Canoa Quebrada

Just a day’s journey away from the paradise of Galinhos, Canoa Quebrada is in a completely different world. Fast Internet, large supermarkets, hotels and restaurants without end. The way to the bangers on the beach is marked by a long beach buggy traffic jam full of fat people. I immediately feel like Tarzan in New York and take refuge in the quiet cemetery in the sand dunes.

I stroll along empty Broadway in the midday heat. Bar after pub after disco after bar. The frequency whispers quietly of the calm before the weekend storm of thousands of locusts from the nearby metropolis of Fortalezza. Travelling means change. In Galinhos, the pharmacist carried my forgotten mobile phone after me. Here, without exception, everyone warns me about robbery, theft and forgotten earplugs.

The beach here is not particularly suitable for kitesurfing. As is so often the case in Brazil, it only exists at low tide, and even then it is quite busy. With a beach buggy full of Swiss, we head 10 kilometres to the next estuary to the north-east. The water there is often only 5 cm deep, even at high tide. Fearing for my fins, I hunker down 2 kilometres out into the waves on the open sea – and smash my kite into the third. Inverted lines require a self-rescue, 20 minutes swimming through a good metre of surf and then almost an hour of tidying salad on a sandbank. Not my day.

Friday evening doesn’t get any better. The hostel remains completely empty, the storm doesn’t materialise. My mood is approaching the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. After two litres of cola and lots of naps, I fall into bed long before the night starts. Someone has switched on the air conditioning. I’m cold. Obviously, hibernation breaks through on Saturday, 14 hours every day, and yet I’m permanently tired all day in the too-weak wind.

My hostel is in the centre of the city. From the terrace on the first floor, I watch the same spectacle on Broadway every evening. Vendors selling nothing. Pushers pulling bored faces. Artists who can’t do anything. And me? The Dude and Hank Chinaski would surely be furious if I postulated that there are numerous good reasons to drink. They would break a bottle over my head and shout at the top of their voices: “No reason is good! It doesn’t need one!” – but thankfully they’re not here. I gaze into an empty bottle of Chilean wine, which costs more here than two five-course Brazilian dinners. This is clearly more than a hobby.