At the beginning of April I received an email directly from my boss Raphael Salles: Fone was planning a Freestyle Trip to Zafarana, just after the Worldcup in Leucate.
I was totally stoked as I had only been for a few months on the Fone International Team.
I immediately booked my flights and contacted the other members of our team: Eli Zarka from Israel, Randy Hereman from Holland, Pauline Boussard from France and Daniel Alvarez from Spain would accompany me during these 10 days.
Joining us were four cameramen and a new High Quality camera, which would allow us to get incredibly great footage.
Our flight to Cairo was pretty chaotic. First we were supposed to pay over $1600 for baggage, which was actually a pretty fair deal considering we were taking over 30 kites, 18 boards, bars, accessories, and more than 40kg camera equipment.
Eli managed to talk the check in-lady in Marseille into a better rate, using his non-existent French.
We arrived at 4am in Cairo. Fred, one of the cameramen immediately started to yell around, that Eli was from Israel, and should go to jail here in Egypt, as there was a big conflict between Israel and Egypt. Eli of course was not very happy about that, and after some butt slapping everything was solved.
Three hours later we arrived at the Hotel Royal Zafarana. It was just about dawn and the pretty strong wind motivated me to get a morning session while everybody else was sleeping. I was pretty powered on my 14 BanditDos and the brand new Acid, and I definitely felt the exhaustion of our travels, but it just felt incredible, flying over the water all by myself, while the sun was rising, giving everything a golden shimmer.
The climax was a very special morning. I was walking down the alley to the beach still pretty sleepy, as an Egyptian boy came running towards me, waving his hands all excited to the water. I knew there was a dolphin colony residing in the lagoon of Zafarana, but I would have never dreamed of ever getting the chance to actually see them, or kite with the dolphins!
In a hurry I huddled up all the other team members, pumped up my kite and went on the water. It was one of the most amazing feelings in my life, experiencing a kite session with these astonishing animals! I swam with the Dolphins and kited above them, as they were jumping in the water! Incredible!!!!
During two days of our trip the wind was nuking with over 40 knots! Kiteloop Time!!!! Whilst everybody was pretty lit on their 5,5 BanditDos already, Eli wanted to impress the spectators and get some good footage. He pumped up his 8m kite on 12m lines, but after only 3 insane loops, in which he almost killed himself and the cameraman, he had to agree, that a smaller kite would be a better choice
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