When travelling, it is dangerous to return to good places. Magicians can repeat tricks. But magic is unique. Most of the time, second visits are just chasing after the illusion of times gone by. People change or disappear. The magic of Galinhos is stronger: the good people stay good and the new ones blend in.
In 2,000 kilometres along the coast of Brazil, there was not a single kitespot comparable to Galinhos. I spend the last five days of my trip here. This time there are ten good kiters, the wind is blowing at 25 knots or more, much stronger than at the beginning of October. The lagoon would have room for hundreds more. But the arduous journey to get here continues to successfully deter mass tourism.
I end my three-month kite odyssey through Brazil in the most beautiful of still lifes. The entrance doors of the Pousada Farol Galinhos are adorned with padlocks. But they are never locked. Everyone knows this, and everyone in the village accepts the silent request. Children play football in the alleyways of the village and old people chat under the petrol-financed trees. Dogs bark. Donkeys bleat. The wind rustles in a hibiscus swarming with hummingbirds. In the midday heat, small swirls of sand drift through the alleyways. In the evening, Galinhos sleeps in a blackout and the stars shine brighter than anywhere else in the world. A Father Christmas strung up on a palm tree sways gently in the night breeze.
A former restaurant owner – who, as always, I no longer know – visits me in my pousada. Even back then, my friends said I had paid a gringo price for the rooster. But to get part of the price back two months later with a lovely smile and without ever having complained: that’s the magic of Galinhos and feels like being knighted as a villager. I was at home here.
We kite a downwinder over the seaward side to the mouth of the river at Guamare. After a good two hours of playing in the shallows behind the sandbanks of Presidio, I make my way back to Galinhos via the lagoon. Over four hours on the water mark a worthy last big ride. The sea is quite rough with a swell of a good metre and a half, just as if it were giving everything one last time together with the strong wind.
The last day brings storms with gusts of over 30 knots. We travelled with the kite again to the mouth of the river off Guamare. In the evening, there is just one last important thing to do. I reveal the identity of the Silver Surfer. More or less involuntarily. The superhero costume of good friends is more than suitable in terms of content, but even before the discreet muscle upgrade of the last three months, it was labelled as “suitable up to 1.75m”. So today I’m going backless and then, in the last jumps of this trip, in front of a golden sunset reflected on the breaking waves, I’m lifting the mask.
The open back must have looked a bit chuggy. A group of Brazilian women feel they have been chosen to proselytise. I have no choice but to realise that today, at the end of the last session of a three-month kite trip, my harness has torn at the front and back. RIP. I see signs, and they say: “Fix Oida, that was fui and long. That’s enough. Go ham!”.
In the evening, the guitar sounds, we sing our songs one last time and receive many a more than dangerous free drink as a reward. Friends invite me round for some excellent ceviche and loads of grilled fish, which no caipirinha armada could wash away today. When the party is at its best, when all my friends are dancing samba under a palm tree in the backyard of the beach, right here and now: I want to leave. I have something to report: Life remains wonderfully colourful and quirky as the ebb and flow of the tide paint the mirror of our deeds on the sea. Thank you all!
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.