Our first Carnival in Barranquilla, Colombia

After only a few days in Cartagena the three of us and our roommate John packed a bag with a few items to stay overnight and headed on a buss to Barranquilla to experience one of the largest and most colorful Carnival celebrations in the world.  Once there, we did experience a few mishaps since we did not have a room reserved for 4 and John's initial reservation turned us away, but we did find a really nice, and yet inexpensive, hotel to stay which ended up being right in the middle of the action.

The first night was filled with dancing in the street until the wee morning hours.  John and I spent the night roaming and dancing....and probably drank 20+ beers each.  We realized at some point that we totally scored with our hotel because it was right by the street party...literally 50 ft away, so John and I could walk inside and use the bathrooms whenever we wanted.  The rest of the street partyiers would pay to use a 5 gallon bucket inside of a refrigerator box.

The next morning we woke to music...Latin music being played by a band right in our hotel lobby at around 8:30am....and loudly.  Pretty cool, but also a bit obnoxious if you stayed out until 4am.

Soon we took a couple mile walk through the city until we found the location of the parade.  There we posted up and watched the main Carnival parade of 2015.  Before checking out the pictures below, take a quick read to learn more about the history of Barranquilla's Carnival that I pulled from Wikipedia:

Barranquilla's Carnival (Spanish: Carnaval de Barranquilla) is Colombia's most important folklorecelebration, and one of the biggest carnival in the world. The carnival has traditions that date back to the 19th century. Forty days before Holy Week, Barranquilla decks itself out to receive national and foreign tourists, and join together with the city's inhabitants to enjoy four days of intense festivities. During the carnival Barranquilla's normal activities are paralyzed because the city gets busy with street dances, musical and masquerade parades. Barranquilla's Carnival includes dances like the Spanish paloteo, African congo and indigenous mico y micas. Many styles of Colombian music are also performed, most prominently cumbia, and instruments include drums and wind ensembles. The Carnival of Barranquilla was proclaimed Cultural Masterpiece of the Nation by Colombia's National Congress in 2002.^[1] Also theUNESCO, in Paris on November 7, 2003, declared it as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, and it was during Olga Lucia Rodriquez Carnival Queen year.

The Carnival starts on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday with the Battle of the Flowers (La Batalla de Flores), which is considered one of the main activities. Then, The Great Parade (La Gran Parada) on Sunday and Monday is marked by an Orchestra Festival with Caribbean and Latin bands. Tuesday signals the end of the carnival, announced by the burial of Joselito Carnaval, who is mourned by everyone.

Barranquilla's Carnival slogan is: Who lives it, is who enjoys it (Quien lo vive, es quien lo goza).

 One fun tradition is that they sell boxes of cornmeal and cans of foam...both to attack other spectators with.  Here you can see this guy and gal have both been hit with a handful of corn meal.




The cans of foam will spray  10-15ft.  Of course Avy wanted one.  The best part is that no matter who you spray, no one gets upset.  It was easily well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit so the foam would actually cool you down for a few minutes.

Spraying people with foam was a good way to meet people and have some sadistic fun at the same time.  

 

After the parade was over we debated staying another night, but decided to head home simply to save money, as we knew it would really be just another repeat night of partying in the streets.

That being said, if you ever get the chance to experience Carnival in Colombia...take that chance!  It was wonderful.  Don't be worried about safety, the police there do not mess around and they are there to ensure that foreigners are not be hassled or harmed.  However, do be aware that petty crime, such as pick pocketing is common, so be smart.  At night, if someone sprays you in the face with foam, hang on to your bag!  Chances are they may be working with a friend that will unzip your bag and reach inside while you wipe the foam off your face....so please, leave most of your money and passport in your hotel room.  All hotels have guards at the front, so no one but hotel guests are getting in.

Other than that, enjoy the great time, dancing, music, street food...and everything else Carnival has to offer!

A quick tour of El Laguito, Cartagena, Colombia

The city of Cartagena is quite large, but in actuality it is composed of a few different neighborhoods.

There is the outskirts of the city where typically only locals live. This is where you would find many neighborhoods that wouldn't be suited for a visitor to walk around at night.

In the middle of the city and located beach side is the old city, El Centro, which is walled in, a remnant of Spanish occupation.  It is beautiful and fully safe any time of the day.  I will post more about this not-to-miss location in a later post.

Then there is La Boquilla, which is an up and coming location and home to most of the kite schools in Cartagena.  Typically the water is choppy, and I found the wind to be lighter and somewhat holey at times.  On the bright side, the beach is gigantic with a long take out for beginning kiteboarders.

The last location is Boca Grande and it tends to be a place devoted to tourists and the wealthier elite of the city.  It is extremely safe, even in the middle of the night, so walking around is not an issue.  Of course, most things cost a bit more here, but there are local spots that are hidden gems and will be less expensive than the average of the area.  We especially loved eating at Riquisimo.  Get their filet mignon for roughly $10 usd.

Boca Grande has a lake in one portion of it known as El Laguito, and an entire end of Boca Grande is referred to as Laguito because of it.  This is where we stayed, and it is central to what I believe is the best kiteboarding location in Cartagena.  We stayed for two months in Edificio Laura, which was $1200 usd for a 2 bed room apartment, so with a roommate rent was $600 per room.  This is where all the beautiful pictures of sunsets, as well as the following pictures of the kite spots were taken from.  Right from the balcony of our apartment. 

Laguito has two basic spots for kiteboarding. A flat water spot and a wave spot. Also, you can choose to ride way, way out into the ocean if you prefer.

The first spot is the flat water location, due to a long rock pier that runs into the ocean and blocks the waves.  It's fairly shallow as well making it great for wakestyle practice and progression.  Its downside is that there is no take out downwind...the next stop is Tierra Bomba, an island about 5 miles away.  No worries though, if in trouble a jetski or fishing boat will rescue the kiter and gear for aproximately $10 usd.

Here are some pictures that Becky took of me riding.  She was standing on our balcony at the time.  I am a little downwind of the flat water spot so that her and my little girl Avy could easily watch me.

And here is a picture of my little princess watching daddy kite from our balcony.  The rock peer is directly behind the middle of the white building, so you can't see it or the best of the flat water.

To the other side of the rock pier that creates the flat water, the waves come in unobstructed, so on a daily basis there is a decent swell perfect for beginning wave riders.  Many of the locals are really quite good on a surf board, and all of them are friendly and easy going.  Don't be scared to join them, whether you are a strapless pro or a beginner..

The other great part of kiting El Laguito is that there is typically no more than 10-15 riders on the water at any given time.  That being said, the flat water spot is fairly small and can feel crowded with 10 or more guys trying to take advantage of it.  Throw in a few beginners mowing the lawn, and getting a decent setup for a trick can be frustrating.

One thing to note is that most of the locals either have school, work, or simply don't like to get any darker, so if visiting, try to kite around 12pm or 1pm when the sun is high and hot.  If you do, you will get a good 2 to 4 hours of kiting solo, as most of them wait until a little later in the afternoon and then ride until sunset.

January through April are the best months to kite and get wind in Cartagena.  It blows pretty much every day.  We arrived on Feb 9th, and it was 7m-10m every day for 87 days straight.

Here is a video of Armando Sierra (one of Colombia's top kiters) ripping in El Laguito.  Th video is quite old, but you can see the conditions of flat water that are available.

Oh, and I can't leave you without a classic sunset picture taken from our balcony on the 4th night we were there.

What happened to Colombia?

Cartagena map courtesy Google maps

Certainly for anyone that has ever followed my blog, you may very well have asked yourself the title of this blog: "What happened to Colombia?".  Or maybe, "What happened to Ryan?"

Well, on February 8th the three of us left for Cartagena, Colombia.  We spent three months there, and while I would like to blame my blogging inactivity on spotty internet, the blame lies with me.

Sure, for the first few weeks it was simply nice to unplug and kite as much as possible, but that is still no excuse for not following through with blog updates.  The fact is, living in Colombia was amazing and every day I was piling up new experiences like a hoarder piling up new possessions in his house, but like a hoarder, the more experiences I had the greater the "clean up job" was going to be...or in the case of this blog, the more things I had to write about the greater the anxiety about writing it all down grew.  And then the longer I went without writing, the more it seemed like a daunting task to catch back up.

Instead, I took the easy but less fulfilling route of posting a pic or two to Facebook periodically.

Last night I decided to do something about it.  So, much like cleaning up a really messy room, rather than be daunted by the whole room at once, I am simply going to pick a corner or a task and work my way free of it....

So.....Cartagena.....gorgeous city, wonderful people, amazing wind....truly a magical place.

For those that are kiteboarders or those that want to visit Colombia, we arrived February 9th.  Jet Blue flies direct, so if coming from the States, this is probably the most convenient and inexpensive way to get there.

And the wind, well...it definitely did not disappoint.  In fact, it blew for 87 straight days after my arrival.  10m most days, but a good handful of 7m days.  More about that later.

When we arrived, my buddy John, who would be our roommate for a little over one month, had located a apartment in El Laguito.  While the downside was that we had a decent sized hike to our kite spot every day, I will never forget the view we had.

The first night there we missed the sunset because we were out eating dinner at the time.  However, here are some pictures from the second night we were there.  We got to experience sunsets like this for three months straight.  Pretty Epic.  Almost on a nightly basis the four of us would gather on our deck, bathed in golden light, and watch the sun until it had dropped below the horizon.

So, my plan is to write a small bit again tomorrow.  Expect more sunset pictures as we go along as well...we took a few of them.  ;)

A very exciting update from Ruffing in Cartagena!

I was very excited this week when John Ruffing, my friend who we will meet up with and rent a apartment for a month with in Cartagena, posted to Facebook after 2 days in Cartagena, Colombia.

Now tell me that isn't exciting.  Becky and I couldn't have asked for a better report on the conditions and lifestyle in Cartagena.

Now all we have to do is finish packing, moving out, cleaning and repairing the house, etc.....but once we get there....I can tell already, it's going to be GREAT!

The Final Countdown

Yes, its the final countdown.

After 15 years at Amazon.com, today is Becky's last day there.

I have only 5 days of work left at Symetrix.  Its been 10 years since I started there and really was my first career.

But now its time for adventure.  Taking Avy to see the world, meet new people, swim, kite, and just generally gain and even better appreciation for life than we already have.

On February 8th at 9pm the three of us board a plane in Seattle and will land in Cartagena, Colombia at 1:30pm the next day.  So, we have 1 month to finish packing, move out, touch up paint and clean the house, and hopefully get some tenets renting before we leave.

OK. So getting tenets before we leave might be pushing it.  But hopefully it will happen pretty easily since there is a housing shortage in Seattle.

That being said, once I am checked into the plane and drinking a beer before my flight I think that then, and only then, will I be able to take a deep breath and say "We made it!".  Then its off for adventure in Colombia.

It's going to be great.  I have been working on a concept for a business (Come Kite With US) centered around Americans and Europeans coming to meet us in various developing countries, staying at a nice property with us, and generally hosting them and their wind and non-wind activities.  We will see if I can make the model work.

To get started, we are hosting kiters for the last week of February and the first week or two of March. So far we have 2 girls and one guy signed up and coming to meet us.  More are welcome and if you want details about how to come kite with us / stay with us in Cartagena, don't hesitate to email me for details. theorytheproducer@gmail.com

Around the first week of May, after three months in Colombia, we return to beautiful Caberete in the Dominican Republic. We love it there.  Both the local and expat friends of ours, the weather, the culture...we just can't wait. And on top of that, I am feeling pretty good because it is looking like I may have secured a instructor job.  I am not going to say anything yet and jinx it, but I will update this blog with info when I lock things down.

Other than that...I think it is fitting that I embed the following video.

When the stars align....

As the title suggests, sometimes in life, everything aligns itself in such a way that it seems almost as if fate itself is dictating the universe around you, almost like the conductor of the unseen orchestra of life is guiding your path. And while I don't believe in fate, it is a good feeling all the same, and certainly helps by reassuring me that Becky and I have made the right decisions with a feeling of "being on the right path at the right time".

Let me explain.

In September, I went to The Kiteboarder Magazine's website and purchased their Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer travel guides.  I recommend both of them for avid travelers looking for new shores and steady wind to sail.  they are $3.99 each, so extremely well priced and worth the minimal cost.
Click this link to check them out.  http://store.thekiteboarder.com/category-s/41.htm

On October 13th I received an email from Marina Chang, a publisher from TKB (The Kiteboarder Magazine) to inform that "your name was randomly chosen as the Tkb/Virgin Armada promotional winner of a :Virgin Armada/Nobile NHP kiteboard ( board give away promo for all Tkb orders in October)"

The Virgin Kitesurfing Armada is a event held in the UK and sponsored by Sir Richard Branson that includes among other things, a world record attempt for largest down-winder ever with over 500 GPS tracked riders.  Check out this link for more info:  http://kitesurfingarmada.org.uk/

Anyways, Nobile a kiteboarding brand, most famous for its slip travel boards, helped to create 10 custom, limited edition, Virgin Kitesurfing Armada Nobile NHP boards.  A few of them were prizes, a few were up for auction and charity, and at least one of them went to The Kiteboarder Magazine as a prize for their customers...and yeah, that ended up being me with a $8 purchase from their website.

What an awesome score!  Below is a picture of the top and bottom of the design.

Here is a picture I sent to TKB of myself and my daughter holding the board.

As you may imagine, winning this board right before we plan to leave on a life changing adventure to chase the wind felt like a sign that we are on the right track.  I never win anything...certainly not a kiteboard worth $800 (what the Nobile NHP sells for new).

I currently have a twin tip with boots and a surf board, so I really didn't have a good option for teaching an impromptu kiteboarding lesson.  This board is a perfect addition to my quiver for just that reason, and because have a twin tip with straps is simply a nice option to have around. 

A few days after that I was contact by a buddy of mine, John Ruffing, who two years ago quit his job and has been travelling ever since.  He spent 6 months in 2014 running Srilankite in Srilanka, after having visited quite a few other places, teaching lessons along the way.  He told me that he has much of the same plans as Becky and I, would be interested in traveling together, and potentially if things work out, partner up and build a business together.  John is a really fun and intelligent guy, and also a IKO intructor, so after chatting with Becky, we both thought this sounds like a great way to start our journey and see where things take us,

If you want to check out both of our IKO public profiles, you can find them here:

Ryan 

http://ikointl.com/member-public-detail?uid=14609

John 

http://ikointl.com/member-public-detail?uid=14920-8819

John suggested we take a look at what Colombia has to offer for kiteboarding, which after hours of surfing the web, looks pretty epic.  

I can say that just the mention of Colombia stirs up memories of the 1980's and the drug cartels, violence, and kidnappings. Because of that I was a little unsure about the decision to go there when John first approached me with the idea, but the more research I did, the more Colombia looked like a great place to check out.  While it is not a completely crime free country (certainly nowhere is) the crime levels are way down, especially in the last 4 years...and for the most part the Caribbean side of the country is quite safe.  

That is often the case anyways where kiteboarding is concerned.  Often times kiteboarding is prime in what are traditionally fishing villages, so once a good kiteboarding tourism industry is built up, the locals really value the people that come visit to kite and whom bring valued commerce into their local economy.  Plus, kiteboarders tend to be very conscientious guests to both the locals and the environment.

Anyways, literally the day after talking to John, I got an email from Native Instruments.  As you may know, I also produce music as a hobby and Native Instruments is a brand in which I had signed up for their online newsletter.  What was their email about?  It was promoting a new video of theirs that was covering the music scene in Colombia called Sobrosso.  And it covers the Caribbean coast of Colombia....check it out.

After a bit of searching, I also found a ton of other videos on Colombia.  One very interesting by the NY Times is called "36 hrs in Cartegena".  There is a fantastic video to watch as well.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/travel/things-to-do-in-36-hours-in-cartagena-colombia.html?_r=0

Cartegena is one of the places we are planning to stay.  It is a lively city on the coast. Without having been there it reminds me of San Juan, Puerto Rico...rich in culture, history, art, food, music, and has steady wind and water conditions as well.

The other place we are planning to stay is Cabo de la Vela, a small fishing village on the northwest coast of Colombia and which probably has the best wind statistics and epic flat water in Colombia...which has recently made it a top destination for kiteboarders from all over the world.

And so, little by little, as we settle into the idea that the first stop on our travels will be Colombia (for 60-90 days) life keeps throwing little reassurances that we are on the right path and that Colombia is the place for us to be.

Becky and I each had a good time watching episodes of both Andrew Zimmer's Bizarre Foods America and Anthony Bourdian's Parts Unknown and it certainly makes me look forward to some of the culinary tastes that await us, because each of them visited CArtegena, Colombia as well as several other coastal or nearby cities.

We are also looking forward to speaking Spanish, and of course improving our grasp of the language. It will also certainly help that John is fluent. And what an awesome thing for Avy to be exposed to.

On this last Sunday, Becky, Avy, and I spent the evening with Colleen Caroll, a friend of ours and  a professional kiteboarder. (Check her out in the new "Where The Wind Blows" video series.)

Where The Wind Blows - Episode 1 from Red Tide Pictures on Vimeo.

When Colleen heard me say that we were planning to head to Colombia in February, she was pleasantly surprised and said "I was going to recommend you go check Colombia out.  I keep hearing really great things about it.".

So once again, another little push to see Colombia.

So that is where we are, and now you know, where we are planning to go first. And for the time being, hopefully where the universe continues to reassure us we are supposed to be. ;)

Review of 2015 Naish Dub 138x43 and 2015 Naish Skater 5'2

So, if you have kept up with my blog, in the last post I mentioned that I have upgraded both of my boards...twin tip and surf board, from the new 2015 Naish lineup.

The two boards are the 2015 Naish Dub 138x43 and 2015 Naish Skater 5'2. Picture below:

It is fall in Washington state, almost winter in fact, and the water is definitely cold at this point!  But before the cold front got here to fully let anyone getting into the water, wetsuit or not, know that winter has arrived...I got a chance to get both my boards out twice. As such, I thought I would review them, for anyone looking for an unbiased review of the two boards.  I am not sponsored or anything like that....

It may come in handy for those reading this review to know that I have put on my winter weight (already) and am sitting right at 200 lbs at a mere 5 ft 11 inches.

2015 Naish Dub 138x43:

First, impression when I received the Dub is that the board is beautifully designed and crafted.  Every details has been taken care of.  The look of the graphics is dialed and I love that Naish sticks to its Hawaiian roots with the design.  The blue green gray top and gray orange bottom really works to make this board stylin'.

It's got a wicked shape with multiple concaves, grooves, and channels on the bottom, so this board rides great with or without fins.

Naish slates this board as a Freeride board, with wakestyle influences to be riden with straps. Bah....you can see I threw my Ronix Parks on the board...which by the way looks sick!  The Ronix Park's are detailed with orange and since the Dub has a gray orange design on the bottom this combo is seriously one of the best looking on any beach!

I have a feeling they slated this for straps because Jesse Richman wasn't wearing boots for a while this year after busting his knee in the Redbull King of the Air contest last year.  That being said, I can't imagine riding it any other way than with boots.

Once on the water three things stood out to me right away.  

The first... POP!  This board seriously has more pop than any other board I have ever ridden.  My last board was a Liquid Force Influence 142....which isn't even in the same ballpark as the Dub when it comes to popping off the water when jumping.  The board simply digs in, then lifts off the water with barely even a thought of technique...its simply works and is a jumping machine.

The second is related to the first....the board lands as smoothly as any board I have ever ridden. When I took this board out I was on my 10m and was lit...so jumps were huge.  I had a couple real hot landings and the board straight up absorbed them so well, that I really didn't feel like I had to use my knees to absorb the hot landings at all.  Once again the Dub just seemed to do all the work for me.

And the third thing that really stuck out to me is the upwind ability of this board.  Its fantastic for a board that has the second most rocker in the Naish lineup...sitting only behind the Antic wakestyle board.  To be honest, its upwind ability didn't completely surprise me since the bottom has so many features designed to give it grip.  It did make me happy, because I have little doubt that it will perform in light wind too.

A few other notable thoughts on the board....it has a great combination of stiffness and flex in just the right places, which probably lends itself to its fantastic pop.  But it also makes it a comfortable ride that turns on a dime.

The shape and rails are designed so the board never once sprayed water up into my face while riding, and was also probably responsible for its turning capabilities.

Overall, maybe I am still in the honeymoon stage, but the fact is that right now this board goes down as the best, most fun, and highest performance twin tip I have ever owned, let alone ridden.

If you are thinking about picking this board up, I highly recommend it!  Call you local shop or Naish rep to get your hands on this bad boy today....

2015 Naish Skater 5'2:

Let me start by saying, I am by no means a great strapless surf board rider....I still feel like I am a intermediate strapless rider...if not beginner.  So, this review can't address some of the things a more accomplished rider would mention or notice.

That being said, first impressions is that this board is gorgeous.  I mean every detail is carefully constructed and paid extreme attention too.  The foot pads, the honey combing material that you can see through the board, the graphics which have attention to every possible detail...even a small print of the Hawaiian islands on the bottom.  Literally this is the best looking surf board I have ever seen...period!

The other thing that one would notice right away is the shape of this board.  It's almost like a cross between a twin tip and a surf board....or better yet, its a surfboard with the nose and tail cut off so that it can travel in a large golf deceiver bag with your twin tip...rather than needing a surfboard bag and incurring the large overage baggage fees at the airline check-in counter.  The fact the tip is square, doesn't actually take away from how the board rides...so it actually feels like a larger board than its 5'2 length.  

Another thing, there are actual concave channels on the bottom of this board.  It looks like it will grab the water in much the same way a fin-less wakestyle board would.  Pretty impressive to look at, and almost certainly attributes to the feel of this board on the water.  

And I promise that you can't pick up this board without noticing immediately its super light construction....its obvious strapless airs and grabbing this board one handed when soaring through the air, will be as easy as it gets (which if you know about strapless airs...is still pretty hard to do).  The Skater promo video with Kevin Langeree shows that feature off well.

I definitely noticed how light the board is, but this was relative to my previous surf board the Lightwave DV8 which was a beast when it comes to heavy surf boards. the DV8 is heavyyyyyyyy. The DV8 was also a concave deck, so the board feel was pretty nice when it came to feeling the water through your feet below the board.  That being said, I always felt turning the board required using my ankles to somewhat leverage the board to turn.

The Skater on the other hand is a true surf board construction, so it has a slightly, and I mean very slight, rounded top deck that makes turning super smooth and responsive.  The pads have great coverage so I don't feel like I need to add more pad at the top of the board, nor wax it.....which sometimes is the case with a new surfboards used for kiting.   Having a foot slip off the front after a strapless air can hurt, if not injure the rider.

Turning is simple and requires little to no thought...just a slight lean or tilt and the board whips around.

Overall, as I mentioned, I am not a super accomplished strapless rider...but that being said, this board makes me yearn to get on the water and ride some waves (not too big yet).  Whereas my old DV8 surfboard was strictly my go to board when the wind was too light for riding my wakestyle board. With the Skater I simply can't wait to ride this board because it is just that bad ass!

If you see me on the beach staring back on forth between the Dub and Skater, you now know why....I am simply trying to figure out which board to ride....because they are both epic boards!