I think we need more bandages...

We had seen people that had driven to Fortaleza and back looking haggard and tired.  We couldn't quite understand why and then we drove into the city to pick up Travis from the airport and everything became clear.  Driving in Fortaleza at night is really a death defying experience.  We made a very bad assumption in thinking that the signs to the airport would be well marked, this was most definitely not the case.  We weaved through dodgy back roads and huge main arteries, narrowly avoiding buses, scooters, motorcycles and pedestrians.  We stopped three times to get directions and although everyone we meet was super friendly, the directions they provided were always a little bit funny.

The conversations tended to go something like this:

Peter in Portuguese "Can you tell me how to get to the airport?"

Gas station guy #1 "Oh ya, you just need to go back this way for 6km, past the next two lights, take a right then go until you hit an overpass and you should be there"

During this time gas station man #2 comes along...

Gas station guy #2 "No no no, you need to go another 20km past 8 lights, take a right then a left at the next street then you hit an overpass and you will be there"

Peter "I have a map, maybe you can show me where we are and we can figure it out from there?"

Both gas station guys look at the map and both shake their heads saying that they can't find us on the map.

Peter "Okay, can you repeat the directions?"

At this point in time they will usually notice that I'm in the car, mistake me for being Brazilian and start to give me the directions in Portuguese.  Pete and I will both jump in and say that I don't speak Portuguese.  They will then look at me surprised, touch their skin and indicate that we are the same color and give me a look like "What's wrong with you, you are brown and clearly look Brazilian, why don't you speak the language?" 

The conversation above happened at all six gas stations we stopped at to get directions both coming into town and out of town.  

We did manage to pick up Travis just in time from the airport.  As it had taken him two layovers and 30+ hours to get from Vancouver to Brazil, the first words out of his mouth were "Did you pick a far enough place to travel?!".  

A sleepy Trav arrives in Brazil

Before we had left for Fortaleza Pete had asked the front desk if we could get a "muito bom" room for our friend that was coming.  Well muito bom, means very nice and sure enough the room they provided to Trav was the equivalent of the presidential suite.  It was larger than his apartment back in Vancouver and included a dinning table, couches, TV, fridge, marble floors, a king size bed and beach front views!  Our room, which initially seemed adequate enough,  now resembled the the servants quarters full of wood panelling, bits of mold and curtains that fell off the rail after trying to open them. I took a video of both rooms to show the difference, once we do a bit of editing we'll post it up.

The next morning Trav went out on the water to get some kitesurfing in.

Pete launching Trav in front of our Pousada

Travis had a lot of fun and also a few wipeouts. He sustained his first injury of the trip when the fin on his board attacked his leg and took a bite out of it.  Over the course of the next three days, Trav averaged 2-3 injuries a day.

First injury - small hole in Trav's leg

The most memorable incident so far happened to Trav at the lagoon in Taiba.  Pete and I were sitting on shore taking some pictures of him riding, when he started to approach the beach at mach 3 speed.

Intense concentration

Trav, with one hand on his bar and a few feet from shore he realized that he was coming in too quick but didn't have quite enough time to recover.

A few feet from shore and he's still coming in quick!
We couldn't understand why his hand was on his leg, but he did look stylish!

Well let's just say that for the first time in his kiting career, he got some air...unfortunately it was on land. He tried to change his direction a bit too quickly and he launched himself into the air and landed with a spectacular belly flop drag on the beach. Other than being in shock and sustaining a sand burn on his ankle, he was okay.  He went out for a few more reaches and then came back in calling it a day.

All the messed up sand in the foreground is where Trav landed

Sand burn on his ankle

Trav's board seems to be quite lethal, with very sharp edges. In three days of kiting Travis has sustained the following injuries:

• Puncture hole in his leg
• Cut on his leg
• Big lump on his foot
• Tailbone bruising
• Scrape on his ankle
• Bruise and cut on his upper leg

He was holding himself in what looked like the fetal position on the couch yesterday and asked in a very small voice if he had to go kiting again tomorrow. Luckily after a good nights rest, he is back in top form and ready to go.

One more funny story happened at dinner last night, when Peter ordered the Pepperoni pizza. In the listing of ingredients it hadn't included pepperoni, but we just assumed this was a typo as how can a pepperoni pizza not have pepperoni?! Well sure enough, in Brazil this type of pizza means lots of peppers and no meat. Now we know :)

Funny sign in our bathroom

Pete and Trav after a day of kiting

Pete initially used his rash guard to put under the boards as protection,
but when his shirt came flying off on the highway some new adjustments were needed.

Monica up and riding - woohoo! 

One more thing I need to tell you...

Monica matches her kite

Pete stylin' a raley in Taiba Lagoon

Pete sure if flexible...going old school with a one footer

One footer gone bad

Result of one footer gone bad

Pete getting lots of air

Pete Rockin' the S Bend

Trav going upwind!

Offline in Lagoinha

View of Lagoinha Beach

Lagoinha is a small beach-side town characterized by a big sand dune at the east end of town upon which we have found a Pousada with an excellent view. The owner of the Pousada is originally from Angola, and the lady looking after us is very sweet and very patient with our Portuguese. So far we are the only gringos in town, and also the only ones staying at this Pousada.

Surfer heading out to catch a wave

Monica catching some Z's

We had heard of a nice lagoon here called donkey lagoon, and set off driving down the beach to look for it. We found a small puddle, and spoke to someone by the lagoon who worked for the tourist office. He assured us that at high tide, the lagoon would become much bigger.

No, we aren't driving on the beach

We went to walk around the soon to be great lagoon, and upon return to the car noted, with dread, the same man taking a picture of our car on the beach with his cell phone. We had heard that sometimes people looking for some quick money will send photos of rental cars driving on the beach (which violates the terms of the security deposit). So I had a quick chat with him - he assured me that he didn't take a photo. We will keep our fingers crossed that he was being honest, and that because the car isn't marked as a rental, that we won't be charged the 1200USD security deposit.

That interaction somewhat soured our view of Lagoinha to start our time here. It also marked the first day of light wind, so we spent the afternoon swimming at the deserted beach.

At night we were treated to truckloads of youths being trucked into the city square (every town has one with church in the middle). There was much hooting and hollering combined with volleys of firecrackers throughout the evening as they all rallied around their local politician Bethrose.

Lagoinha Centro

There are elections going on at the moment. Each night starts with vehicles with giant speaker systems blaring some sort of catchy gingle with a number to text for more info about each candidate as they race around the central square.  Brazilians seem to be very politically engaged.

Today the wind also looks a little lighter. The tide is high at 10:30, so we are going to go and see if the Lagoon is going to be worth sticking around for. As per the title, we are offline in Lagoinha - we are going to drive around and see if we can pick up some free Internet (almost all of them are unsecured) as there is no Internet where we are.

Monica stealing "the Internet" from this lovely hotel

Update... Upon return to Donkey Lagoon, we found that rainy season has poured in much sand, and made the lagoon much smaller than it must have been in previous years. We enjoyed a nice long walk down the beach, and I ended up kiting on a deserted beach for a few hours.

Monica at Donkey Lagoon

Jellyfish from the walk - there are quite a few of these around at the moment

Vulture waiting to eat a dead turtle

After some discussion, we decided that it we really enjoyed Paracuru, and would head back there to hang out until Travis arrives. It is a good thing too, as the casualties are piling up:
- one lost leash
- 3 broken fins (I am riding with 2 fins atm)
- one snapped line
- no more books to read

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.