Hi there,

My northern Brazil trip is now over and I thought I’d share some of the experiences given quite a few of you have given me some pretty good advice prior to my trip and others may be heading that way sometime.

After getting from Sydney over Auckland, Santiago and Sao Paulo to our final destination Fortaleza we were picked up by a Taxi to go to Paracuru. Paracuru is 80km north of Fortaleza. (Taxi cost us R$80).

We chose to go straight to Paracuru and not stay in Cumbuco or Pecem because Paracuru is significantly less crowded then Cumbuco and their small lagoon. Cumbuco is only 30km from Fortaleza, which has it’s upsides and downsides. It’s great because you can go out in Fortaleza, but the downside is that a lot of people come for a daytrip to kite… The lagoon copes with up to 15 riders and you’ll get days with 30-40.

Paracuru Spot Report:
• Water: Flat water with great ramps (for flat 3s) due to a reef. The water gets super flat at low tide. The waves get bigger during high tide. Note that the waves don’t have much push. Great for skimming though. The flat water section is quite big and can support 30 riders comfortably. But there are heaps of other similar options just a few hundred meters up wind. The colour of the water is slightly brown/green. So if you’re looking for crystal clear water you’ll have to go somewhere else.

• Wind: The wind in the morning is a bit off-shore and changes to on-shore at 10:00am. We had 5 fantastic days with constant side-on winds starting at 15 knots (for 30 minutes) increasing to 20-25 knots very quickly. Just before sunset the wind drops by 5 knots. These conditions and the time of the wind direction change obviously vary with the time on the season. August and September are the strongest months and the change happens earlier in the morning.

• Place to stay: We stayed at the Club Tropical Paracuru. It’s nothing special, but has a pool, breakfast included and it really clean. They have double rooms if you need to share. They are located close to the beach. Paracuru is not a very interesting city. So don’t expect cute little bars and restaurants. We rented a buggy to drive around for R$70 per day.

• Other: There is a great little beach-style restaurant offering sun protection, showers and cheap food and drinks.

During our stay at Paracuru we went to see our friends from Best at Pecem. Alex unfortunately is still healing from his foot injury and getting a master on online poker. Gavin (photographer amongst others things), Peter and Tom (Best R&D) let us have a trial at the new 07 gear (Waroo 07, Waroo Pro 07, Yarga Pro and Nemesis). Thanks guys for the hospitality (showers and lunch) and allowing us to ride the new (proto) gear.

From Paracuru we decided to go to Prea/Jericoacoara, which is about 350km north of Fortaleza. Although there are great spots to kite and stay on the way, we wanted to get straight to Prea/Jeri and make the most of our kiting days.

To make the way to Jeri more fun, we decided to hire a 4x4 with a driver to do a kite safari (big downwinder). We started off Lagoinha and went kiting all the way to Baleia (ca. 150km downwind measured on the car’s km counter. I assume we actually rode more than 200km given we were riding back and forth, playing in lagoons on the way, etc.).

It took us 4.5 hours using a 9m SB1 and my 12m CB2 and 2 Underground FLX 132s. The cool thing about having a driver is that you can always change gear or get some water on the way. He also acted as our cameramen during the way (so he would drive ahead, stop the car and film us or his “assistantâ€

great report, thanks



SE

Excellent report. When will you post video?

nice write up thanks.

how long did you go for? 2 weeks? if you dont mind me asking how much did it set you back?

looking to go over next year sometime but probably wishful thinking for poor student

THank you for putting in the time for such a great detailed report. Got me thinking of calling the airline...

Sorry, but how you can compare the lagoon from Cauipe and the open sea from Paracuru, of course it´s more crowded. But here on the Kitebeach in Cumbuco we have at the moment 12 kites daily in the sky. And it´s not like this that people coming from Fortaleza for a kite to Cumbuco.
Thomas

Kitefighter, it took 21 days to make this trip. You can make it in a much shorter time. That's the time I had set aside for it.

Prep, I hope to have time to cut a video after I come back from a "work-related" trip to Europe. So sometime around mid September.

Kiteshuttle, I'm sorry if that does not reflect the usual condition of the Cumbuco area. I can only comment on the impressions I had while traveling through the area and the many comments from fellow riders that we met in Paracuru.

P

I have received a few PMs asking for more detailed information about my travel costs. Please find below an indication of the individual cost items. Please note that all prices in Brazil are negotiable. So if you are good at it you will save quite a bit. The below prices are indicative. So there is room for negotiation. I just thought it would be better to give the average prices rather than the lowest prices.

I have excluded domestic flights. In case you have to book these, have a look at http://www.voegol.com.br and http://www.tam.com.br (the first one tends to be cheaper).

Taxi Airport - Paracuru: R$80
Buggy Paracuru: R$70 per day
Hotel Club Tropical: R$100 for the suite incl. breakfast
4WD drive from Paracuru - Prea: R$600 (incl. drinks, lunch, all the filming support)
Hotels in Prea/Jeri: There is a huge choice of options for all budget sizes. From R$40 up to R$400. Most of them including breakfast. You should be getting a decent double room for R$80-100 per night including breakfast.
Average daily food expenditure: R$40-R$50 (lunch, dinner and all soft drinks/beer/water consumed during the day. There are cheaper options).
Buggy rides from Jeri - Prea after the downwinders: R$40. This was our most used option.
Buggy rides from Prea - Jeri - Prea during the nights out in the evenigns: R$60 if the driver has to wait up to 3 hours. R$80 if the driver has to wait or return after more than 3 hours. Note that we were always able to use a buggy for 4 passengers (even with 4 x kite gear - they just put it on the roof of the buggy and off they go).
Buggy day rides: R$100-120. That is the driver stays the whole day with you and drives to the lagoons, up wind or whereever you want.

I hope this helps,

P

It's awesome if you have 21 days, but if you are a typical American with 7-10 Days imagine doing this without the headache and seeing even more beaches... That's why we're around...
Jessie

I hope he's winning. I guess if Best raises their prices or they got no gear at the demo center we know why. Alex, I don't know you, but you can gamble all day but it's no substitute for kitesurfing. Heal up before it's too late.

Seriously, thanks for the awesome write up!!!! Great for those of us that hate group tours, all inclusive resorts, and/or are cheap bastards.