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Photographer Andre Magarao doesn’t just hang out behind the lens when snapping pro kiters like Gianmaria Coccoluto, Noè Font, Ewan Jaspan, Kiko Roig Torres and Ramiro Gallart in Brazil. He ends up hanging out with them too and becoming firm friends. At the end of last year they shared a house in the freestyle paradise of Taiba. Andre talked us through the trip…
Brazil is unique, not just for its perfect wind and lagoons, but also because of the set up the riders have there. Since 2019, the crew has been renting a big house in Taiba and staying for two months. Some riders stay the whole time, others come and go, but the vibes are always high. This season was no different and I was lucky to be able to spend two stints at the house. It’s probably the most professional pousada around.
The house came about in the 2019 season when Nina Font decided to search for a better place for the crew to stay in Taiba. According to Noè Font, Nina’s brother, “We realized that we were such a big crew that instead of renting six apartments we could rent a big house that’s nicer for everyone, making our own little pousada. Now it’s at a point where maybe we should just buy a house and turn it into a real pousada.” Back in 2019, Nina was only 17 years old, but was fully acting as the pousada manager, organizing everything and making sure everybody was paying their share. Nina speaks a pretty good ‘portunhol’ – a mix of Spanish and Portuguese – which definitely helps in dealing with the Brazilian landlord and house staff.
“Taiba is a classic and very special. Sharing the house with the whole crew made it super unique. Everyone on the same schedule, sharing moments, is something we can only do in Brazil. Even though we all get along super well we don’t get to hang out so much during the year. Some riders do the tour, some do demos or shoots, so it’s hard for us to be together in one place, so when the Brazil season comes along we take that opportunity. It’s super chill and we don’t have much to worry about. It’s windy every day and the only worry is picking a place to have dinner every night, which is not that hard with only three restaurants around. The sessions are awesome; everyone is pushing each other. This year the house had a ping pong table and it was great to play and compete with the crew.” Ramiro Gallart
“It was super nice to share the house with the crew. We had breakfast together and talked about kiting. With Andre and Laci Kobulsky staying at the house we could check their photos and clips. We could easily plan the day all together and feed off each other. Brazil is so unique in that sense. Everywhere else in the world we are still good friends but because of the logistics and the price we can’t do this at other places. Whenever it’s getting close to the Brazil season we start a WhatsApp group and plan everything. Before when I was staying in a pousada it was a bit boring. In this house we can push each other and get motivated from each other.”
Gianmaria Coccoluto
“The house is awesome – we can’t complain at all – good house, good people, good mango and good coffee machine. Sharing a house with a bunch of pro kiteboarders went pretty much as I would imagine. I think my biggest surprise was the amount of Nutella we got through. The highlight was two months without putting shoes on [Andre: funny enough we are having this conversation on Black Friday as Lauren buys shoes online…]. I don’t hate shoes, but I do hate socks.”
Lauren Holman
razil is unique, not just for its perfect wind and lagoons, but also because of the set up the riders have there. Since 2019, the crew has been renting a big house in Taiba and staying for two months. Some riders stay the whole time, others come and go, but the vibes are always high. This season was no different and I was lucky to be able to spend two stints at the house. It’s probably the most professional pousada around.
The house came about in the 2019 season when Nina Font decided to search for a better place for the crew to stay in Taiba. According to Noè Font, Nina’s brother, “We realized that we were such a big crew that instead of renting six apartments we could rent a big house that’s nicer for everyone, making our own little pousada. Now it’s at a point where maybe we should just buy a house and turn it into a real pousada.” Back in 2019, Nina was only 17 years old, but was fully acting as the pousada manager, organizing everything and making sure everybody was paying their share. Nina speaks a pretty good ‘portunhol’ – a mix of Spanish and Portuguese – which definitely helps in dealing with the Brazilian landlord and house staff.
This season, Noè was the acting manager. According to him, managing a house full of pro kiteboarders is basically just like managing a pousada. Not that any of us has ever tried to manage a pousada. But in this case you don’t get anything out of it other than a good time with your friends. The vibes are so good that the truth is we all wish we could do this everywhere else in the world. Unfortunately we can’t afford it. Renting a place like this in Hood River for example would cost a lot more than our kiting salaries can afford. This particular house has enough rooms for some of the crew to stay the entire season and other friends came and stayed for a week or two. Each group that came in brought a different vibe. For example we were doing barbecues nonstop when Rami was here. But once he left the rest of us didn’t even know how to turn on the grill. This year there were a few house rookies like Lauren Holman, Abby Vandenberg and Guy Bridge. But it also had some well-known kiteboarding legends like the now world champion Coccoluto and Ewan Jaspan.
My days at the pousada basically consisted of waking up, having breakfast with the crew, figuring out a plan for the day – which more often than not meant two sessions at the lagoon with a lunch break in the middle for the classic trip to the Açaí spot – and making sure I beat them all at ping pong whenever we had downtime. The morning session usually had stronger wind and the sunset session was the big kite weather that the crew loves. This season we got really lucky – the lagoon was huge. If you have never been to this area of Brazil, the lagoons shape up differently every season depending on the sand berm and the amount of rain during the rainy season. Besides the big freshwater lagoon, we also had a saltwater lagoon that stayed filled up the whole time we were there, thanks to the full moon coinciding with pretty big swells. It was knee to waist deep, but that was enough for the freestyle crew to have a little corner mostly to themselves. All in all it was an awesome season and I can’t wait to see what house we end up in next time.
“There were no shortage of laughs at the house. I think my favorite part was having breakfast all together family style. We would talk about the wind conditions and the plans for the day. It was fun to also hear the constant sound of ping pong balls around the house.”
Abby Vandenberg
“It took me forever to finally visit Brazil – this was actually my first time there. I thought the vibes were going to be very serious and competitive with all the freestyle riders, but the vibes were actually very chill and it was awesome to share a house with this crew. Yeah, we always went to the same three restaurants but you didn’t really get bored of it. There was always a surprise. And to be fair it’s quite cheap so if we were in Europe we probably wouldn’t have been eating out that much. I was really stoked that I visited.”
Guy Bridge
Savannah, Noè’s girlfriend, stayed the whole two months at the house: “It was not too hectic, it was actually pretty calm for what it was. It was awesome to all hang out and be able to cook. No one can beat Rami at cooking though. Abby definitely got the prize for the most organized – she had the proper shampoos, electrolytes, and a fancy hair towel. We feel like we are a misfit crew. We have the park crew, the freestyle crew, this year we had one strapless guy and Abby foiling. Even Tom Bridge stayed here for a bit.”
“It was very interesting for me. It was my first time meeting a lot of the crew. Some of them I had only talked to on social media, and by the end of the trip I felt like they were my family. It was fun as well because I would go to the wave spot and then by the end of the day I would just go downwind to the lagoon and meet the crew there for a session. It was also fun to have all the meals together and play lots of ping pong. I think the best thing about kiting is the people I get to meet so it was awesome to meet this whole crew.”
Kiko Roig Torres
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