Edit by matty..
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Paracuru and Taiba- the buggy expeditions
After enjoying the first 3 weeks of consistent wind, sunshine and being spoilt for choice for local spots we decided it was high time we planned and executed an expedition up the coast to see some more of the local kite scene and the coastline. So after a group discussion over dinner and collecting some money off everyone, Ollie, George & Jamie set off to a buggy rental place in town to secure our valiant steeds for the 2 day epic we had planned.
They returned in the morning with vehicles which could loosely be described as "safe." After loading up and setting off to get gas we set off. With Me & Des sharing the driving honours in the Red buggy (funvee) with Rutger, George and Jess riding as passengers. Driving honours were split equally in the Pink Buggy (humdrumvee) with Jamie "2nd gear" Calver, Ollie "full speed ahead" Brown, Julia "go slow" Howard, Benoit "seamaster" Minstrel-Rissotto and finally Matty "Oh no theres a ravine" Russell.
We set off, fully laden, in good spirits after a later start than we would have liked and decided to head to Taiba first as it was closer. So we headed down the main road in convoy with Jamie blazing a trail in 2nd gear, red lining the revs through town. After cutting off the main road down a small side street and blasting out onto the open beach we took stock of the vehicles that would carry us to our chosen destinations.
The red buggy had no accelerator pedal, no working lights, one indicator, no horn, a gear box that seemed to have a mind of its own and a clutch of sorts that seemed only to clutch your foot when you were busy stamping it. The pink buggy was in better shape but had to be bump started whenever it was stalled or switched off to cool down.
We were making good time, after cruising down the hard packed sand we passed under the gas pipeline, past the refinery and then we hit a large salt marsh, with meandering tidal streams. This proved to be a maze of dead ends and soft sand. We drove back to the start and tried to head inland around it. We drove down a soft mud and grass track - with Jamie almost locking up and hitting a large rock - only to find that 2 paths lay ahead.
One path over a large, steep sloping dune that bordered the marsh, or through the edge of the marsh, over soft boggy ground ending in a small deep stream.
Me and Des decided that we would try the dune first as that had less risk of the buggy sinking beneath us. After 4 or 5 attempts and the buggy having to get dug out, pushed back and re driven back into the same state, we were all stood around sweating and wondering how the hell we were going to proceed. As the buggy dug itself in for the 6th time, we looked round hearing the roar of the pink buggy to see it flying down a track full pace with Matty at the helm and Ollie bouncing around in the passenger seat. With a great smash and a huge plume of steam and water they careered across the stream and their buggy groggilly made its way onto the hard packed sand on the other side...
With cheers and screams the group congratulated the boys, whilst me and Des considered what must be done. I reversed the buggy back along the track to give us the biggest run up I could manage. With the group gathered around the crossing point with cameras and bated breath I turned to Des and said " Well, good luck I suppose", "Good luck mate." he replied clicking on his camera.
Back on the hard packed sand we continued to make good time after our 2 hours stuck trying to cross the marsh. The rest of the way to Taiba was straight forward along roads and tracks and finally we arrived, parked up and looked out onto a huge butter flat lagoon nestled in the dunes, with a cafe on the hillside over-looking the water. A good session was had by everyone who was light enough to ride with the wind not filling in quite enough for the guys with the more "ruggedized" frames..
We set off home in the late afternoon deciding to head along the roads as the beach would be impassable at high tide. After 4 hours of driving a fully laden buggy down dual carriageways, dodging huge lorries, down small tracks, round and round the village of pecem we finally found the road back to cumbuco. We pulled into the gate to casa banana with maybe 20 minutes to spare of light. Lucky really bearing in mind we had no head lights...
We woke early the next day loaded up and set off to Paracuru, The journey there proving far easier as we avoided all the hazards of the day before and drove along good sections of beach and cutting inland when necessary.
We arrived at Paracuru well ahead of time. An amazing spot to behold, its a large flat spot of water surrounded by a ring of reef that created large breaking waves. We all pumped up and set off into the water for some epic playtime. Great sessions were had by all as you flew along the butter flat water, tricking if you fancied, then nipped out into the break for some waves, turn round and repeat... Ollie and Jamie suffered a kitemare at the bottom end of the spot after colliding and ending up with their kites through each others lines. After pulling safety releases they walked in only to realise that Jamies bar and lines had worked free and had dissappeared off to swim forever in the atlantic... he wasn't a happy bunny...
The trip home however was nowhere near as straightforward...
We set off happy after a good day on the water with me on the wheel leading the charge homeward down the beach. The beach driving was tricky with the tide being well up leaving a small soft section of steep sloped beach to negotiate, with waves breaking close to the track.
After 20 mins or so Des leant over and said "Can you see the other buggy?" "No.." I pulled to a stop out of reach of the sea and waited for the other buggy, after 15 mins we see a few people about 300 hundered meters back come into view and start frantically waving. I turned round and headed back to find the pink buggy looking damp and its crew looking shaken..
Apparently the wheel locked up on Benoit and they shot off into the breakers with the seamaster himself at the helm and a wet soggy buggy limped out of the surf and died right there on the beach.
After 15 mins of trying to bump start it, let it dry out, and ringing the buggy comapany to see about a pickup we decided to try and tow it back to paracuru and take the road back.
During the towing someone tried to start it and it leapt into life, we quickly unhitched it and drove as fast as we could back to paracuru to get on the road home.
As the light faded we got lost several times, with both buggies dying more and more at traffic lights and junctions.
After 4 hours of what can only be described as poorly executed motorised orienteering we limped back up the drive.
All tired but smiling after our 2 day buggy epic... beers? hell yes....
They returned in the morning with vehicles which could loosely be described as "safe." After loading up and setting off to get gas we set off. With Me & Des sharing the driving honours in the Red buggy (funvee) with Rutger, George and Jess riding as passengers. Driving honours were split equally in the Pink Buggy (humdrumvee) with Jamie "2nd gear" Calver, Ollie "full speed ahead" Brown, Julia "go slow" Howard, Benoit "seamaster" Minstrel-Rissotto and finally Matty "Oh no theres a ravine" Russell.
We set off, fully laden, in good spirits after a later start than we would have liked and decided to head to Taiba first as it was closer. So we headed down the main road in convoy with Jamie blazing a trail in 2nd gear, red lining the revs through town. After cutting off the main road down a small side street and blasting out onto the open beach we took stock of the vehicles that would carry us to our chosen destinations.
The red buggy had no accelerator pedal, no working lights, one indicator, no horn, a gear box that seemed to have a mind of its own and a clutch of sorts that seemed only to clutch your foot when you were busy stamping it. The pink buggy was in better shape but had to be bump started whenever it was stalled or switched off to cool down.
We were making good time, after cruising down the hard packed sand we passed under the gas pipeline, past the refinery and then we hit a large salt marsh, with meandering tidal streams. This proved to be a maze of dead ends and soft sand. We drove back to the start and tried to head inland around it. We drove down a soft mud and grass track - with Jamie almost locking up and hitting a large rock - only to find that 2 paths lay ahead.
One path over a large, steep sloping dune that bordered the marsh, or through the edge of the marsh, over soft boggy ground ending in a small deep stream.
Me and Des decided that we would try the dune first as that had less risk of the buggy sinking beneath us. After 4 or 5 attempts and the buggy having to get dug out, pushed back and re driven back into the same state, we were all stood around sweating and wondering how the hell we were going to proceed. As the buggy dug itself in for the 6th time, we looked round hearing the roar of the pink buggy to see it flying down a track full pace with Matty at the helm and Ollie bouncing around in the passenger seat. With a great smash and a huge plume of steam and water they careered across the stream and their buggy groggilly made its way onto the hard packed sand on the other side...
With cheers and screams the group congratulated the boys, whilst me and Des considered what must be done. I reversed the buggy back along the track to give us the biggest run up I could manage. With the group gathered around the crossing point with cameras and bated breath I turned to Des and said " Well, good luck I suppose", "Good luck mate." he replied clicking on his camera.
Back on the hard packed sand we continued to make good time after our 2 hours stuck trying to cross the marsh. The rest of the way to Taiba was straight forward along roads and tracks and finally we arrived, parked up and looked out onto a huge butter flat lagoon nestled in the dunes, with a cafe on the hillside over-looking the water. A good session was had by everyone who was light enough to ride with the wind not filling in quite enough for the guys with the more "ruggedized" frames..
We set off home in the late afternoon deciding to head along the roads as the beach would be impassable at high tide. After 4 hours of driving a fully laden buggy down dual carriageways, dodging huge lorries, down small tracks, round and round the village of pecem we finally found the road back to cumbuco. We pulled into the gate to casa banana with maybe 20 minutes to spare of light. Lucky really bearing in mind we had no head lights...
We woke early the next day loaded up and set off to Paracuru, The journey there proving far easier as we avoided all the hazards of the day before and drove along good sections of beach and cutting inland when necessary.
We arrived at Paracuru well ahead of time. An amazing spot to behold, its a large flat spot of water surrounded by a ring of reef that created large breaking waves. We all pumped up and set off into the water for some epic playtime. Great sessions were had by all as you flew along the butter flat water, tricking if you fancied, then nipped out into the break for some waves, turn round and repeat... Ollie and Jamie suffered a kitemare at the bottom end of the spot after colliding and ending up with their kites through each others lines. After pulling safety releases they walked in only to realise that Jamies bar and lines had worked free and had dissappeared off to swim forever in the atlantic... he wasn't a happy bunny...
The trip home however was nowhere near as straightforward...
We set off happy after a good day on the water with me on the wheel leading the charge homeward down the beach. The beach driving was tricky with the tide being well up leaving a small soft section of steep sloped beach to negotiate, with waves breaking close to the track.
After 20 mins or so Des leant over and said "Can you see the other buggy?" "No.." I pulled to a stop out of reach of the sea and waited for the other buggy, after 15 mins we see a few people about 300 hundered meters back come into view and start frantically waving. I turned round and headed back to find the pink buggy looking damp and its crew looking shaken..
Apparently the wheel locked up on Benoit and they shot off into the breakers with the seamaster himself at the helm and a wet soggy buggy limped out of the surf and died right there on the beach.
After 15 mins of trying to bump start it, let it dry out, and ringing the buggy comapany to see about a pickup we decided to try and tow it back to paracuru and take the road back.
During the towing someone tried to start it and it leapt into life, we quickly unhitched it and drove as fast as we could back to paracuru to get on the road home.
As the light faded we got lost several times, with both buggies dying more and more at traffic lights and junctions.
After 4 hours of what can only be described as poorly executed motorised orienteering we limped back up the drive.
All tired but smiling after our 2 day buggy epic... beers? hell yes....
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Student Debt teaser trailer...
This is the teaser trailer Sam has been working on for the movie were making to document our time and the riding we've been doing in Cumbuco.
the full edit will drop in a month or so...
enjoy..
the full edit will drop in a month or so...
enjoy..
Monday, 16 January 2012
Where it all began- packing time lapse
A time lapse of Me, George and Des packing up the boardbag a few days before we set off... oh and making a celebratory omlette.
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Guest Blogger – Benoit’s Edition
The boys have kindly let me take on the blog entry for today, to give a new viewpoint to this epic country. I’m joining the team for just over 2 weeks in Cumbuco staying in Casa de Awesome with them while we explore this kite paradise.
I arrived via Lisbon and Natal into Fortaleza and the first thing that hits you is it’s 2am, 27 degrees and the taxi drivers don’t speak English or understand any other form of communication except Dinero being waved in their face. After a journey through Fortaleza’s outskirts, during which I’ve never felt more white in my life, and a pop into Cumbuco central to ask the local ladies of the night for directions I arrived at Casa De Banana in the very early hours.
The next thing that hit me was Des, George and Booley’s disregard for the months of the year as they have kept their movember efforts running on until Boxing Day. George looks like he could be a Columbian drugs baron, Des looks like he should be called Pedro and be a Spanish pornographic photographer and Booley has what can only be described as a sideways vagina in his general mouth area...
George has also developed a major crack addiction, his boardies riding so low that it seems there isn’t a moment in the day when someone is getting a full scale view of George’s hairy nether regions.
The villa is epic. Split into two buildings there’s 4 main sleeping areas, a Kitchen, a Pool and a BBQ zone.
However it seems like it’s a 3 way split for the characteristics of the inhabitants...
Firstly the main bedroom has been claimed by Des and Jess for their romantic boudoir, Booley and Jamie have the downstairs room which can now only be described as the toilet danger zone with neither of them willing to claim responsibility for the multiple terrorist attacks being committed against their toilet resulting in it being out of action for days now.
Finally there’s the “Keen Zone” consisting of Matt, Ollie, George and Julia in building 2, who lead the charge each morning on the kiting front dragging Jamie away from his explosive diarrhoea and Matt away from his morning... yoga with Jess to hit the kite spots...
So the kiting.
There’s a main beach 50 yds away from the house with consistent cross shore wind and some decent rollers but a bit of a shore dump going down. Then there’s 2 lagoons one salt water one fresh water.
The first day of my trip we hit Tchboobies the salt water lagoon, waist deep, great wind and generally pretty safe for the less seasoned kiters of the group apart from the man eating crabs (not including the ones from Booleys rugby shorts). We all had a sweet session there with some major progression from everyone and some entertainment in the form of Julia taking multiple hits to the face working on her raleys.
Day two was a trip to Cauipe. Eventful is the word to describe it.
The main way to get there is by beach buggy. These things are basically VW bugs with massive tyres, crazy bodywork and an engine tuned to run so rich and torqy that they backfire every 2 minutes like gunshots causing the more nervous of the group to evacuate their bowels...
After myself and George spent 10 minutes politely noting the attractiveness of a couple of dutch girls (George – “I want to be ON her”) one of the local 16 yr olds threw down a back mobe, landed his kite, kissed both the girls, swigged some beer, launched his kite and busted a 540 spin launch back into the lagoon. It was then we thought we should get back to working on our kite skills some more.
Most notable kiting skills from the day was from George “Captain Chaos” Walker who spent at least 75% of the day with his kite in the water upside down and directly downwind from him. It seemed like every time we looked over to George he was having some variety of Kitemare dragging himself through the path of a number of fellow riders.
I spent most of the day going in every direction apart from upwind, so much so that I managed to use my kite to check the rigidity of a sailing boat moored at the most downwind point of the lagoon. It was at that point I decided to call it a day and chill with an iced coconut and watch Booley ride.
Those who have seen Booley ride before will agree with me when I say it looks like a kite towing a freight train with curly locks through the water and it was pleasing to see the locals move rapidly out of the way when 115kg of vagina faced rugby lad went nailing towards them.
coming up next: General cumbuco antics and some interesting buggy rides....
Note: The explicitness, names and details of this blog have been moderated by Matt due to fears of upsetting numerous family members...
Monday, 26 December 2011
Pipa, Skanky Hoes and a Sandy Panda
After Porto, we had another 'short bus journey' planned during the day which we weren't particularly looking forward to our trip to Pipa. Again we had to get off the bus early at Ipojuca which we had made damn well sure the bus went past. This was another random ghost town (where we were anyway) with just a few people lingering in the street, leering at us carrying around our lairy body bag. We'd been told by George 'Lonely Planet' Walker that we had to catch a local bus from behind a church which we thought might be hard to find but certainly wasnt when we saw it blazing in christmas lights at the end of the high street. As we walked to the back of the bus to load our kit, another cumbersome local woman came waddling around the bus shouting 'nao, nao, nao' which we took to mean that we couldn't put our stuff in the boot. So onto the bus went the body bag! I then worked out that I was being told that we would be charged for the seats which our bags were taking up, greaaat, but you cant really complain about an hour bus ride for £8 for the 3 of us.
Because we had been pretty lazy about booking the hostel we hadn't been able to pre book online so we were mighty relieved when we got to the hostel at 9pm and were told they had space for us. I then had a gand at their noticeboard and saw 'happy hour Caipirinhas till 9pm' - hell yeah. We trekked off to find a mercado, cooked up a hench sausage stir fry and crashed out in another non-AC dorm, not cool (no pun intended!)
The next day we had a little wonder around Pipa which is a small little surfer and holiday town, with multitudes of hippies who had obviously spent their life's earnings on the very nice board they're carrying around. After some research online we had found another river mouth to kite in so we jumped on a rammer jammer local bus to Tibau do Sul (which greatly confuses the locals if you say Sol by accident). Everytime we stopped to let someone on or off, half the bus would overspill out of the bus before compacting back in! We were greeted by a view of the huuuge river mouth and estuary kilometres wide in places, so I just started yomping off towards it but fortunately an old crusty told us otherwise with furious hand signals.
The wind wasn't quite playing ball when we got to the beach so we thought we would catch a few rays and chill with the rickety ferry going back across the river mouth to watch. After making some little yellow rock pools in the exposed reef we went in search of food from one of the little restaurants on the beach and were happy to see that churrascarinhos were on the menu (mini kebabs). The wind did kind of pick up but with bellies full and the prospect of drifting across the river and having to ferry back put us off pumping any kites up; so back on the sweatbox bus we got back to Pipa.
An uneventful day meant steak and chips was in order followed by beers in town. We met an interesting character that evening whilst doing the food shop; a skatty, scrawny ho stumbled up to Booley at the checkout and raised her hand ET style at his face. Booley promptly sketched out and stood fixated, eyes quickly widening, "Des, des, what the f*ck is she doing....make her go away!", so I led him away which seemed to confuse her enough to make her wonder off and harass another helpless shopper.
I had seen a battered old surfboard for absolute pennies whilst looking around and so picked myself up something to make lugging our body bag round that bit more awkward. The wind was also lighter the next day and we had to leave Pipa in the afternoon so we headed down to the local beach to check it out. When we got to the beach, George Panda Walker (he definitely has most attributes of a Panda) had decided we were going to just lie in the sand and did so, but Booley and myself thought that was going to be a little too sandy and wondered off the buy a coconut between us so we could sit on the chairs for a few hours. So a very sandy panda meandered into the shallows, turned round to face us and plonked his panda ass down to de-sand. At this point we knew he wasn't going to shift this name any time soon.
On leaving Pipa, the three of us became very excited ("J'AI EXCITE"), best saying ever) about not having to pack all our shit up every 3 days and actually settle in one place, Cumbuco, an 8hr overnight bus away from the nearby city of Natal (translated means Christmas!) and apparently a kitesurf paradise. And ohhh it is!
We've now been in Cumbuco nearly 2 weeks and a lot has been going on (next blog soon to come). The bus journeys here weren't too bad (only 5 buses!) apart from getting a bit lost in Fortaleza (the nearest city to Cumbuco) and taking a few too many local buses. When we arrived at the house, we were very, very happy, but you'll have to wait for the guest blog entry from Dengue Feverish Benoit...
Because we had been pretty lazy about booking the hostel we hadn't been able to pre book online so we were mighty relieved when we got to the hostel at 9pm and were told they had space for us. I then had a gand at their noticeboard and saw 'happy hour Caipirinhas till 9pm' - hell yeah. We trekked off to find a mercado, cooked up a hench sausage stir fry and crashed out in another non-AC dorm, not cool (no pun intended!)
The next day we had a little wonder around Pipa which is a small little surfer and holiday town, with multitudes of hippies who had obviously spent their life's earnings on the very nice board they're carrying around. After some research online we had found another river mouth to kite in so we jumped on a rammer jammer local bus to Tibau do Sul (which greatly confuses the locals if you say Sol by accident). Everytime we stopped to let someone on or off, half the bus would overspill out of the bus before compacting back in! We were greeted by a view of the huuuge river mouth and estuary kilometres wide in places, so I just started yomping off towards it but fortunately an old crusty told us otherwise with furious hand signals.
The wind wasn't quite playing ball when we got to the beach so we thought we would catch a few rays and chill with the rickety ferry going back across the river mouth to watch. After making some little yellow rock pools in the exposed reef we went in search of food from one of the little restaurants on the beach and were happy to see that churrascarinhos were on the menu (mini kebabs). The wind did kind of pick up but with bellies full and the prospect of drifting across the river and having to ferry back put us off pumping any kites up; so back on the sweatbox bus we got back to Pipa.
An uneventful day meant steak and chips was in order followed by beers in town. We met an interesting character that evening whilst doing the food shop; a skatty, scrawny ho stumbled up to Booley at the checkout and raised her hand ET style at his face. Booley promptly sketched out and stood fixated, eyes quickly widening, "Des, des, what the f*ck is she doing....make her go away!", so I led him away which seemed to confuse her enough to make her wonder off and harass another helpless shopper.
I had seen a battered old surfboard for absolute pennies whilst looking around and so picked myself up something to make lugging our body bag round that bit more awkward. The wind was also lighter the next day and we had to leave Pipa in the afternoon so we headed down to the local beach to check it out. When we got to the beach, George Panda Walker (he definitely has most attributes of a Panda) had decided we were going to just lie in the sand and did so, but Booley and myself thought that was going to be a little too sandy and wondered off the buy a coconut between us so we could sit on the chairs for a few hours. So a very sandy panda meandered into the shallows, turned round to face us and plonked his panda ass down to de-sand. At this point we knew he wasn't going to shift this name any time soon.
On leaving Pipa, the three of us became very excited ("J'AI EXCITE"), best saying ever) about not having to pack all our shit up every 3 days and actually settle in one place, Cumbuco, an 8hr overnight bus away from the nearby city of Natal (translated means Christmas!) and apparently a kitesurf paradise. And ohhh it is!
We've now been in Cumbuco nearly 2 weeks and a lot has been going on (next blog soon to come). The bus journeys here weren't too bad (only 5 buses!) apart from getting a bit lost in Fortaleza (the nearest city to Cumbuco) and taking a few too many local buses. When we arrived at the house, we were very, very happy, but you'll have to wait for the guest blog entry from Dengue Feverish Benoit...
Monday, 19 December 2011
Porto De Galinhas- Slaves? no no no... those crates are full of chickens...
Porto de Galinhas is a little seaside town with 3 main streets and a lively beach front. All the beaches along this stretch of coast are white sand and perfect blue seas with some breaks and a river mouth further down the coast. It resembles Newquay with its little souvenir shops, street vendors, loads of bars and restaurants and surf shops. It also has a fairly entertaining past as I questioned our official tour guide George "lonely planet" Walker. "Mate, why is this called Chicken port?" Apparently it got its name as after slavery was abolished in South America the Slave traders used Porto as a landing point to bring in slaves form Angola and used to tell port officials- "Hi, Yeah just another bunch of chickens, see the crates of them on the deck.. Down below? Oh no they're just some mates who came along to help me unload them.."
So after a bus journey that morphed before our very eyes from a 5 hour walk in the park to a 12 hour slog we arrived in our little hostel in Porto. We decided to dump our stuff and walk straight into town to buy a beer. We then sat in the hostel with a freezing cold can of skol and then retired for the night, eagerly anticipating the "idyllic boca" as promised on various kite spot sites.
We rose early, roused by the sounds of 2 large black guys apparently teaching their mate to swim in the pond sized pool outside our room, cheers....We had some breakfast then hurriedly assembled our boards and got our kit together, then set off through town looking for the bus to the boca. After a bus to the start of the bay we walked for what seemed FOREVER along a tiny shore road with beach buggies full of portly brazillian tourists shooting past smiling as we sweated our way along yomping all our gear. We arrived at the boca. A beautiful myriad of shifting sand bars and soon to become strong tidal currents. The wind was a little light so des decided to have a go on the train (13m bularoo) untill it filled in. After a shortish session he reitred to the beach to sit and wait for the wind to fill out. After an hour or so G and des both decided to chance it in lightish off shore winds. (i thought better of that with my more ruggedised frame suited more to high wind days :p) Des launched G and set about setting up. I was sorting out some more bridle issues that arose after the 13 decided to pop another steering bridle when des jogs past and says "ill be back in a minute, G looks like he needs a bit of a hand" I finished my lines and went to sit in the bath warm waist deep water and take in the views. Palm trees blowing in the wind, blue sky and 2 speed boats full of chonky gold chain wearing brazillian men with 2 or 3 girls dancing around on the boats to some horrendous "braz-pop" music.
About 20 minutes went by as i sat sunbathing, watching as one of the boats suddenly sprouted 2 camera men and 2 of the girls set about lap dancing the largest pedro and getting naked on the back of the sun deck of the furthest speed boat, "haha, porn shoot, ridiculous.." I thought. Then it dawned on me that des had nipped off to see if g was ok about 30 minutes ago and I could no longer see either of them. I got up, jogged up a dune and peered around the bend of the river.
From what i could see G had drifted right into the middle of the river, crashed his kite and was executing a deep water pack down underneath some power lines about 50 metres up river with des hurriedly pursuing his board down stream. I decided the kit would probably be ok and jogged round to see if I could assist. By this point des had disapeared from sight down stream. G was swimming his gear back across the stream. He landed his kit, looking shattered form his ordeal and said "des swam after my board, not sure where hes got to." I had visions of des clinging to some mangroves about 300mtrs down stream clinging to G's board so I ran over to 2 brazillian guys with a jet ski, used my considerable skills in sharades and my extensive 4 word library of portugese to explain the situation and get a lift downstream to search for des. After 10 minutes and about 500m of travel downstream I tapped him an decided des must have gone ashore or we missed him. He turned it at fill speed on a sixpence and started gunning ti back upstream. As we came flying round the corner I see des stood on the beach waving and smiling. The Guy landed the jet ski by throttling up onto the sand, i thanked him and went to get the full story from des.
After various long swims against the current, chasing the board and getting stung by jellyfish he had gone ashore through the mangroves and jogged back round to G apparently arriving just as i had set off on my jet ski.
Me and G decided to call it a day but des had set up so was determined to have a quick session as the sun set.
We yomped all our gear back along the bay and just as we got to the bus stop i dropped my kit, "my bar has gone" I exclaimed.... "shit, it must have fallen out of my harness." I left the boys sititng in a beach bar, shed my vest and began running back to search the road. After reaching the beach and running the whole length and back of the road which yielded no results i decided i had done all i could. Some brazillian family is probably eating for several weeks after selling that back to a kite school. After sulking the whole way back to the hostel and swearing profusely in the shower, i emerged a new man. After some digging around Des remembered Jamie had a bar he was looking to shift and after some frantic facebooking a budget bar was packed up and is flying out to me as we speak. So crisis averted with minimal monetry implications.
We decided that after such an eventful day we should get our beers on and go and have an all you can eat buffet to lift our spirits. After 4 Beers at the hostel we sat down in a buffet restaurant. An all you can eat "churrascaria" or BBQ. We domintaed the salad and rice buffet and awaited the meat. With a curt nod from our server, the meat man emerged time and time again with skewers of pink, juicy, dripping meat. We had bits of everything on offer, apart from when he brought over some gammon and was sent packing. "NAO, BIFE" des said. His redmeption was swift as he emerged with 3 fillet steaks on a skewer just for us... HELL YES.
The server then came and brought a checklist and mumbled something. We had no idea what this was; was it what we had eaten already or what? We thought we'd be conservative and mark off 2 or 3 items so if its what we'd had then we'd get under charged and if it was more it would be a bonus. 4 more meat dishes emerged and these were polished off with no issues, then dessert and then coffee and chocolates. Then the bill arrived... It wasnt an all you can eat after all. The meat from the bbq was all included, but everything else was extra. Oh well. 20 quid for a meat banquet with 4 courses and a litre of beer each isnt too shabby... expecially as we've been averaging £4 a night each for dinner for the last 2 weeks.
We retired to a bar and then to bed, bellies full, semi inebriated, the trials of the day washed from our memories.
We rose again early and hot the main beach and decided to swim across to the famous "natural pools" formed by the reef. after negotiating a 2 minute swim and ripping it into all the Brazilians who came armed with flip flops we discovered what separated us form the natural pools were a maze of pitted reef rock with patches of sea urchins.upon reaching the pools des belly flopped in causing everyone in the pool to stop and look confused as we all fell abut laughing. We spent the next 30 minutes or so trying to catch swarms of fish that sit in the pools. We then headed to the police station to get a crime incident number for my lost bar. After 40 minutes of using actions and what little Portuguese vocab we knew we managed to get a form and set off again headed to the boca, the wind was good to start, Des continued to work some tricks in the shallows whilst i sat and gave G some tips on unhooking and raileys. The session yeilded some hillarious and brilliant photos of Gs efforts and some good stylish shots of des. By the time i got on G's kite the wind dropped and i couldnt stay upwind, so after ditching the kite and drifting out into the river and being rescued by des we decided to call it a night.
We headed back to the hostel on the back of a beach buggy with a cool german guy called Nisa who we met on the beach, a fellow kiter who is a wind engineer. He recommended we head to Pipa, another cool spot with kiting and a bit more nightlife than ChickenPort. We booked our buses, stripped our gear and set off into the sun, on the road to Pipa....
So after a bus journey that morphed before our very eyes from a 5 hour walk in the park to a 12 hour slog we arrived in our little hostel in Porto. We decided to dump our stuff and walk straight into town to buy a beer. We then sat in the hostel with a freezing cold can of skol and then retired for the night, eagerly anticipating the "idyllic boca" as promised on various kite spot sites.
We rose early, roused by the sounds of 2 large black guys apparently teaching their mate to swim in the pond sized pool outside our room, cheers....We had some breakfast then hurriedly assembled our boards and got our kit together, then set off through town looking for the bus to the boca. After a bus to the start of the bay we walked for what seemed FOREVER along a tiny shore road with beach buggies full of portly brazillian tourists shooting past smiling as we sweated our way along yomping all our gear. We arrived at the boca. A beautiful myriad of shifting sand bars and soon to become strong tidal currents. The wind was a little light so des decided to have a go on the train (13m bularoo) untill it filled in. After a shortish session he reitred to the beach to sit and wait for the wind to fill out. After an hour or so G and des both decided to chance it in lightish off shore winds. (i thought better of that with my more ruggedised frame suited more to high wind days :p) Des launched G and set about setting up. I was sorting out some more bridle issues that arose after the 13 decided to pop another steering bridle when des jogs past and says "ill be back in a minute, G looks like he needs a bit of a hand" I finished my lines and went to sit in the bath warm waist deep water and take in the views. Palm trees blowing in the wind, blue sky and 2 speed boats full of chonky gold chain wearing brazillian men with 2 or 3 girls dancing around on the boats to some horrendous "braz-pop" music.
About 20 minutes went by as i sat sunbathing, watching as one of the boats suddenly sprouted 2 camera men and 2 of the girls set about lap dancing the largest pedro and getting naked on the back of the sun deck of the furthest speed boat, "haha, porn shoot, ridiculous.." I thought. Then it dawned on me that des had nipped off to see if g was ok about 30 minutes ago and I could no longer see either of them. I got up, jogged up a dune and peered around the bend of the river.
From what i could see G had drifted right into the middle of the river, crashed his kite and was executing a deep water pack down underneath some power lines about 50 metres up river with des hurriedly pursuing his board down stream. I decided the kit would probably be ok and jogged round to see if I could assist. By this point des had disapeared from sight down stream. G was swimming his gear back across the stream. He landed his kit, looking shattered form his ordeal and said "des swam after my board, not sure where hes got to." I had visions of des clinging to some mangroves about 300mtrs down stream clinging to G's board so I ran over to 2 brazillian guys with a jet ski, used my considerable skills in sharades and my extensive 4 word library of portugese to explain the situation and get a lift downstream to search for des. After 10 minutes and about 500m of travel downstream I tapped him an decided des must have gone ashore or we missed him. He turned it at fill speed on a sixpence and started gunning ti back upstream. As we came flying round the corner I see des stood on the beach waving and smiling. The Guy landed the jet ski by throttling up onto the sand, i thanked him and went to get the full story from des.
After various long swims against the current, chasing the board and getting stung by jellyfish he had gone ashore through the mangroves and jogged back round to G apparently arriving just as i had set off on my jet ski.
Me and G decided to call it a day but des had set up so was determined to have a quick session as the sun set.
We yomped all our gear back along the bay and just as we got to the bus stop i dropped my kit, "my bar has gone" I exclaimed.... "shit, it must have fallen out of my harness." I left the boys sititng in a beach bar, shed my vest and began running back to search the road. After reaching the beach and running the whole length and back of the road which yielded no results i decided i had done all i could. Some brazillian family is probably eating for several weeks after selling that back to a kite school. After sulking the whole way back to the hostel and swearing profusely in the shower, i emerged a new man. After some digging around Des remembered Jamie had a bar he was looking to shift and after some frantic facebooking a budget bar was packed up and is flying out to me as we speak. So crisis averted with minimal monetry implications.
We decided that after such an eventful day we should get our beers on and go and have an all you can eat buffet to lift our spirits. After 4 Beers at the hostel we sat down in a buffet restaurant. An all you can eat "churrascaria" or BBQ. We domintaed the salad and rice buffet and awaited the meat. With a curt nod from our server, the meat man emerged time and time again with skewers of pink, juicy, dripping meat. We had bits of everything on offer, apart from when he brought over some gammon and was sent packing. "NAO, BIFE" des said. His redmeption was swift as he emerged with 3 fillet steaks on a skewer just for us... HELL YES.
The server then came and brought a checklist and mumbled something. We had no idea what this was; was it what we had eaten already or what? We thought we'd be conservative and mark off 2 or 3 items so if its what we'd had then we'd get under charged and if it was more it would be a bonus. 4 more meat dishes emerged and these were polished off with no issues, then dessert and then coffee and chocolates. Then the bill arrived... It wasnt an all you can eat after all. The meat from the bbq was all included, but everything else was extra. Oh well. 20 quid for a meat banquet with 4 courses and a litre of beer each isnt too shabby... expecially as we've been averaging £4 a night each for dinner for the last 2 weeks.
We retired to a bar and then to bed, bellies full, semi inebriated, the trials of the day washed from our memories.
We rose again early and hot the main beach and decided to swim across to the famous "natural pools" formed by the reef. after negotiating a 2 minute swim and ripping it into all the Brazilians who came armed with flip flops we discovered what separated us form the natural pools were a maze of pitted reef rock with patches of sea urchins.upon reaching the pools des belly flopped in causing everyone in the pool to stop and look confused as we all fell abut laughing. We spent the next 30 minutes or so trying to catch swarms of fish that sit in the pools. We then headed to the police station to get a crime incident number for my lost bar. After 40 minutes of using actions and what little Portuguese vocab we knew we managed to get a form and set off again headed to the boca, the wind was good to start, Des continued to work some tricks in the shallows whilst i sat and gave G some tips on unhooking and raileys. The session yeilded some hillarious and brilliant photos of Gs efforts and some good stylish shots of des. By the time i got on G's kite the wind dropped and i couldnt stay upwind, so after ditching the kite and drifting out into the river and being rescued by des we decided to call it a night.
We headed back to the hostel on the back of a beach buggy with a cool german guy called Nisa who we met on the beach, a fellow kiter who is a wind engineer. He recommended we head to Pipa, another cool spot with kiting and a bit more nightlife than ChickenPort. We booked our buses, stripped our gear and set off into the sun, on the road to Pipa....
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
A BBQ, Bus, Hot Salvador, Bus, Lost in Maceió and 2 more Buses!
We finished the blog last time after another idyllic kite session with what we later described as conditions and surroundings that probably couldn´t have gotten any better. In celebration of this and because we are pure red blooded men, a hearty BBQ was in order. So copious amounts of meat, many litros of beer and a smidgeon of veg was bought and with the kitesurfers cheat BBQ tool, the kite pump, we were soon feasting away...
After guzzling our litros of Skol (one of the beers here) we decided to immerse ourselves with the local alcoholics that had been sat in the bar next to our hostel all day long. Apparently this is what you do if a) you´re a guy and b) you live in coroa vermelha. With a good lively atmosphere and freely flowing beer all around, the locals soon saw our interest in their version of 5´s and came over to our table to teach us and play.
The idea behind their game was that you had 3 toothpicks which you held behind your back and selected between 0 - 3 of them to place in a closed hand in front of you. The winner is the person who correctly guesses how many toothpicks people have chosen in total. What helped us (the loser had to buy the next litro of beer) was the fact were obviously chatting english to each other and rigging it, SNEAKY! Even so booley still managed to lose a round.
We were also entertained and delighted by the skills and tales of christian the ´human dog´ who proceeded to snarl at us rip apart a coke can with his teeth whilst we worried that it was a bet and hoped we wouldnt have to pay for his medical expenses if it all went horrifically wrong. But alas everything was ok and maybe he just had a touch of mild rabies. As the evening went on, I found my portuguese progressing very quickly with some liquid enhancement; that or I was just chatting absolute bollocks and the locals were just humouring me!
After deciding that we weren´t going to enter into some furious betting against who we christened homen dinhero (money man) and receiving multiple invites to perve (and more) on the hotties on the beach with the human dog christian, we left in high spirits.
The next day we were holding out for some wind but unfortunately it didnt come. So we just tried our best to keep as sweat free as possible before the 2 days of travelling we had set out for ourselves: overnight bus to salvador, wonder around doing all the touristy stuff and then catch another overnight bus to maceió. No showers for 2 days, we knew it would be grim....and it was.
On getting to the bus station we remembered that there was a big Festival do Chopp (beer festival), so we sat listening to the music and watching all the scantily clad ´ladies´ walking around (either all ladies of the night or its acceptable to wear lingerie tops in the middle of the day in Brazil). The bus was only 11hours but none of us slept very well despite the bus being semi-leito (semi bed) and we arrived in salvador pissed off, sweaty and groggy.
Salvador was a cool place and is was fairly similar to Sao Paulo with the very old smashed together with the very new. We looked around all the old buidings and numerous churches, as well as watching a bit of capoeira (brazilian martial arts mixed with dance). We thought it would be a bit more impressive, especially seeing one of the fighters who looked like he spent all his proceeds from tourist donations on knocking back the litros de cerveja when not stumbling around like a new born foal with a pregnancy gut, pretending to capoeira it up. On the way back to the bus station we once again decided to immerse ourselves in typical brazilian culture and sit next to the freeway and chomp down some street kebabs with the locals, which was cooler than it sounds and made us think we were less likely to get mugged!
Booley finally posting all his collected postcards in the 'novelty' postbox
The next 10 hour bus was a lot better, especially after having another sink shower in the bus station toilets and we all slept like babies after a tiring day (wet the bed twice, woke up crying three times - lee evans!). Once in Maceio we worked out it would be easier to taxi to the hostel and just showed the address to the driver. What we didnt expect was turning up at a luxury 5 star hotel and thinking ´is this the hostel? i think not!´ and then driving round the houses for half an hour with the driver swearing profusely in portuguese. He was then annoyed when we finally found the little hostel, stating that it was ´esta pequeno, pequeno, nao grande´ (its small, small, not big), to which I replied, we have no money for hotel grandes!
My lovely feet after travelling for 2 days straight
Maceio is quite an upmarket city by the coast and so even the hostel felt quite luxury. Oh apart from the fact that the room had 6 guys in it and NO AIR CONDITIONING. Coupled with the fact that we were set back from the sea and so there was no breeze at night, it was an absolute hot house at night and you woke up greased down, ready for a shiatsu. I usually woke about 6am which was an absolute shitter. Enough complaining.
The sweatbox dorm and booley having just rediscovered his passport!
Wind was pretty light most days so we spent our time chilling in hammocks, on the beach or getting lost around the not-so-easy to navigate block system of roads in the blazing sun. I had a quick session on the second last day but when we rocked up to the beach, "shiiiiit", it happened to be a national holiday and it was rammed with Brazzers and had to trek a mile to find some space. Massive shore-dump and big rolling sea; better than nowt.
We left Maceio with the expectation of a quick 4 hour bus then an extra hour to get to Porto de Galinhas (Chicken Port). How wrong we were. We left the hostel a bit late but then rocked up at the bus station to realise the clocks had gone back an hour as we tried to get on the wrong bus. Once on the bus, it went a different route to the one we'd hoped and had to travel and extra hour into Recife. We then thought we'd missed the last bus to Porto and started to settle down for a night in the bus station after finding no space in any local hostels. Fortunately, after ringing the hostel in porto we found out there were later buses from the airport. So we took 2 metros and a taxi to the airport to hop on the final bus to Porto (over an hour of the worse roads yet). I was lying on the back seats and got 'air' a number of times! Finally got to Porto and then a last taxi to the hostel, jeeees. What started as a 5 hour jouney ended as a 12hr one, not cool. But an ice cold beer settled us nicely.
We're now in Paradise again (its a hard life), once again lying in hammocks waiting for wind. Stay tuned for our antics in Porto...
After guzzling our litros of Skol (one of the beers here) we decided to immerse ourselves with the local alcoholics that had been sat in the bar next to our hostel all day long. Apparently this is what you do if a) you´re a guy and b) you live in coroa vermelha. With a good lively atmosphere and freely flowing beer all around, the locals soon saw our interest in their version of 5´s and came over to our table to teach us and play.
The idea behind their game was that you had 3 toothpicks which you held behind your back and selected between 0 - 3 of them to place in a closed hand in front of you. The winner is the person who correctly guesses how many toothpicks people have chosen in total. What helped us (the loser had to buy the next litro of beer) was the fact were obviously chatting english to each other and rigging it, SNEAKY! Even so booley still managed to lose a round.
We were also entertained and delighted by the skills and tales of christian the ´human dog´ who proceeded to snarl at us rip apart a coke can with his teeth whilst we worried that it was a bet and hoped we wouldnt have to pay for his medical expenses if it all went horrifically wrong. But alas everything was ok and maybe he just had a touch of mild rabies. As the evening went on, I found my portuguese progressing very quickly with some liquid enhancement; that or I was just chatting absolute bollocks and the locals were just humouring me!
After deciding that we weren´t going to enter into some furious betting against who we christened homen dinhero (money man) and receiving multiple invites to perve (and more) on the hotties on the beach with the human dog christian, we left in high spirits.
The next day we were holding out for some wind but unfortunately it didnt come. So we just tried our best to keep as sweat free as possible before the 2 days of travelling we had set out for ourselves: overnight bus to salvador, wonder around doing all the touristy stuff and then catch another overnight bus to maceió. No showers for 2 days, we knew it would be grim....and it was.
On getting to the bus station we remembered that there was a big Festival do Chopp (beer festival), so we sat listening to the music and watching all the scantily clad ´ladies´ walking around (either all ladies of the night or its acceptable to wear lingerie tops in the middle of the day in Brazil). The bus was only 11hours but none of us slept very well despite the bus being semi-leito (semi bed) and we arrived in salvador pissed off, sweaty and groggy.
Salvador was a cool place and is was fairly similar to Sao Paulo with the very old smashed together with the very new. We looked around all the old buidings and numerous churches, as well as watching a bit of capoeira (brazilian martial arts mixed with dance). We thought it would be a bit more impressive, especially seeing one of the fighters who looked like he spent all his proceeds from tourist donations on knocking back the litros de cerveja when not stumbling around like a new born foal with a pregnancy gut, pretending to capoeira it up. On the way back to the bus station we once again decided to immerse ourselves in typical brazilian culture and sit next to the freeway and chomp down some street kebabs with the locals, which was cooler than it sounds and made us think we were less likely to get mugged!
Booley finally posting all his collected postcards in the 'novelty' postbox
The next 10 hour bus was a lot better, especially after having another sink shower in the bus station toilets and we all slept like babies after a tiring day (wet the bed twice, woke up crying three times - lee evans!). Once in Maceio we worked out it would be easier to taxi to the hostel and just showed the address to the driver. What we didnt expect was turning up at a luxury 5 star hotel and thinking ´is this the hostel? i think not!´ and then driving round the houses for half an hour with the driver swearing profusely in portuguese. He was then annoyed when we finally found the little hostel, stating that it was ´esta pequeno, pequeno, nao grande´ (its small, small, not big), to which I replied, we have no money for hotel grandes!
My lovely feet after travelling for 2 days straight
Maceio is quite an upmarket city by the coast and so even the hostel felt quite luxury. Oh apart from the fact that the room had 6 guys in it and NO AIR CONDITIONING. Coupled with the fact that we were set back from the sea and so there was no breeze at night, it was an absolute hot house at night and you woke up greased down, ready for a shiatsu. I usually woke about 6am which was an absolute shitter. Enough complaining.
The sweatbox dorm and booley having just rediscovered his passport!
Wind was pretty light most days so we spent our time chilling in hammocks, on the beach or getting lost around the not-so-easy to navigate block system of roads in the blazing sun. I had a quick session on the second last day but when we rocked up to the beach, "shiiiiit", it happened to be a national holiday and it was rammed with Brazzers and had to trek a mile to find some space. Massive shore-dump and big rolling sea; better than nowt.
We left Maceio with the expectation of a quick 4 hour bus then an extra hour to get to Porto de Galinhas (Chicken Port). How wrong we were. We left the hostel a bit late but then rocked up at the bus station to realise the clocks had gone back an hour as we tried to get on the wrong bus. Once on the bus, it went a different route to the one we'd hoped and had to travel and extra hour into Recife. We then thought we'd missed the last bus to Porto and started to settle down for a night in the bus station after finding no space in any local hostels. Fortunately, after ringing the hostel in porto we found out there were later buses from the airport. So we took 2 metros and a taxi to the airport to hop on the final bus to Porto (over an hour of the worse roads yet). I was lying on the back seats and got 'air' a number of times! Finally got to Porto and then a last taxi to the hostel, jeeees. What started as a 5 hour jouney ended as a 12hr one, not cool. But an ice cold beer settled us nicely.
We're now in Paradise again (its a hard life), once again lying in hammocks waiting for wind. Stay tuned for our antics in Porto...
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