The sun is high on the sky. The waves rolls up on the white beaches and the stranded white bodies of the gringos. The water is not particularly warm and the wind has been gloriously missing for far too long. Sitting on the beach, together with the other stranded white bodies, I am catching up with the tan as I wait for the perfect wind to make me a proper kitesurfer.

I came here for the beach, sun and wind. The area here is supposedly one of the better spots for kitesurfing in Peru and as I have spent too much time in the higher and colder areas of South America, there is no reason for me not to enjoy the warmth of both the sun and water.

Kitesurfing has been on my agenda since Venezuela. I have wanted to learn how to kitesurf ever since I met an English guy, that told me about a very nice place in Colombia, where I could learn the sport cheap and safe. It took me only a half a day in the town of Mancora, before I decided to pay the price and become a windchaser. For that is half the sport. Looking for the wind, waiting for the wind, longing for the wind and cursing the wind when it is not there. That is what I have done for quite a while now. Many a night have passed by, while pounding the pillow of my rockhard bed, wetting it with salty tears from my eyes and the snot from my runny nose. Learning how to kitesurf is definitely not easy, when the wind is nowhere near the beach I am at.

I have never ever been able to keep a toy kite in the air. I never managed to figure out how anyone actually managed to do that. Looking up to the people that allways seemed to manage this magic trick of fooling the wind, I gave it up long before the kitesurfing sport entered the cold waters of Norwegian fjords. I did some windsurfing when I was younger, but that is beyond comparison of flying a kite. Having this in mind, I really didn’t have any expectations for my ability of flying a monster kite, that have the strenght of pulling me very fast across the tops of the waves of the Pacific Ocean. After spending an evening looking at the beauty of this vast ocean for the first time of my life, I was ready to test my inability to fly kites.

Honestly, even if the kite is 10m² big, I had no problems keeping it in the air or withstand the power of it. It wasn’t the most windy day, though, but still - the never existing ability to fly kites have somehow, automagically, been restored in my body. I was flying the kite singlehandedly after only 10 minutes of instructions and I felt like I was about to conquer the world. Little did I know, that the wind is unpredictable, somewhat close to a thousand times stronger than me and when you combine these two elements with a 10m² kite - it is not allways easy to predict the outcome.

The training consist of a theoretical part and a practical part. The practical part is divided into dry and wet training. The dry training is practicing how to control the kite on land, as well as learning the basics on putting on the board in the water, learning the basics on how to make a start from the water and of course - you learn what not to do.

One thing you learn when you travel this way, is that the nature is not like the Zoo. If you want to stay awake for the night in the desert to watch the stars, there is no way noone can guarantee a clear sky. The same way is it if you go to hunt for anacondas of crocodiles in the jungle - the animals just don’t allways want to come out. In the wild, the wilderness is wild. The animals will eat you, the mountains will kill you, the water can swallow you and the wind will blow you away. Luckily for me, it is only the latter that has happened to me.

As I was practicing how to get up from the water, while still being dry and safe from drowing at sea, sudden gasts of wind almost ruined my practice for the day. The thing is, that the kite, while just hanging in the air, does not really pull too hard on you. Especially not in the conditions we were practising in anyway. You have to move the kite to collect wind and while performing these wind collecting maneuvers, the body has to be used as a resistance, to prevent you from flying high. As a beginner, every action is about making mistakes. Whenever I learn something new, I need to make mistakes. This is a sentence I have said a million times before - to get better at something, you need to make mistakes. While performing a relatively aggressive wind collecting maneuvers, I suddenly felt like a tiny teabag in the fingers of the clouds above. Getting picked up from the ground, hoisted 2 meters up in the air, pulled along the shore for approximately 5 meters and tossed far from gently at the relatively soft sand below almost upside down, I found myself flat on the beach disorientated and competely covered in sand. Not a bone was broken and my head was still intact. After brushing the sand of my face, digging 2 kg of sand out of my ears and after getting the kite up in the air, I was ready to do exactly the same procedure in the water. It is definitely not the way to kitesurf and after emptying two liters of the Pacific Ocean out of my lungs I concluded that I had learned my lesson. No more teabagging.

The following days went by with too much wind, too little wind, too strong wind, too dangerous wind and no conditions seemed to be good enough for me. More than a week has passed by and I have done nothing else than sit on the beach waiting for wind, playing beachvolley with locals and tourists and eating semi overpriced food. Today, I had my last hour of instruction, I made perfect runs on top of the waves and I can now call myself a kiter.

I have bought my very first kite, I have enjoyed the sensation of taming the wind and I for the first time of my life feel at one with the wind. The instructor didn’t like me too much - I broke his kite, he needs to send it for repair and he will not get it back in 5 days. It feels good breaking my first kite and it feels even better, when it is not mine.