"When you're in Jeri, you have to do a buggy tour to the lagoons!". It says so on the internet so it must be so. We are rule-abiding Germans. So we just had to do the buggy tour. It helped that the weather forecast predicted showers. Wind does not like showers. It pouts for hours afterwards and lies low.
For my impatient readers: yes, if you are in Jeri, you have to do the buggy tour. It's a lot of fun. It's also good for the locals - they get to ride around in a fun mobile, trying to loose the tourists in the back by going full speed over bumps. And they get paid for it! About $80 for a 5 hour trip.
We arranged the trip through our lovely hostess, Roberta, who immigrated from Italy about 6 years ago. The buggy picked us up at the Pousada, right on time as promised. Also as promised, the showers that the weather forecast had promised showed up. They showed up just as the driver tried to set new speed records going over sand. It felt just like fall sailing at home - stinging rain hitting your face at 30 mph! But she showers were short, and we enjoyed the cooling effect of the water on our clothes afterwards. It gets hot here when the sun is out! Well, just something in the upper 80s (32ºC), but it felt hot.
The ride was an awful lot of fun. It felt a bit like a good day of bump & jump sailing - every time we hit a bump, we got jumped out of our seats. We really needed our windsurfer forearms to hold on to the handle bar in front of us! After the first few bumps, the driver checked on us to see if we were ok. Seeing the big smile on our faces, he decided to up the game a bit, often passing other buggies and vans, but never being passed.
We took a couple of breaks at two lagoons. Both were nice, but the Laguna Paradiso was my favorite. Here are a few pictures:
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| A stop on the way |
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| Chilling out in the Paradise Lagoon |
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| Dunes, dudes! |
We made it back in time for an afternoon windsurf session. The wind was indeed a bit lighter than the days before. Nina had fun on a 4.7, but my standard 5.3 was too small for once, so I had to switch to 5.8 - something that is in the "large sail" category here.
Right now, the wind seems to have a pattern that reminds me of Bonaire: good in the morning, lighter around noon, and then strong in the afternoon. Most days, the wind seemed to increase towards sunset, and then drop off quickly when the sun goes down. Yesterday, the increase did not happen, and the drop was a bit earlier, keeping the session short. Not all bad, though - it gave us plenty of time to enjoy the sunset over a few beers.
