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....
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