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It's safe to say that we've missed travel this past year.
That promise of warm winds, exotic cuisine and new-found friends… Sublime conditions where you can advance your kiting skills at warp speed, and all in little more than a sturdy pair of boardshorts. The good news is, travel is firmly back on the menu for this summer, and we've put together a guide to the best kite destinations on the planet. Included with issue #41!
“Luckily my first season back at home has been the best season ever. There has been action every single day with non-stop wind and waves. I think there couldn’t be a better place to be at the moment as we are able to live quite normally, and people are still hugging and having fun.”
Hendrick Lopes, recent F-ONE signing and cousin to one of the best kitesurfers in the world tells us about his time at home in Sal, Cape Verde while the rest of the world turned upside down. We hear from his cousin too: Matchu.
In our biggest Gallery section to date, we get a comprehensive look at what the biggest names in kiteboarding have been up to while the global lockdown bit. Some were lucky enough to be stuck in paradise, and some made the absolute most of their home spots, no matter the conditions.
“After a while we realized that this would not be an easy Taiba shooting – instead it would entail a week full of new challenges like trudging through deep snow, kiting in shifty, gusty and cold wind conditions, driving up icy roads, getting stuck in the snow, camping in temperatures of minus ten degrees and communicating only with walkie talkies.”
Alina Kornelli’s usual sojourn to Brazil got scuppered… so she headed toward the slopes of Switzerland instead, and scored pristine (and eerily quiet) snowkite conditions. Photographer Lukas Stiller got the shots.
We catch up with Cabrinha and CrazyFly, both of whom have dropped some significant new products and give us the full inside track on what you should be putting on your summer wish list…
“Luckily for me my home spot Galicia is one of the best spots in the world throughout the whole year – in spring and summer it gets a lot of wind and nice waves, while in winter it has big waves and strong wind almost every day…”
Despite a small but growing kite scene, Abel Lago’s home spot of Galicia in Spain became the perfect lockdown locale for this maestro waverider.
“Those two weeks in isolation were long to say the least. I spent most days on my balcony watching my brother kite and desperately wishing I were down there with him.”
It’s a hard life… Louka Pitot, forced to quarantine for 14 days in a hotel within looping distance of prisitine kite conditions, toughed it out and reaped the rewards on the other side, with a boat trip deep into the Saint Brandon archipelago.
“We didn’t want to break the law, we just wanted to kite. So we waited patiently for news from above, assuming they would relax the beach closure after the holidays and let us back on the water. Unfortunately, the opposite happened.”
Facing the prospect of an enforced hiatus from Cape Town waters, Luke McGillewie and friends got imaginative and found a way to bend the rules without breaking them. Even the cops seemed okay with that…
“I remember after school I would get home and look across the fields of our ‘finca’ towards the lake. I would be checking to see if there were white caps. Then I would cross the fields and head to the kite school. It was always like arriving in another world…”
Before being a young force on the GKA World Tour, Juan Rodriguez earned his stripes back home in Columbia, on Lake Calima, a spot that – fortunately for Juan – enjoys prime conditions year-round.
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