After a sleep in and a relaxing morning I went kitesurfing with the guys from “Zona Kite” in Jeri. There is an Italian guy called Francesco who speaks pretty good English and is a certified IKO instructor. If you haven’t kitesurfed before or what to improve your technique he is the guy to speak to. He also operates a website called Kitetripbrasil.com on which you can arrange several days of kitesurfing in the Northeastern part of Brazil with him.

IKO is the International Kiteboarding Organization which spans an umbrella around the three major kite sports: kitesurfing (also called kiteboarding), snowkiting and powerkiting (also called kite landboarding). Although I do related sports like windsurfing and snowboarding, kitesurfing is still very much different. Probably it’s 80% of the skill to control the kite and 20% to actually control the board which is the main differentiator from snowboarding. You also have to overcome your fear and “feel” the kite if you want to enjoy flying…

Francesco said that the wind is currently stronger in the afternoon why we didn’t leave Jeri before 1pm. Our destination was a lagoon very close to the sea which we reached in approx. 10-15 min by dune buggy. Since there are no dunes, the wind blows as much as on the sea but you have a flat surface which is optimal for practicing or doing tricks (jumping). We spent approx. four hours here which was very much fun. My fellow traveler Bob from Australia came as well to watch me kitesurfing. Since he is already seventy years old and has an artificial hip he couldn’t give it a try himself but just watched. But he said if he were ten years younger with a proper hip he would have tried it which is so typically him. Bob remains the coolest seventy year old guy I have ever met…

While I was kitesurfing the other people in my group went for a tour in a dune buggy which took them to some scenic lakes and rocks in the surrounding area of Jeri. All of them very much enjoyed this tour although some of them came back very much sunburned.

In the evening most of us went to the beach to have some kebabs. I tried each of the four different kinds offered which were chicken, beef, shrimp and cheese. Especially the cheese kebab was surprisingly delicious since it was covered with some unidentifiable but tasty spices. Afterwards we went for a drink into one of the small bars which brought this wonderful day to an end.