My quarter of a year in Brazil is coming to an end. It was the strangest of all my journeys. In contrast to holidays, travelling means finding a home away from home. When I travelled, I often felt at home quickly in many places. Brazil was different. I could say that the wind simply blew me away too quickly. But that was only ever true on the water. On land, I spent longer in each place than on any of my other journeys.

Nevertheless, I felt at home in very few places. Perhaps even the Ballermann often has fewer Germans. Maybe kiters no longer really have a common spirt. Maybe my passion fruit and caipi love affair was too intense. Maybe the internet was almost always too bad to work. Maybe I just couldn’t open my eyes wide enough after a tough year. (more…)

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. (more…)

It took me a good two months to travel 2,000 kilometres along the coast of north-east Brazil. I make the return journey in just four days travelling over two weeks. After Jeri, I stop for another five days in Ilha do Guajirú. There are only a maximum of 40 kiters on the water and the wind is constantly chopping at 25 to 30 knots, day and night. Exactly my sweet spot.

In Cumbuco I meet the shy Viking Johan again and lots of good new people at the Rolling Stone Hostel. We leave early on Saturday. On the last evening, the whole hostel goes up to the dunes to watch the sunset. Everything is quiet and peaceful up here. Down in Cumbuco, two people were shot dead by the police again last week, but this time without their hands tied. (more…)

When I was little, I had a big question: Where do migratory birds fly to? The answers were quickly found and included numerous countries. I devoured all the documentaries about these destinations. Sometimes you could even see birds. Even though I was getting closer to their destinations, I was still missing one thing: their route there. So I started dreaming of flying. Even before I left the earth once, I knew what it looked like from above. I took off with the birds.

Today I am one of them. I no longer dream of flying. I fly. Early in the morning, we take a beach buggy to the starting point a good kilometre west of Jericoacoara. With the wind blowing sideways at a mild 18 knots at the start, we set off with small kites on the longest downwinder I’ve ever flown. (more…)

The Parnaiba is one of the largest rivers in Brazil. In its estuary, it divides the mainland into countless green islands over an area of 50 square kilometres. We are in the realm of crocodiles, anacondas, herons and monkeys. We travel for just under an hour in a fast motorboat through the mangroves to the last sandbank in the Parnaiba Delta. Here, the river merges with the sea under the crashing waves.

The place is more than worthy of marking the turning point of my journey. Over the past two months, I have travelled almost 1,800 km along the Brazilian coast by donkey cart, car, bus, boat and on foot. My board has made tracks in the water at 30 spots. This is as close as I will get to the equator on this trip, and nowhere will the wind blow stronger and more consistently. (more…)

It takes us five hours to drive from Ilha do Guajirú to Barra Gande – a whopping 350 kilometres and partly on gravel roads through the deepest pampas. Both Google and Open Street Map indicated this route, and locals showed us the same way. We only learnt a day later that we could easily have saved ourselves a third of the journey by taking the new road between Jijioca and Granja.

Barra Grande is almost completely booked out due to a bank holiday. Even modest private rooms without doors quickly cost an astronomical €40 a night by Brazilian standards. So we book ourselves into a really fine luxury resort for €10 more. The house is pure hippie art, each table a painting made from carefully crafted solid wood. After the journey, we are exhausted. (more…)

Ilha do Guajirú is the first place in Brazil where we have to search for free accommodation. “Something” takes five minutes and finds us a pousada right on the beach for very little money. The rusty compressor rattles loudly and the meal takes ages. We immediately feel at home in the Pousada Portal da Barra. There are few places in the world where you can kite in strong winds on flat water just ten metres from your room.

The wind blows mightily in Ilha do Guajirú. During the three days of our stay, it only rarely and briefly blows at less than 20 knots. During the day it always blows at 20 to 30 knots. Ilha do Guajirú is a dream for flat water kiters. Situated behind a long sandbank, the low tide reduces a long river estuary to a barely mirror-smooth space. At high tide, up to 60 kiters ride the gentle wind waves of the 300 by 1000 metre slope. (more…)

A house wall in the middle of nowhere in the Brazilian pampas proclaims: “God has abandoned us”. This irritates me in two ways. Firstly, Brazilians are the Salafists among Christians. Anyone who does not attend at least three of the five weekly masses offered in each village is officially considered a pagan. Secondly, we are on our way to the promised land, and that is not possible without a God.

Our God is the wind. It certainly brings a lot of wealth to Brazil. When a wind farm is built here, a factory, roads and sometimes a whole village are built at the same time. We drive through endless forests of wind turbines. Yes, the sunset would be more beautiful without them. But if I have the choice between forests of rotary blades and sushi glowing in the dark, my choice is clear. (more…)

The next stop is the almost completely empty town of Flexeiras. It’s just before peak season and there’s nothing going on anywhere. We check into a cheap pousada right on the beach and set off straight away for Guajiru, a few kilometres to the east. The wind is much stronger here than in the slightly shaded Flexeiras. On the water in front of one of the kite accommodations, which are hopelessly overpriced as always, a dozen riders with 7 to 9 square metres are raging.

As the beach is wide and the sea quite empty, we downgrade the risk and stick to 12 and 13m² – again. With gusts well over 22 knots, this is borderline, but the hangtime is tremendous. We hurl ourselves into the lee over numerous 1.5 metre high waves and mess up even more big airs towards the shore. The view from a height of 7 metres seems endless. (more…)

After five weeks of long stays, the pace of travelling is now changing. We are travelling by car for three weeks from Fortaleza to the wild west of Brazil with Ian, a Dutchman from England. From now on, we’ll be riding different kite spots every day. Our first stop is Lagoinha, a good hour west of Cumbuco.

The sticker on the windscreen prohibits driving on unpaved roads. It says nothing about beaches. So the next morning we drive a few kilometres downwind to the lagoon with good people from home. It’s not much bigger than the Tabuba pond off Cumbuco, but is surrounded by palm trees and dunes like an oasis behind the beach. The wind is too good, nobody has time for photos or films. (more…)

Around midday, we head one kilometre west on the Galinho side of the lagoon at low tide. The beach is now endlessly wide thanks to the low tide, and the lagoon and estuary offer several square kilometres of ironing board for the three of us kiters. The spot is heavenly. I don’t understand why there aren’t at least as many people here as in Cumbuco. Okay, it’s not “umpfumpf” here – unless you do it yourself. But life in a small village has other charms.

The wind is a bit lousy at first. The kite instructors run up on the shore a few times with 9m², I ride 13m² and am happy. Around one o’clock the wind picks up to a pleasant 18 knots, now we have hot water. Huge spray, high speed and bombastic crashes. The mangroves are the gangs, a few passing fishing boats are the balls and we are the cues. (more…)

The last 30 kilometres to Galinhos lead through endless wind farm forests over brilliant white sand dunes. Galinhos lies at the end of a long peninsula. The sandbank offers a unique variety of conditions for kitesurfing: on the land side is a large estuary, the perfect flat water spot. On the seaward side, the waves break evenly on the gently sloping beach.

The very first jump in the flat water after the waves inland knocks me out a good five metres. Landing in the waves, turn and out again. The waves are not big, but quite steep for a long time. Perfect ramps for endless gliding downwind. In 15 years of kitesurfing, I’ve never had a wave spot that offered such good conditions in both directions. (more…)

On the last day in Pipa, the wind finally picks up. As has been the case all week: different from the forecast. In Pipa, hope is written differently. I go to Cacimbinhas Beach in the morning with an Argentinian radio presenter. A rough breeze sweeps over the edge of the steep cliffs. A small hut on a lonely beach, the sea and me. Everything is fine.

The waves are a little milder at Cacimbinhas than at Praia de Amor. But still 1.5 metres high and breaking hard. Wash, out and in, then after an hour some rain and calm. A little further south towards Praia de Madeiro, and the wind picks up again. Outside, the swell is high and steep, crashing into the next wave crest. At the end of the day, I limp home happy. (more…)

In the minivan to Cibauma, a gay German-Uruguayan couple on their honeymoon are having a great time mocking the baffling ways of liberal bureaucracy. According to their marriage licence, one of them is now a “senora” and therefore has to undergo a sex change, which they both find discriminatory and a complete turn-off.

At the end of a country lane, the bus driver kicks me off. I’m on my way to a legendary kite spot, the Barro de Cunhau. From Pipa, you would have to take a taxi for the 7 kilometres as the crow flies. After a short hike, I realise why. At high tide, you can only cross this river on a raft. Now, at low tide, I’m sinking waist-deep in water. (more…)

On the second day in Pipa, the wind finally doesn’t blow at night, as is so often the case here, but also during the day at a cosy 17 knots. The east-facing Praio de Amor is only 15 minutes away from the Sugar Cane Hostel. Standing on top of its cliffs, I finally spot the first other kiter. I hadn’t met anyone yet.

At high tide, Praio de Amor is just 7 metres wide in the less densely populated southern section. Even at low tide, it’s unlikely to be more than 12 metres wide. Directly behind it are steeply rising cliffs, some of which are overgrown with scrub. Thanks to the windward eddies caused by these cliffs, I make two really bad starts, which also happens to a few other kiters later on. (more…)