Tabia and on to Paracuru

I guess we've been a bit lax in writing, thanks to Dave and Jon for the reminder!!

We stayed at a very lovely Pousada in Tabia and meet a ton of really great friendly people.

Our Pousada - aside from the dead  bird in the pool, it was lovely.

The local BBQ that we went to was full of people from all over Europe. Tons of French and Spanish folks find there way to Brazil and most of them either settle down here or come out for a few months to get in lots of kitesurfing in the warm waters. Did I mention before how warm the ATLANTIC ocean can be...crazy really. It's very comfortable to swim in and as for kitesurfing you don't need to wear a wetsuit at all. In addition to the warm ocean, there is a lagoon in Tabia that is a great place for riders to perfect their tricks. The BBQ happened the night of the full moon and there were a few riders, full of alcohol, that were out in the lagoon getting some night riding in. They weren't just going easy either, I mean these guys were throwing down crazy tricks...so it wasn't a surprise that one guy ended up losing his kite and everyone had to run down the beach to try and grab it. I think in his drunken state, he forgot to put his leash on. Someone was also bitten by a fish or crab or as he says an electric eel, not sure about the eel but his leg sure was bleeding and made me quite glad that I only go into the lagoon during the day.

While we were in Tabia our routine was:

• 
  
  
  Wake up at 8am 
• 
  
  Eat breakfast
• 
  
  Get to the Lagoon before it gets crazy
• 
  
  Get Monica on the water and watch her eat it lots
• 
  
  Get water logged Monica out of the water
• 
  
  Get Peter on the water, watch him do tricks
• 
  
  Stay at the Lagoon and eat cookies and cashews for lunch (yes not very nutritious)
• 
  
  Pete comes out of the water and we both watch the pros and local kids do their thing
• 
  
  Monica drives back to the Pousada getting practice driving standard (Pete's knuckles go white and bits of hair turn gray due to passenger stress)
• 
  
  Read, relax at Pousada
• 
  
  Head to dinner at a family run place to eat the tastiest, cheapest meal (fish, rice, beans and pasta for maybe $10 CAD)

View through our window

We stayed in Tabia for a few days and then made our way up to Paracuru.  None of the Pousada's in Paracuru are on the water, most sit in behind the sand dunes close to town.

View from our Pousada

There are tons of donkeys around Paracuru as well, super cute really except when they wander on the road.

Paracuru might just be my favourite place to go riding. During low tide there is a section of the ocean that is protected by a reef which makes very nice flat water...perfect for learning.

Where everyone hangs out when they are not kiting

I was a bit nervous to go out because there are tons of riders, but the nice flat water enticed me to give it a go. Good thing I did because a two days ago, after having sea water enter every orifice of my body (well not every orifice!) I was able to get up on my board and ride for a bit...success at last!! I learned two things this day:

1. 
   
   I had a glimpse of why everyone loves this sport so much
2. 
   
   I may actually be a goofy rider...how have I snowboarded for this long and not figured that out yet!

Pete's been kiting like it's going out of style, I think we've been here for 20 days and he's only missed one day.  A few days ago he did a marathon session of being out on the water for 4 hours before coming in. He also has been trying some new tricks and somehow managed to land simultaneously on his neck and groin.  I'm not sure how your body can contort in such a way to allow this to happen but I'm very sad that I missed it!!

I'm sure everyone will be happy to hear that we are back on track with our Nutella sandwiches on over- processed white bread. I don't think I've eaten this much chocolate and white bread in my life. I never thought I would say this but I'm reaching the point of not wanting to eat Nutella, it's a sad day really. As for the white bread...give me a chunk of super dense rye bread that I can chew on for days and I'll be happy.  Pete's taken it a step further and has found some 'doce de leite' which is kinda like caramel, but more similar to taking condensed milk and boiling it until it turns brown (about 4 hrs).  For the Rea family this is a tradition, and to have it off the shelf really is a luxury. I've tried it but it's much too sweet for my liking. As I'm sure everyone knows, Pete has the biggest sweet tooth ever and is in heaven as he's having chocolate and caramel sandwiches for lunch every day :)

Lunch is served!

We are heading up to Lagionha for a few days to check it out and picking up Travis from the airport on Tuesday. We've officially been on holiday for just over a month now and time is flying by, crazy really! 

The sunsets here are beautiful and Pete's been experimenting with some sunset photos as you can see below.

Pete says this one is super artistic, I agree :)

Sunset in Tabia

One last picture, while I was packing the resident bunny, Lulu, stopped in for a visit. He/she? is super cute but hopefully didn't poop in the room as that would be quite tricky to explain!

Lulu, wandering around

Travelling up the coast - first stop Taiba

During the course of the week we had picked up a whole coconut to eat, if anyone out there knows the best way to get the flesh out of a coconut, please share it with us!

We had a very leisurely Monday morning as we waited for our rental car to arrive in Cumbuco from Fortaleza.  Once the car arrived, Pete stretched his Portuguese to the max trying to sort out the details of payment. ”Do we pay the full amount now or later? Hmm now you say, well what if we return it earlier?” To sort this little question out it took half an hour and two people from our pousada helping to translate to the rental car agent. After a phone call with his boss, we were sorted and good to go...phew!

We opted for a pretty budget car and even though everyone insisted that we need AC, we decided we didn't (it would have been an extra 17R a day). Turns out if you say no to AC you also don't get the super dark tinted windows...oh well I hear dry saunas are good for you. We drove out to Taiba and were surprised at how large the city actually is. We keep thinking that further up the coast we would hit small fishing villages and prices for pousadas would be cheaper....so far it's the other way around, Taiba is much larger than Cumbuco with the prices for pousadas being about the same.  Food does seem to be cheaper though, which is a good thing!  Surrounding the town of Taiba are giant wind mills. I was able to count 30 from the beach but I'm sure that there are more.  I wonder if that means that all the electricity in Taiba is clean? Either way pretty cool to see.

We drove around a bit and decided it was time to look for a place to stay. We followed every sign that there was for a pousada, knocked on many doors and checked out the rooms at many locations. Even though they were all empty, the prices were pretty high. We checked out this super ghetto place where laundry hung as curtains in the windows and there seemed to be lots of drunk locals hanging around...needless to say we didn't stay here. In desperation we came across a place that was a few buildings down from the 'ghetto' and decided to just stay there for a few nights.

The room itself wasn't that bad, but there was a smell that would appear out of nowhere from the bathroom and no, it wasn't created by us :) The smell was so bad that we would have to open both doors turn the fan on and vacate the room for a while...it was horrible. We survived in this room for three days and then moved onto a nicer pousada, which is right on the beach but more importantly it doesn't smell. Pete and I both decided that the smelly pousada was the second worst place that we have ever stayed...the first being a place in Mozambique where we decided to setup our tent inside of the room and sleep in that instead of touch anything in the room itself.

The wind is constant here, I'm pretty sure Pete's been out every day so far.  I had my first two days in at the lagoon and ate it pretty consistently! I think Pete had a good chuckle watching from shore.

Lagoon in Taiba

Pete's also been getting lots of jumps in at the lagoon and is looking very stylish when he rides

While we were at the lagoon, two local kids came by to kite and showed us how it's done.  They were just amazing.  I swear, the one kid wasn't a day over 12 but he was doing the biggest jumps and trying the craziest tricks.  They ride on older equipment or stuff that tourists leave behind, it's pretty great to watch.  Next time we come here, we'll bring our old kites and give them to these kids.

Two days ago, on the way back from the lagoon we took a wrong turn and ended up getting very stuck in the sand.

It took an hour and three additional people to get the car out of the sand trap. The whole incident was pretty funny and the other upside is that we made friends with a Spanish couple who live here three months out of the year. A few Canadian friends of theirs arrived today and we are all heading to the beach for a BBQ later on tonight. They are all sponsored riders and the one Canadian is super good...he's been riding for 12 years now and he's only 21...oh to be young again!

The beaches in Taiba are really nice, and as Pete would like me to point out there are lots of girls in little bikinis :)

There are also signs that translate to no picnics allowed. I'm pretty sure that means just next to the tables that are owned by the pousadas and not the whole beach.

Pete was able to capture a pretty good picture of the moon rising over some sand dunes.  As we are very close to the equator, the sun rises at 6am and sets at 6pm on the dot all year around.

Cumbuco and Lagoa do Cauipe Video

We finally managed to get the video uploaded, so here it is:

Cumbuco Week 1

After a week in Cumbuco, my daily routine seems to consist of the following:

1. Wake up sans alarm, go to window and confirm that the ocean is still white-capping
2. Drink chocolate milk out of carton, eat orange and handful of cashews
3. Drag a bean bag to the edge of the beach, and read a book until the wind hits 25 knots (at the moment, the book is a combination of Portuguese Phrases and Eat, Pray, Love - no comments please, but yes I am desperate)
4. Kite until I drop
5. Eat nutella  sandwhich
6. Kite again
7. Walk to town to get dinner, pick up bottled water, chocolate milk, ice cream, nuts, bread and more nutella
8. Engage in awkward Portuguese conversations with Pousada staff
9. Read
10. Sleep
11. Repeat

Monica's eye is still on the mend, and perhaps tomorrow will get her out on the lagoon for some kiting. She is being extra cautious with it just to be on the safe side, and has so far been burning through 1.5 books per day.

Cumbuco is an interesting town. It has a relatively small population (apparently 1600), and consists of a small town square with several restaurants that cater mostly to wind tourists, and locals from the nearby city of Fortaleza(2.5 mil). It has a large number of Pousadas in and around town, most of them completely empty because of the time of year. There is also a lot of half completed construction similar to the left. I can't tell if the town has seen better days or is just in the off season.

The food so far has been good, consisting of mostly grilled or barbecued chicken or fish. Being a tourist town, it isn't as cheap as one would expect. 40Reais (23CAD) will get you dinner for two with drinks and tip all in.  

The weather has been pretty amazing - it it spring here, which means that the temperature during the day gets up to a steady 29 degrees. The ocean feels like bath water, and is warmer than the swimming pools. I spend most of the day in just board shorts, and the shirt and flip flops come out in the evenings for strolling around town when the temperature drops to 25 degrees.

The beach is beautiful! One of my favourite things to do is to watch the sand change form throughout the day. In the morning, when the wind is not as strong, ripples form in the sand that have an amazing consistency. By the afternoon, the wind picks up, and smooths out all the ripples. Footprints disappear in a matter of minutes. Then by the evening, the wind slows down again, and the ripples show up.

The end of the day is usually punctuated by a few buggys returning from the lagoon 6km down the beach, and a few people getting out for that last sunset session before packing it in for the night.

Sunset session

one happy kiter

A fishing boat apparently - don't see where you put the fish once caught?

We tried to put together a bit of video and pictures to show the wind scene here. The fun thing to do is to spend and hour or so riding the 6km down the beach in the waves to the Cauipe Lagoon (freshwater). They have little huts by the waters edge that are served by the restaurants (coconuts, fanta and fried fish). The lagoon is busy, and full of local Brazilian kids who hang out on the off chance that a tourist will let them use there gear, and then they light up the lagoon and put everyone to shame.

**video taking too long to upload and timing out, but will try and post tomorrow**

Here are some pics that Monica snapped off while I was riding her kite today. It has been 6 days of kiting in a row, which is a first. 5 days on a 9m kite, and today on Monica's 6M.

I see that we have 11 followers - maybe you can figure out why there are no seagulls in Brazil? More soon...

We've been here for a few days now and I figured we'd better write a bit more about how our trip down here went, how the first few days have been and of course post more pictures!


Our flight to Fortaleza departed pretty late in the night so we had tons of time in the morning to pack.  It was a good thing as we tried to cut down on what we were taking to keep things as minimal as possible.  The rain jackets we packed in Vancouver didn't make the cut...neither did the jeans and hoodies.  We really left all cold weather cloths back in Canada, fingers crossed it doesn't rain and that there are no freak storms that come through.   

What Pete packed...in the end the towel and hat didn't make the cut either

Strangely, the snorkel and mask made it into Pete's backpack.  He promised to use it to catch fish for dinner...I'm still waiting :)

We had a two hour layover in Toronto...just enough time to get to the lounge, eat some food quickly and get to our gate.  The flight to Fortaleza felt really long!  It didn't help that neither Pete nor I had any idea as to just how long the flight was supposed to be...normally I know this information before I depart, but for some reason neither one of us had checked.  Based on the number of movies we watched it was at least 10-12hrs.

We arrived in Sao Paulo and had a 6 hour delay before our flight to Fortaleza.  We spent the time enjoying the warm weather, converting money and trying to order lattes.  Yes you read that correctly...we tried to order lattes.  The first attempt produced a cup of steamed milk with no espresso, we didn't realize this until we started drinking and even then it was after the first few sips.  I believe I commented to Pete that this was the milkiest latte I had ever had, upon closer examination it sure was!  We were too embarrassed to go back to that coffee shop, so went to another one and tried again.  This time we got the espresso but no milk...we consoled ourselves with the thought that at least in our bellies the two liquids had mixed to become a latte.  Still unsatisfied we tried one last time and were successful!!!  Ahhhh Cafe com Leite, you never tasted so good!  I'm not sure if I mentioned it before but English is not widely spoken...in fact it's not at all spoken or understood.

Cafe com Leite

Our flight to Fortaleza was fairly uneventful, except for the boarding bit.  I believe there were about 5 flights leaving from the same gate around the same time...it was an epic disaster!  We did make our way onto the plane and settled in for another 4 hour flight.

We arrived in Fortaleza with all but one piece of luggage, which was to arrive two hours later on the next flight.  As we were arriving fairly late in Fortaleza, Pete had arranged ahead of time for a driver to take us to our Pousada, so the three of us patiently waited for our luggage to arrive.  Needless to say we tipped him very well, not just for waiting but also for being so patient with us.  He only spoke Portuguese and dealt very well with two weary travelers.  I'm so happy that Pete's been learning Portuguese, it really has saved our butts on this trip!  We arrived at our Pousada around midnight or 1am and immediately fell asleep.

Pete doesn't even have to pump up his kite, a hose does it for him... luxury 

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful blue sky and tons of wind.  Pete was able to get out on the water and throughly enjoy himself.  This was the first time he'd been kitesufing in a few months, due to his finger injury.  He kited with the splint on and it surprising held up well against the elements.

We've been ending our days with walks on the beach to go into town for dinner.  It's really quite beautiful.

We spent Monday (today) at the lagoon, Pete will fill you in more on the next post.  The picture below is of all the kiter's in the lagoon.  All that I'll say now,  is that this place really is a kiter's paradise!