eversmiling tripguide, and his future wife Sonia, surely did so, and therefore we were fortunate to enjoy an unforgettably great experience.
Every day we visited a different kite spot on the way. And as we were moving northwest, we followed the strong tradewinds that had left us rather too early in Paracuru. Nevertheless, thanks to the training in December, and a three days luxury stay in Fleixeras, we were ready to ride in different conditions, starting with 15 knots of wind and sweet, flat water lakes, and ending with impossible to ride gusts of 35 knots in bumpy waves. Most of the days, we had a rather moderate mix of both, allowing us to progress in our sport, as long as we still had some energy after the long, windy and very sunny buggy rides. On the way back, though, we stopped for a few days to relax at probably the best kiter place on the coast, a little fisherman village with a cosy pousada, and to enjoy 3 hours long, easy going downwind rides. The coastline would allow us to do much more, but for the sake of security, we thought 15kms were hard enough to keep the necessary concentration, without any help except for the four other fellow kiters along with Swimming-Pool Lifeguard Seb, the temporary driver of our onshore assisting buggy in case of emergency (like changing wind conditions leading now and again to difficult situations offshore like entangled, non-recoverable kitelines, or a lost kiteboard not being able to bodydrag back upwind, or a shock after having seen some dark shade under the water, with some triangle form shortly occurring in a trough…) We’ve actually sadly witnessed a stranded, dead potwale with a size of 12 metres! The local population had no other choice than to bury the huge marine mammal on the spot, in the sandbeach…
We wont unveal the different kitespots, nor will we show many pictures of the trip, since they disappeared with our digital camera in a rather unpopular(?) night action before we could save them elsewhere (check out the photo set buggy-trip). Just one advice: Whoever you are, and whatever your activities are, if you get to northeast Brazil, go and check out that famous village of Jericoacoara. No matter the people talking about the place to be too stuffed and too overpriced. We loved the mythical touch to the place, and we’re sure you as well will find something there to love and want to stay!!!
Our memory is filled with deep impressions of the rugged, yet beautifully pure and almost untouched nature, stunning experiences with the nearly unspoilt, at times extremely poor rural population and inspiring images of paradisiac properties along the coast. How long it will hold, depends on the amount of Cachaça and all the fantastic combinations created around this brasilian national spirit, that will or hopefully will not burn our brains… and the amount of crashs on front- and backloop attempts at 25m below a looping kite and 5m above the water…(ok, I exaggerate – right now it´s rather still 1m). Definitely, the wonderfully rich Feijoada (very tasty bean stew) and the healthy fruit juices of Sonia have temporarily helped us prolong that deadline.
For more information about adventure trips for kiters in northeast Brasil, check out kitehouse.ch or contact fred@kitehouse.ch. Great beginner's packages in Paracuru are proposed by the swiss kitesurf pioneer André Simone´s kiteboardbrazil.com.
posted by Patrick Jeannerat at 1/31/2007 09:58:00 PM
2 Comments:
:-) paps would like to join you for the bean stew...:-)
j'aime bien vos photos de kite.Et les paysages, ça nous change de l'hiver suisse, même si cette année le temps est particulier, presque sans neige. Dommage que l'appareil numérique a été volé. Bonne route.
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