Brazil

I`ve realized that Brazil is a long, long way from Vancouver. I left Friday night at 10:30 and finally arrived at my destination in Fortaleza at 3pm on Sunday. The flights down were quite relaxing with the only real stress coming at JFK airport when I checked in at the Varig desk. I was supposed to have a 12 hour layover in New York so I was quite excited to check my bag and spend the day wandering around Manhattan. When I got to the desk she told I should get on the the flight that was delayed from the night before and was set to leave in a few hours. When I told her I´d rather wait around for the evening flight so I could spend some time in New York City she told me I´d better catch this flight. Her exact words were ^you never know if there is going to be another Varig flight^. It turns out that the airline is on the verge of declaring bankrupcty. Not the most confidence building statement but I got on the flight and fotunately the situation ended up working out in my favour. When I got to Sao Paulo I had an overnight layover and had to either spend the night at the airport or go to a hotel. The women checking my bag for my flight to Fortaleza didn`t seem to care about anything and gave me a voucher for a free nights accomodation at a local hotel. I liked my introduction to Brazil.

When I arrived in Fortaleza on Sunday I was picked up by a local taxi driver. He didn`t speak a word of English and I realized that I only speak one word of Portuguese - Obrigato which means thank you. After a few minutes I managed to tell him where I was going by pointing to the name of the town on an email. We got into the taxi and he was blaring something that sounded terrible on the radio. The man on the radio was screaming like his children had just been abducted. It was only when he screamed out ^Gooooaaaaallll^ did I realize it the guy was announcing the finals of the world cup. After about 10 minutes of trying to communicate with the taxi driver I finally found out the score was 1-1 in the game. I got to my pousada in time to watch the overtime of the game and the shootout. After each penalty shot there were cheers from the entire village. Everyone was watching.

So, now I`ve spent a couple of days in Cumbuco. It is a really sleepy fishing village that has been semi-overtaken over by kiters. The town has only recently been discovered as a great kitesurfing spot so it still doesn`t have a lot of tourist infrastructure. There are a few small restaurants and about 20 small guesthouses. There is a nice routing that I`m settling into here. All of the kiters get up in the morning, wander down to the beach and wait for the wind. It usually picks up around lunch so everyone rides until sunset at six o`clock. After that, people eat and go to sleep pretty early - around 10pm - and get up the next day and do it all over again. It`s a very quiet, relaxing place.

I`ve started taking Kiting lessons from a couple of really cool Austrian guys at a kitesurf school. I`ll give more details in another blog but I will say that it is really hard. I`m surprised there is any water left in the Atlantic ocean - I think I`ve swallowed most of it.