Just 130 kilometers from Fortaleza, Flexeiras, in the municipality of Trairi, is halfway to Jericoacoara, the most popular destination on the Ceará coast. But it doesn’t look like it. The beach has the bucolic feel of a fishing village, with coconut trees and sand dunes. It is gradually being discovered by visitors from outside the state, carried by the wind.

The wind and the calm sea are typical of Praia de Flexeiras, the only beach on the Ceará coast that lies in a bay. These two characteristics make it an ideal place for lovers of water sports, especially kitesurfing and windsurfing. And it is the practitioners of these two disciplines, more than the people of Ceará themselves, who have changed the routine of the inland village of this district of Trairi – a municipality with just over 50,000 inhabitants. There are at least three schools for beginners, offered by hotels, inns and private instructors.