La Ventana - Day 8 (recap) Monday -the 8 mile ride

Well, it's Monday, day 8 of our kiteboarding vacation. So far I have been able to kiteboard 4 days in a row. The sky is clear today and the sun is up, so as expected as the air temperature starts to rise the thermal winds start to pick up and blow.

Several of us have been planning on testing our newly developed skills with a true endurance ride. The plan is to start at the hot springs, 8 miles north of La Ventana, and ride downwind along the shoreline all the way to Casa Verde. I have done nothing like this yet...this is big!

The good part, and the main reason I am not really nervous, is that we have at least one veteran rider for every newbie. The veterans plan to pair off with the newbies and then help with board retreival, kite relaunch, or any other unforeseen mishap that the newbie gets himself into.

David Webb, the owner of Casa Verde, lends us his vehicle to get ourselves to the hot springs, and Becky comes along to help us launch and then drive David's truck back.

On a side note, I am a little worried that it may be too light of wind for me.  I am bringing my 11m, while everyone else is bringing 15m kites.  I am hoping that I can make it work since I do not have to try and stay upwind. 

When we get there we unload and start pumping and rigging our kites.

Here is a quick video of us rigging up.

me pumping up

walking my lines out

This video shows the lay of the land at the hot springs while I connect my lines to my 11m Eclipse Nano.

In this video I tell Becky what the plan is.

While we were pumping up Casey was taking video with his Go Pro action sports video camera.  The Go Pro mounts to his helmet, his lines, and his board for some wicked footage of riding.  He tells us that his plan is to speed up the pumping and rigging of kites for a video he plans to make of the downwinder.

We are all ready, so Becky gets the crew of us to line up for a group shot. Here is a video of us getting ready for the downwinder group photo.

the end result: the downwinder group photo

Anyways, we start launching.  I am the 4th kite on the water.  The wind is really light for the first half of the trip.  I had to work the crap out of my kite to keep myself moving and pretty much went downwind as fast as possible.  Here is video of me riding away from the beach.

 

Casey stayed with me the entire time.  We both rode out in front of the pack and were the first ones back.  We all averaged about 14 miles of riding all together since it is not possible to go straight downwind.  I got to practice lots of transitions and turns.  I got downlooping my kite down pretty well too.  I even started jumping and was landing them pretty consistantly.

Good thing Casey was with me though, because I inverted my kite after a jump I did where I didn't throw the kite back in front of myself fast enough.  Then my control of the kite was reversed...had as hell to ride.  So I pulled myself into shore.  The shore was way to sketchy to self launch so I would have packed up and walked 5 miles back to La Ventana barefoot.

But Casey came to the rescue.  Had me land his kite, we fixed my lines.  I launched Casey, then while flying his kite, he launched me.  WHAT A PIMP!   I was so happy to have him with me!!!

Becky meanwhile drives back with one kiter, Alan, who was having issues with his kite.  As she drives back she sees two kites in the distance....one she recognizes as our blue 11m Eclipse Nano.  So she slows the truck slightly and captures 2 videos and 1 picture, both Casey's kite and my kite weaving throughout the sky as we ride the shoreline in the distance. 

the 11m Eclipse Nano in the distance as I downwind it--- 8+ miles

In these next two videos you can see our kites as we are riding the coast. And you get to hear Becky say that she is proud of me in the first :)

 

So, my feet are killing me...they really ache like crazy...but when I can see Casa Verde in the distance I am soo happy that all fatigue disappears.  When I get in front of Casa Verde I do two huge jumps...and land both.  Seriously I got at least 10 ft off the water.  The wind was nuking by the time I got back.  I was really hoping that Becky would be there to see me, but she actually didn't get back until I was walking up the beach from where I landed near Baja Joe's.  What's new I guess....

 

Here is the video that Casey made from his riding during the downwinder, as well as other shots from his week in La Ventana.

 

La Ventana Kiting 2010 from Casey Culberson on Vimeo.

La Ventana - (recap) the cute and the funny

I just wanted to share two things with you. 

The first is just something cute.  It is a video of me playing with one of the local dogs, a little puppy.  If you know me, then you know that I am a cat person, but man o man, if dogs stayed this small and cute I would have one....but they don't.

The next thing I want so share with you is funny.  It is the local news paper that caters to American and Canadian visitors and locals.  The name speaks for its self.

Gringo Gazette

La Ventana - Day 7 (recap) Sunday - La Paz run, another light wind day, the feast,

Casa Verde's Aztec sauna is the igloo looking thingy

view from our private kitched in Elena

OK, so I have some back story for today/tongiht.  Tonight we hold a feast for everyone.  I cook and grill the meal up and everyone ends up impressed.

Now here is the back story.  As mentioned, my ATM card originally got turned off for trying to use it at the Walmart when shopping right after we first arrived in La Paz.  I got everything cleared up with the Bank after using Casa Verde's Skype phone. 

If you remember, Becky and I were very excited the other day on our bike ride because we found an ATM about 2 miles up the street at a gas station.  So, a day or two after that we took a bike ride back to it in the middle of a hot sunny day, only to realize the dang thing didn't work at all....no lights, no nothing.  So, no pesos for Becky and I.   We manage for a few days, but it becomes apparent that somehow I am going to need to get to La Paz to get us more money.

Friday we hit the bottom of the money barrel.  Not to worry though because that night Becky ends up chatting with this really cool guy, Dave, who we met at the pizza party on Tuesday.  He says he will give me a ride into La Paz.  We run into him at the sidewalk kitchen when eating the super burro and he tells me to walk over to Baja Joe's and find him at 8am and we will make the trip.

So, I do and we end up at a market in La Paz around 9am.  I shop, get a ton of good stuff (carne asada, pargo, chorizo, eggs, cheese, peppers of all sorts and colors, avacados, spices), and I even get a McDonald's cheeseburger for breakfast...which was great because I was slightly hungover still from the night before.

Also, I get pesos from the ATM as well.  Yay, finally no more worries....

When we get back, the wind is blowing and I head out in front of Casa Verde to take a look.

me: black rash guard with BKB and THEORY logo

OK, so the wind is light.  That sucks!  After rolling my 16m over its 5th line yesterday and having to drag myself in, I really don't want to have to ride the semi-truck of a kite today.  I wait around seeing if things will pick up, but they don't.  About that time, John Dietz comes in from riding his Naish 15m Cult.  He offers to let me take it for a spin if I hurry up and get ready.

I hustle getting my gear on and get out there ASAP.

Andy Duffus gives Becky his camera, shows her how to take continuous shots, and tells her to "fill up the sd card".  Wrong thing to say to Becky...she takes 818 pics all together. Holy Crap!!!

At least she got a series of me riding, although at quite a long way off...she wasn't paying attention and missed me jumping right in front of her.  Oh well, better luck next time.  I did make an animated gif from the series though:

me riding John's Naish 15m Cult She also makes be take some girlie kissing shadow pictures with her.  OK, so it ended up kinda cool! 

Becky also had a great day riding.  She did a jetski assisted lesson with her trainer and had a ripping good time.  She got up and rode, although since the wind was so light, she called it a day after 1hr of lessons since she was so under-powered.  Being under powered sucks when learning, because it takes way more skill to stay moving.  She decides to wait for another day of good wind before she spends more money on lessons.

She also gets her first battle wound from riding.  She doesn't know how, but at some point she must have hit her foot on something, maybe the fin on the board even, and got quite the gash.  We cleaned it up and got her bandaged.  Good thing all kiteboarders bring first aid supplies.  She is a toughy though, so no whining or complaining from her!

Becky's foot bandaged after her first kiteboarding battle wound

Like I mentioned, we invited everyone for a feast.  Besides all of the goodies I bought at the market in La Paz, two days earlier I had bought 10 lobster tails for $20 usd... whatcha think? Good deal?  Anyways, I made lobster and scallop ceviche with it, and served it as an appetizer for the early comers.  John Hausman as well as Ken and Karol, both bought 1 kilo each of fresh shimp.  John deshelled them, and I grilled them up.

Like I mentioned earlier, I grilled carne asada, shrimp, and scallops...Oh, and these little yellow peppers.  It was quite a hit. I used some soy and different spices on them all.  Everyone kept asking what I put on them so I guess it was really tasty!  I baked a pargo too.  Yumm Yumm Yumm. 

The whole Seattle crew was there.  We also had to have made 100 margaritas.  You should have seen all the empty bottles the next day.  That is probably why once again, we failed to get any great pics.  Here is a video (although not of me) of the grill at Casa Verde that I used to cook the feast.

Here are a few shots of some of the crew kicking it before the feast.

obviously Andy is talking about the biggest boost ever... " I hung on for dear life"

So, no pictures of the feast....but I will leave you with another wicked picture of the sky in La Ventana.

photo: Andy Duffus

La Ventana - Day 6 (recap) Sat -big kites, super burro, and Oh what a night

What a great way to wake up!  This was the view out the door aound 10am...

In the mornings in La Ventana the waters are always calm and there is very little wind.  It is not uncommon to see an occasional sail boat, kayak, or SUPs enjoying the water.  I even saw a woman doing yoga on a SUP (stand up paddle board).  Some people even train their dogs to ride the SUPs with them.  The key is to teach your dog to chill, hold still, and not move around on the board...in other words the dog has to help keep balance so that you do not take a unexpected dive.

Here is a video of our friend Kynan as he takes a morning SUP ride.  You can really see how calm the water is in the morning.

So it is Saturday, the wind picks up,  but not much.  It's pretty light out today.  Everyone ends up pumping up their 14m, 15m, and 16m kites.  I drag my toes to see if it picks up, but eventually I give in and pump up my Naish Raven 16m.

                                          

the orange, brown, black and white kite on the ground

Everyone gets some good riding in today, even though it is just doable wind-wise. Becky also has a great day.  She takes some lessons from an instructor at Baja Joe's named Kristeen.  They use helmets with walkie talkies built into them so the instructor can give constant feedback to the student.  Becky ends up figuring out the skill of body dragging upwind.  Now she can feel confident, that most of the time when she looses the board, she will be able to get it back by herself.  Today was a good day for her.

                           

my kite dead center as I head out: pic by Duncan

I have a couple decent mini downwinders from the camp grounds.  I also jump a few more times.  One time I carve upwind too fast, catch an edge, turn the kite back to 12 O'clock real fast.......and almost do an accidental back roll....but I don't land it.  I wipe out!

Anyways, Becky does finally catch a picture of me as I ride by Casa Verde towards the very end of the day.  Not long after this I dump the kite after a spill, leading edge down...the kite is not wanting to come up in the light wind, so I pull the 5th line to flip the kite on her back so that I can get the kite turned and relaunched.  I pull the 5th line too much, because when I let it go the kite rolls over its 5th line. 

Now I am screwed. I get it to the edge of the shore-side of the wind window and the kite drags me in.  A kiter on the beach grabs my kite.  I come in and wind things up, and pack my kite back to Casa Verde.  The day is done...the wind is pretty much gone now anyways.  All in all though, a pretty good day for everyone. Even me.

After kiting ends, Becky goes out and enjoys the water, floating around for fun.

                           

I have some more exciting news from the day...although not as exciting as a good day of riding!  But Becky and I moved into Casa Elena today.  I actually moved all of our stuff by myself because Becky was at her lesson this morning.  Casa Elena is way cool though because it has its own 2nd story open kitchen, as well as a huge room with a big private bathroom.  Nice.

                             

Anyways, after riding both Becky and I take a shower and get ready for the evening.  We end up heading to a local little roadside kitchen that everyone raves about.  Here is a picture of their menu.

menu at sidewalk kitchen

picture of the kitchen....

And I can attest, the "super burro" we ordered was amazing.  It was 40 pesos ($3.30 equivalent), a huge burrito like something your would get from Gorditos in Seattle, and it tasted like heaven after a good day of kiting in the sun and water all day. No one got sick all week eating at any of the roadside kitchens.  The food is very trustworthy in La Ventana at all the restaurants. And Anthony Bourdain is correct, some of the best food comes from small roadside kitchens and grills.

John and Andy finish up their Super Burro

When the burrito is finshed we decide to head to Pablo's, (a local restaurant that serves a huge, tang and lime margarita that are amazing...believe it or not), to get ourselves one of these huge margaritas. 

When we get there a whole crew of pskiters are already there.  Scotty, Duncan, Amy, Brent, Heather, Sanji, and Scotty's good friend from Los Angelas, Martin.  (Martin is originally from Peru. When he finds out Becky has been to Lima to DJ, they hit it off.)  Martin proceeds to buy everyone around the table many tequila shots. 

He also tells a ton of funny stories about the old days of knowing Scotty.  Here is a picture of him in the middle of telling one such story.

Then a cool lady from France that has befriended the Seattle crew shows up.  She has been nick-named "Frenchy" by the Seattle crew by this point in the week.  

Ryan and Sanji --- and tequila

The party steps it up a notch.  She starts to get us riled up and riles herself up after a few shots from Martin.  Meanwhile he keeps feeding us all more shots of tequila.

group shot after some...shots

"Frenchy" gets wild and riled up with gummy bears up her nose.

Next we head to the bar portion of Pablo's fine establishment.  It gets even crazier with more shots of tequila, and mucho dancing!!! 

Even funnier, Martin keeps buying Becky more and more tequila shots.  I think I may have helped Becky finish off a few...but Martin didn't know that.  He just thought Becky was a tequila drinking machine.

the party heats up with Frechy dancing on a table, and of course more shots

We are all laughing when Duncan and Scotty make up a dance called the kiteboarder.  It's got all the moves, the sheet in sheet out, the backroll, the Railey, the dangle pass.  Here they are doing it...

not sure what kite move this is...

Brent even drops the running man

good times had by all

Everyone gets wild and crazy...it's Martin, Mike, Heather, and Sanji's last night, so all four of them get down!

After Pablo's practically has to kick us out around 1:00am, we head back to Casa Verde.  A few of us head to the beach and restoke a fire beach fire the others had going earlier.  It keeps us occupied on the beach for another hour, before we all head to bed. 

Oh, what a night!!!!

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the gang of La Ventana, their shell museum, exortion, and Photoshop lessons

In La Ventana, we met several, if not many inspirationsal people.  One such set of people are the Norton family.  Brent, Amy, and their great kids, Olivia and Gus.  You can follow their blog at: http://nortonfamily2010.blogspot.com/

Not only are Brent and Amy kiteboarders, but Brent is also one of the owners of Elliot Bay Brewing, which is one of Becky and my favorite spots in West Seattle. They also have taken their kids out of school in order to home school them while traveling and experiencing the world.  How awesome and inspiring!  What an experience for the kids!!!

To know couples like this really makes Becky and I think that we can make our dreams come true if we believe and work hard towards our goals.

When we arrived at Casa Verde, they were in the room next door to ours.  Out in front of our place on the deck was this shell collection that the kids had been gathering on the beach.

This really reminded me of the things I did as a child.

A few days later during the sunset, Kynan, Becky and I are sitting on the yoga deck chatting.  I was taking video of Casa Verde and its surroundings.



Casa Verde tour

Gus, Olivia, and another boy staying at Casa Verde from Hood River named Cole, called to us from the roof top of our building..."Come up here guys!"  they yelled while waiving at us to climb up.

We try to ignore them and holler a few things back trying to humor them...all to no avail, they are persistant and really really want us to come up to the deck.  We eventually give in and decide to make the climb up the ladder to the roof top.

The children meet and greet us at the top of the ladder, letting us know we are about to enter the "shell museum".  "That will be 50 pesos per person for the tour" they let us know once our feet have touched the roof... "WHAT? That is highway robbery kids." I exclaim.  "Okay, how about 5 pesos" they reply quickly, dropping their extortion plan to a reasonable amount.  We give in.  Kids now days really know how to work us adults.  I think they planned to start high, drop low quickly, and play us all like a fiddle.  It worked.

Olivia and Gus and the shell museum

Cole and Olivia explain the different varieties of shells

Don't get me wrong though, the kids had quite a collection and I actually learned some things. But the best thing was the view of the sunset! Seeing this sunset was well worth the 5 pesos per person!!!

The next few days Gus and I really hit it off.  He is an exceptionally smart and creative kid.  I saw him plucking away at a guitar that was missing a few strings, as well as heard him singing (quietly and to himself) a few rock songs, word for word, while cruising around the resort.

One day I gave him my TnM albums and my business card.  He was excited to have them and especially interested in the cover art and business card design.  When he found out that I had done much of the art with a program called Adobe Photoshop he then asked many questions about it and about all the graphic design effects it is capable of.  He wants it.... (there is a less expensive verion of Adope Photoshop that would be good for a child or someone interested in getting into graphic design called Adobe Photoshop Elements). 

He then asks me all about it and then starts asking me, "Ryan, is there a Photoshop for video?" "In fact there is", I tell him, "it's called Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro. (There is a less expensive verion for children, students, and for those interested in both graphic design and video editing with special fx called Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 8).

We even talk about how similar those programs are to musical programs called DAWs or Digital Audio Work Stations.  I told him that I use a progam called Steinberg Cubase 5 DAW Software but the best thing for him to use and learn on, just like I did, would be Propellerhead Reason 4.0 Recording Software.

I also told him that I could give him both graphic design and audio production lessons when he got back from traveling in the spring. He thought that sounded cool and so did Amy, his mom.

Later Amy apologizes to me because Gus kept coming up to me and asking me more and more questions. "You created a monster by telling him about all those things." she said.  Of course I don't mind. I find his excitement to learn new things cool, as well as getting the chance to encourage a child's creative side.

Anyways, longer story short...I promise him a Photoshop lesson (since I have it on my PC) before they leave.  Finally on the morning before they leave, Gus and I get a few moments to sit down and create a picture together. 

    

                          

click for a larger view