Waking up on Thursday morning in São Luís felt a bit weird. Everybody was excited to go in the water again but the mixed feelings were noticeable. This might be the last kite session/downwinder of the trip.
A relatively short distance of 7 km was planned today, nevertheless a serious briefing was held! It is important to stay focussed till the last end of the trip, and it is easy to lose this focus after already having the heaviest 793 km behind you.
To make sure everybody would safely make the last section it was decided to have a local (kite) guide join the downwinder. This soon turned out to not be a luxury since there were quite some rock outcrops to cross and the beaches of São Luís were more crowded with swimmers than the desolated areas we had passed before.
Before finalising the briefing some nice words were said from our helping hand Gueles. He really saw us improving individually and he saw us becoming a better team during the course of our trip!
Around 11 am we started our session at the local kite spot where we could not resist to have a last kite session before sailing downwind with the beautiful scenery of the old city of São Luís at the backround.
São Luís (Brazilian Portuguese: Saint Louis) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Maranhão. In former days the first Europeans to settle it were the French. In 1641, the city was invaded by the Dutch, but when they left it became Portuguese. Because of the rich history, nowadays, São Luís has the largest and best preserved heritage of colonial Portuguese architecture of all Latin America.
Around 1,5 hours later everybody safely arrived at São Luís beach! What an excitement! We made it! We travelled 800 km along the Brazilian coast line fully propelled by wind energy. We saw long stretched dunes, green jungles, local fisherman villages and many river mouths along the way. And now we arrived at this civilised city of São Luís. It has been an unbelievable trip! But there was also disbelieve in the eyes of the team members… has this really been the last kite session of the trip..!?
The excitement, mixed feelings and the last kite session made us all hungry. This was a good time for a typical Brazilian lunch, puro Acai.
Typical Brazilian lunch Acai. Made from the berries of the Acai tree. Gives a lot of energy and the Brazilians claim that it is healty! Stay fit!
All satisfied from the lunch we went back to the hotel to prepare ourselves for our last adventure. We packed our gear on the roof terrace of the hotel and we prepared ourselves for the flight to Rio de Janeiro!
