It is almost time to welcome world champion Jalou Langeree to Cabarete and the Uncharted Kite Sessions Cabarete Pro Series. We are preparing and enjoying more than ever the amazing winter conditions of top kite destination Cabarete in the Dominican Republic. Cabarete is known for its consistent wind and year-round wind, and on top of it all, the winter conditions bring you waves! Just to put the cherry on the cake.
Jalou Langeree (23) is top of the world in kitesurfing. She is current world champion wave riding and leads the ladies world-ranking list. Jalou is determined to be the best and stay the best. That's her life. She started as a freestyle kitesurfer on the age of twelve. Winning many international titles has put Jalou on the top of a short list of world-class kitesurfers. In 2011 she got a kick out of riding the waves and started training for the KSP world tour. Her dedication to be the best in that discipline as well did pay off. She trained very intensely for almost a year before she allowed herself to attend the tour. She was immediately selected and became the best of the world at first time! It illustrates the passion with which Jalou sports.
We completed our century ride, kiting more than one hundred kilometers along the Brazilian coast in one day. We also went back in time over a century. Life along our route has been sparse and infrequent. We are the only people, or civilized life along the route. But there is plenty of wildlife. Today we are leaving the state of Ceará, completely crossing the entire state of Piauí, and arriving in the sate of Maranhāo located on the edge of the Amazon jungle. Soon the dunes will start to transform into the lush jungle of one of the most magnificent ecosystems on the planet. And we'll only touch the edge.
Swollen and puffy eyes like I went seven rounds with Mike Tyson look back at me in the mirror. My legs are limp noodles. I hear the hypnotic rhythm of the Forró band playing in my head, and my brain is still repeating to itself, two left, two right, spin, doh!! Fail.
We're going the wrong way! Vila Kalango is not this way. It's 3am and Mitu assures me as we stroll down the sand filled streets of Jericoacoara that he knows the route home. But I know he's lying to me by his sideways grin. We turn the corner to see the only lit building still open, the late night padaria. We're stopping in for midnight munchies, known as larica in Portuguese. Midnight munchies snacks consist of fresh baked bread topped with either chocolate, bananas or cheese. The padaria is only open from 2am till 7am for the sole purpose of feeding inebriated souls like ours returning from a night of dancing at the Forró.
