I had already put Lakawon on my list of spots at home. A rather luxurious resort occupies a small paradise island full of palm trees surrounded by turquoise shallow water. The banka takes me from Sicogon to Estancia, by minivan to Concepción and then two more large bankas two hours over to the next kiteboarding paradise five kilometres north of Negros.
The Philippine Kitesurfing Championships in Airstyle, Hangtime and Race will take place here over the next four days. More than 50 kiters from all over the world will be competing for the throne. The imported beer, which is actually banned, and several bottles of rum are professionally distributed to the rooms by tractor. Howard Hughes from the Philippines throws one funny round of “Who’s afraid of Duterte?” after another. (more…)
PKA @ Sicogon
A few weeks ago, the good people at Hangin Kite on Boracay suggested that I visit the Philippine Kitesurfing Championship on Sicogon. Thanks to a delay of just eight hours on the ferry from Cuyo back to Antique, the plan worked out. Together with a Spanish instructor and a competitor from Hamburg, I race two and a half hours from Iloilo to Estancia in the Speedvan.
The next afternoon, a banka full of competitors takes me three quarters of an hour over to Sicogon. The venue is the classy Huni Resort. The infinity pool flows directly into the endless white-blue horizon above the spot. Thanks to rooms beyond the €100 mark, we stay at the slightly cheaper Balay Kogon. The path there is currently still so narrow that only motorbikes can get you there over two kilometres. (more…)
Cuyohuuuuu!
Sometimes it seems as if the harder goals are to achieve, the more valuable they become. Cuyo fully belongs in this category. Located just 100 kilometres as the crow flies from my second kitespot Malalison in the Palawan Sea, the journey takes a good 27 hours. Banka to the mainland, trike, six hours by backfish bus without air conditioning through numerous landslides behind San Jose to Iloilo that have not yet been repaired by the last rainy season.
As nobody could reliably say when the ferry to Cuyo would leave, I arrive six hours early as a precaution. It departs almost on time and, thanks to enough paint on 40-year-old steel, arrives in Cuyo in one piece after 14 hours, even through three metres of swell. Compared to the 29 hours of seasickness caused by a storm from two Swedes for the trip from the other side, which actually took eight hours, my ship was the purest speedboat. (more…)
Malalison
After nine days, I’ve had enough of the overcrowded Chinese mall of Boracay. The magic of the Philippines lies elsewhere. It’s a two-hour bus journey south through the windswept green seas of rice paddies and crops drying by the roadside. In Culasi, I take a banka to the small fishing island of Malalison near the coast of Antique.
The satellite images promised waves in front of and shallow water behind a small sandbank directly in front of my Nipa hut on the beach. The receptionist at my accommodation Casa Preta provided me with good information over the days via Facebook. On arrival, he turned out to be the warm pole of the village community, which is apparently a legal requirement in the Philippines. (more…)
Re:racay or Borawhy?
Boracay is hardly recognisable since my last visit seven years ago. The only thing that remains is the density of the buildings and the crowds – although around 25% of all buildings have been declared illegal and demolished. Just three months after reopening, Boracay is still nowhere near its previous booking figures.
When Philippine President Duterte visited Boracay in 2018, he called the island a “cesspool”. He wasn’t far wrong. in 2012, we kitesurfed the Bulabog slalom between floating poo and condoms after every medium downpour. Large parts of the island smelled like dung heaps. With the six-month complete closure and general renovation, at least that is now a thing of the past. (more…)
One night in Manila
The sun rises behind the sea of clouds over China. Below, the smog creeps tenaciously through the skyscraper canyons of a country that I neither want to nor can see. The airports in Changsha and Guangzhou scream China’s greatness to the world in sentences of kilometre-long walks and an unbelievable number of controls, stamps through empty giant halls. His mouthguard hipsters breathe heavily filtered air through their Beats headphones. Their money was only three-quarters enough for their trousers.
Touchdown in Manila after 26 hours on the road. Through dust and crowded streets by taxi to the Moonwalk and into the hustle and bustle. Nothing has changed since my last visit seven years ago? Thanks to Duterte, I would no longer be ripped off by corrupt police officers – but travelling through the 13 million people of Manila by car is enough for seven lifetimes anyway. (more…)
Infinity Kite @ Beauduc
Winding side roads take you through the last foothills of the French Alps down into the Rhône Valley. This is the cradle of the Mistral, one of the most powerful wind systems in Europe. First the vineyards tremble. Castles, aqueducts and medieval villages pass by on rollercoasters. Then the poplars sway. The land becomes flatter and flatter. Mountains become hills.
From Arles onwards, the land flows into water for 50 kilometres like nowhere else in the world. The distances between the villages increase between the last rows of trees swaying in the strong wind. Yawning bulls and grazing grey horses on the last solid meadows before the sea. Then, very slowly, the water creeps inland through canals between rushes. (more…)
Swiss cheese @ Leucate
Two long journeys of up to eight hours take me via Barcelona to the small French backcountry village of Durban-Corbières near Leucate. A supermarket, a restaurant and a dilapidated castle in the middle of vineyards slow down my 7,000 kilometres comfortably. Everywhere, the winegrowers collect their harvest in Playmobil tractors.
The quirky innkeeper sorts cassettes under fig trees in front of his ancient stone house. Mambo from the 50s is playing inside. I am the only guest. A castle glows a lonely gold in the sunset while the moon rises behind the vineyards. (more…)
Al Andalus
The good travelling friends have long since returned home. Gratitude opens your eyes. Magic cannot be planned. It happens. After five hours, I arrive in Almeria. Check-in in a pitch-black, air-conditioned high-rise flat behind three closed doors per metre of corridor. It smells of incense sticks, and even on the second contact, the dense landlord can barely find his trousers behind the door.
Off to the first beach, Costacabana, a cruel urbanisation in the middle of nowhere before the airport. The wind is right. The only family on the beach helps with the take-off. Three young daughters comment on every jump, no matter how small, with euphoric cheers. It intensifies as I pull each kite through the water individually. Even the dad with a huge gap in his teeth wants to join in. All the daughters want an autograph, with Herzerl, “my best friend”, on a stone, and the warmth of remote Philippine islands drifts by on the coast. (more…)
Tarifa
You would think that thanks to global warming under Trump’s butt – combined with more weather extremes – the wind should also increase globally. Maybe it will. But not where you would expect it. So far, I’ve travelled more than 5,000 km in Switzerland, France, northern Spain and Portugal with very little wind. I only had four kiteable days – and I’m only talking about one really good day.
Even at my very first kite spot, Lagos, where I rode a 2.20 m waveboard for the first time 19 years ago and managed a nice kilometre downwind thanks to a year of previous dry practice, there was absolutely no wind – so I went straight on to Mekkarifa. But even in Tarifa, with its 300 windy days a year, there were four days of calm at the beginning. (more…)
Oh Europe, Where Art Thou?
A roof terrace in Lisbon. Half past five in the morning. I should be asleep. But a month ago, I must have sat under a nest of processionary caterpillars in France. Now my whole body is itching like hell again. So I scratch. Right down to the blood. Suddenly the political comment from one of those Facebook friends you don’t actually know seems to me as if we Germans had collectively sat down in a nest around 1928. We’re still scratching. So I write.
I am an autist. I am a traveller. For me, what you call home is mostly just a place where hardly anyone understands me in my own language – should there even be something we wanted to talk about together. I polarise, frighten, and sometimes I even manage to whisk women over 3,500 km away with a magical phrase I can’t even comprehend. Everyone speaks a different language when travelling. Not being understood is part of everyday life for everyone here. Travelling is my only home. (more…)
Muxia
The clouds hang low at the north-western end of Spain. Galicians in traditional costume play the bagpipes at the fourth village festival in four days. I eat mussels in the pleasantly cool rain. If it weren’t for the funny language here, which is exactly halfway between Spanish and Portuguese, this would be Scotland: old stone churches above the rocky coast and lots of greenery around the small fishing village of Muxia.
The end of the Way of St James, Santiago de Compostela, is just around the corner. I am the only kite pilgrim in my hostel. Everyone else is a hike pilgrim. With up to 800 kilometres in their legs, they still haven’t had enough in Santiago di Compostela – and are still doing a little 120-kilometre aftermath to the end of the world in Fisterra. (more…)
Kite War @ Guincho Beach!
After a few days with little wind on the entire Iberian Atlantic coast, my flat disc is delighted with the forecast on the thermally active beach of Guincho. Shortly before midday, the wind is still blowing 200 metres off the beach. Then it suddenly turns slightly to the west and picks up quickly. A light Swiss is torn across the beach on the 10. I set up the 9er Rally in a stubborn 24 knots.
At the leeward end of the beach, 200 metres away, seven-metre-high cliffs create strong windward eddies and nice breakers, according to the locals. The southerly current also pulls strongly in the water there. If you drift off, the only landing option is a 50 metre wide beach with plenty of rocks 200 metres further downwind. The locals advise swimming out there only with a retracted umbrella. (more…)
Kitesurf @ Ebro Reservoir
In Cantabria in northern Spain, the mountains rise directly out of the Atlantic Ocean to over 1,000 metres. On the nearby Picos de Europa, which are up to 2,400 metres high, there is still snow even in midsummer. The incredibly green land glows in the peculiar sunlight on the retina like Ahoy sherbet on the tongue. Endless blue skies and the sea add a pinch of Tiegerbalm under and over.
The Embalse de Ebro lies just 50 kilometres from the coast at an altitude of 800 metres in a completely different deserted land. The ancient houses are made of stone. There are pictures of two metres of snow on the only village street. Even now, at the height of summer, the thermometer is only a pleasant 17°C after 42°C in Bilbao – from below. (more…)
km 16.371: Buenos Aires / Going Home
After three months and more than 16,000 kilometres over land and water, my biggest journey to date comes to an end in Tango Town Buenos Aires. I set off on foot for the last time, covering many kilometres in remote areas. On the outskirts of La Boca, the third warning from local residents tells me to hide my camera. The streets are barricaded and the figures actually set my alarm bells ringing for the first time in years.
Buenos Aires surprises me with the widest avenue in the world, a thousand statues, large parks full of rubber trees and a wonderfully lively mix of people from all over the world. The mansard palaces take you back to Paris in the early 19th century, the underground railway running against the traffic to London. In three days, I only get on the train in the right direction once. (more…)
If cats could dance…
…then they would dance the tango. In a swingers club. In Buenos Aires. After months in the Dominican Republic and the holy Sundays under the gay French direction of Thiery in the former Regensburg harbour brothel, I seriously thought that salsa was the most erotic dance in the world. I was so wrong! Salsa is just pornographic couple wankery. Tango is sex.
Today. Here. Buenos Aires. Probably the only small non-commercial tango venue in the tango metropolis of 15 million people. I find Café Vinilo after a long search on the internet, half an hour before it starts and five kilometres away. At first I just look. I’m good at recognising patterns. I don’t recognise a single one. Everyone dances different steps to different rhythms. Individualistic like cats. (more…)
Cordoba, Argentina
A friend I met in Brazil a few years ago invites me to Córdoba. I’m happy to drop by and am picked up by her at the terminal after the first really shitty night bus due to a massive lack of space. Her flat on the eleventh floor with a view over the whole of Córdoba is the panoramic web design office of the trip.
She works as a TV and radio presenter. For her birthday, she gives me a guided tour of all the studios. I feel like I’m on a kindergarten trip: the world is big, exciting and endlessly interesting. In the Cuesta Del Viento’s internet hole, all the work has been left behind. Here in the panorama over Córdoba, I work through a lot of things and listen to her on the radio. (more…)
50 kn @ Cuesta Del Viento
Poetic places are hard to reach. It takes me 33 hours, four buses and a lovely motorised local to get to Cuesta Del Viento. I arrive at the wonderful hippie hostel Lamaral in the middle of nowhere. The centre is just before the Chilean border. Its name means “rise of the wind”. The strongest winds in Argentina blow here every day at 25 to 50 knots across the reservoir, which is only 20 years old.
The Jefe himself makes my bed in the simple accommodation. Afterwards, he hands me a beer. As soon as my Styrian room neighbour has emptied it, the whole colourful gang heads to the nearest restaurant for dinner. The party goes on for a long time. Stars are twinkling, wine is glowing, guitars are strumming and dowels are holding pictures of the wind on the walls. (more…)
Road Tripping Argentina
The next part of the journey takes four buses and two taxis over a good 1,600 kilometres and 33 hours to the far north of Argentina. Every 100 kilometres, a bend interrupts the endless straight stretch to the horizon. For two months I travelled south on the west side of the Andes, now east of them to the north.
In the centre, the peaks of the Andes shine in the sunrise. On one side, they rise slowly over hundreds of kilometres. On the other, they go boom! and after thousands of kilometres of flat pampas, they are up to 6,000 metres high. (more…)
Bariloche
The journey to Argentina from Chiloé is almost 500 kilometres by three buses and a ferry and takes a good 13 hours. After eleven rainy days, Chilean Patagonia bids me farewell with the most glorious weather. The border guards wave us through quickly, then it’s over volcanic passes past forests of tree corpses from the last eruption down to Bariloche.
Everything here is Swiss: the mighty fir trees, the deep blue lakes, the luxury resorts built from natural stone and whole tree trunks, the expensive cars in front of them – and the prices. Withdrawing money from ATMs costs at least six per cent, less money or the wrong bank sometimes 15%. Hardly anyone accepts credit cards. (more…)
km 12,248: South pole of a great journey
For the second time after the Machu Picchu Inca Jungle Trail, I leave almost all my luggage behind. Five kilograms instead of 40 feels like a lot more than minus 35. I’ve dragged a good 25kg of kite material behind me for just 12 days on the water over more than 12,000 kilometres. Clearly too much. The journey may end without kiting in front of calving glaciers. But not with just 12 days on the water!
In the very south of Chiloé lies the small town of Quellon. From here, a ferry runs to several harbours on remote islands and the mainland in southern Patagonia. The Naviera Austral was only opened to tourists last year and, at €30 for 24 hours, is the only cheap ferry in the region. The large tourist ferries easily cost three times as much. (more…)
Puerto Montt & Chiloé
Puerto Montt is the last major town on the next 1,000 kilometres into the wild south of Patagonia. The wind turns to the unusual direction of north, and thus fully offshore to Tierra del Fuego. Kiting is out of the question at ten degrees in constant rain. I enjoy the last sparks of civilisation with Star Wars in Spanish at the cinema. The Chileans are irritated by my hearty laughter to Yoda’s “Los libros, ¿leido has?”.
My big dream of travelling 2,600 km down the Carretera Austral gravel road to the end of the world in Villa Ol’Higgins is shattered. Neither the kind Chileans in a large Facebook backpacker group nor the posting of requests in numerous hostels and tourist information centres is any good. I can’t find a second driver and have to cancel the hire car because my driving licence has been stolen. (more…)
Puerto Varas
Puerto Varas on Lake Llanquihue, five hours south of Pucon, is one of the last big towns before the endless expanses of southern Patagonia. I spend a few days over New Year’s Eve in the Margouya Patagonia Hostel, a manor house that is a good hundred years old. The French owners have transformed the property into a true backpacker’s heaven: Open fires, free-standing bathtubs and a hard drive hanging on the TV with loads of good films are a welcome change from fast-paced travelling.
Unfortunately, Puerto Montt makes the same mistake as Pucon: it spoils its charm, characterised by old wooden houses, with concrete bunkers that are out of scale. The largest of these stand directly upwind of the only kiteable beach in the neighbourhood. The hills slow down the typical cold southerly wind from the Patagonian fjords. The bunkers kill it for good. No chance of kiting here. (more…)
Pucon
The almost 1,000 kilometre journey from Pichilemu back via Santiago and down to Pucon on the Patagonian border comes to a bit of a standstill. Turbus misses the online ticket I bought the day before. Two hours of walking and complaining to the ticket centre don’t help. I have to buy a new ticket and take the last night bus after nine hours. At least a friend from Pichilemu has enough time to bring my forgotten neoboats to Santiago. Thank you!
The night eats up the kilometres. In the morning, I wake up in a different world. Everything is green, every tree in the cloud forest is at least 100 years old and the sheep look as fat as if they’re going to burst any second because of the lush grass. (more…)
Happy Hippie Surf @ Pichilemu
Pichilemu is a creative surfing hotspot three hours south of Santiago. The growth phases of the unique wooden houses can be recognised by their annual rings. The wonderful Sirena Insolente Hostel is full of good people, every evening there is a campfire under a starry sky, and Christmas is written here without an h.
I’m writing against losing. Madrid grinned at me at first, but was convinced of Luke’s power as the evening progressed. It’s good as it is, but I also know that I’m losing a lot because of my high travelling speed. I whistle “City of New Orleans” as I leave. The hostel is still asleep. (more…)
The Author
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.