The Kitesurf, this magnificent sport which has it’s origins in using wind power for being dragged by a kite on a small surf, a snowboard or a mountainboard (board for sandy grounds), has been, not long ago, the theatre for a fantastic meeting between two great personalities from the world of adventure and the extreme. The international Jet-Set’s milliardar-playboy Prince Sergio Ferrero di Muresanu, escort of the major part of the Italian and hollywoodiano-glamour stars of the 60s and 70s, famous and appreciated ‘naïf’ painter who exposed his works in prestigious galleries in New York, Rome, Geneva, Paris and Ibiza, together with his adventure-companion, the provoking kite-world champion Christopher “Christo” Tasti, star but also great agitator of the world of “glisse”, have just been crossing the African desert by kite with an off road-skateboard in spring 2004.

Obviously it was not their first experience of this kind. Sergio Ferrero, beside being 8 times Quadriathlon-World champion (swim, kayak, bike + run) and World champion of Ultradistance Triathlon in 1995 (15times the Ironmandistance: 47km swim + 2700km bike + 633km run), had crossed in 1982 the Atlantic Ocean in 24 days by Windsurf (Guiness book of records), then the Mediterranean sea, the Channel of Formosa, the Channel of Oman, and this year (2003) he beat the world record of the Ultradistance Quadriathlon (45km swim + 180km kayak + 900km bike + 180km run in 5 and a half days) and the record of the crossing Balearic Islands – Spain by Kayak in 10h 12min. Many books written by and tell his totally unusual adventures in a magnificent way.Christopher Tasti as well amounted an enormous list of titles in the sports world, like, e.g. the title French Windsurf Champion and the third place of the Windsurf-World cup (Brighton 1994) and Kite-World champion (Rio de Janeiro 2000). Furthermore he did various admirable adventures like crossing the Mediterranean Sea in 1990 from Barcelona to Genoa by Windsurf and, recently (august 2003), the crossing of the Manica (Oussant – Cap Lizard) together with the inventor of kite surfing, Manu Bertin, and escorted by the team and the sailing boat of the wellknown Olivier de Kersauson. Beside, he created a philosophical movement called Freeriders, which bases on the culture of extreme sports and which is getting more and more members between the disciplines of “Outdoor” sports.

On that first adventure,the crossing of the desert by kite, they were using a so called “mountainboard” which allows thanks to a special system applied to the tires to glide on every kind of sand without problem.

Transahara Day 1: (October 20st 2004 )We arrived early enough at Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott, to have the time to flee immediately from the universe of this busy little African metropolis and to take western direction before the sun would stand too high…and the heat would get too much for driving through the center of this town civilized by nomads and comerciants.We took immediately the direction of the desert in the south, longing for the long waves at Atlantic Ocean coast.After we changed direction and reached the first little village in the countryside where we finally stopped and prepared our kite material for the start of this big adventure, which we were dreaming of during month; the crossing of the desert pulled by a kite! Sergio was very enthusiastic by the idea of trying a new game. Personally, I was a little bit worried, because I knew the extreme climatic conditions, which we would have to support. The heat but also the parts with very fine sand could make us losing much time or, even worse, giving up.

Transahara Day 2:First of all we tried to cross the dunes, but we only got dirty and didn’t make as much kilometers as we wanted. I already guessed so and the practice confirms my doubts: in the softer sand passages, the narrow tires of our mountain boards sink quickly, creating us problems and making us sometimes even to fall.Frequently we stop on our way, maybe for passing an hour in the pleasant shadow of our tent. We refresh ourselves with water and ice, the only things that are really important in the middle of the desert.It’s obvious; we are getting too tired by trying to move on this shabby sand. We have to find harder ground. As we are near to a small village, we use this chance to return to normal paths, and so we are able to make more kilometers in less time.

Transahara Day 3:We woke up very early this morning, because the heat of the sun had transformed our quite comfortable tent in a real boiling stove.Last evening we had stopped quite late and built up our tents in the middle of the starry night near some bushes, hoping that they would offer us their shadow, so that we could sleep good and long. But we were wrong because of our tired minds, we mixed up east and west. The first sunlight heats up our camp in a terrible way. But we don’t discover only this; we also find out that we got very close to the sea which is only a few kilomteters from here… Now that we are so close to the water, we decide to take out or kiteboards; especially because the sand near the coast is too soft for our mountainboard, so we continue in Kitesurf.What a pleasure it is to throw yourself into the Ocean waves, especially after so many kilometers in the sand and after having sweat so much every day. The sweat and the dust formed some kind of sluggish coat on our skin and now it’s difficult to get rid of it. Sergio and I try to stay together as close as possible as we descend Mauretania’s coast. The thermic north/northwest wind that blows all year long on this coast is growing up in the afternoon and calming down in the evening hours. Its side-shore-direction (nearly parallely to the beach) obliges us to make some contra-boards to come regularly close to the beach. Unfortunaltely like this we’re losing a lot of precious time. Even if you make the turns of direction properly, you get very tired and so we had to stop regularly to rest a little bit.Then it was time to go back on the water and make some more kilometers before the night falls, because tomorrow we will continue again with our mountainboards.

Transahara Day 4:Yesterday we met three young guys who had made all the way from the north of France until here with an oldPeugeot 505, just to have a little African adventure. Talking with them about their experience, they assured us that from the Boutilimit on, we would roll on like on a billard… So we took direction to Boutilimit with our 4X4 assistance car. It was a short trip but it pleased us a lot, because we had finally discovered the famous virgin vastness of this sandy land with its orange colored reflexes from which they had told us so much. We take immediately our kites, put on our suits and Sergio is the first one to explore this fantastic path in front of us. It’s a real pleasure skating here; it’s a feeling of incredible liberty and fastness. Just like that I had imagined this adventure when we talked about it in Europe… Indeed our friends were right; this way is a real “billiard”...Like always we pass by a little village and dozens of children scream enthusiastically as they see from far our kites flying 30 meters above the ground. There where they live, the highest thing you can see is a man standing on a chair…

Transahara Day 5:The surfaces we are gliding on are perfect for our mountain boards. Some plateaus of hard earth seem to reach infinity. They are various kilometers large and offer us some real natural highways to cross the savannah from one to the other side. In such a natural place, where the calm and the quietness are hardly troubled by the noise of our flying kites, our spirits evade to the most poetic thoughts. Personally I believe in nature’s benefits on our physical and moral health. Of course, life in town has it’s advantages. It creates a kind of permanent competition between us human beings, making live easier to stand – in a relatively attractive way, though. But life in town has also the incredible power to destroy the weaker spirits and the ones whose inner life is minus adapted, and they all end up on the psychiatrist’s sofa, trying to find a justification for their existence. I don’t judge this, but I think it’s a pity. For this reason I really believe in returning to the nature. We should learn again the simple things in life like loving, respecting our environment and communicating with the wild elements that surround us. Since few years, the Kitesurf allows us to live and express exactly this harmony. No matter whether on earth, on the water or in the mountains, the kitesurfers are a big community of passionate people, united by the same desire of flying and evading. They are crazy for this unique and surprising sensation of feeling like floating like in a crazy dream between heaven and earth, just as if gravity wouldn’t exist any longer. At the end of the day we arrive finally at the greenest part of the river “Senegal”. It’s amazing to see the spectacular African sunset. It’s incredibly intense and there are colors, noises and smells you cannot describe with words. We feel like in a state of peace and serenity near to the Nirvana, for all those who practice regularly this exercise at home. Tomorrow we’ll start to follow the river in direction of Rosso until we will reach its mouth to St. Louis, which will be our adventure’s final phase.

Transahara Day 6:First we tried to follow the river with our mountainboards but that was not so easy because the narrow paths we followed were hardly to handle with the wind blowing nearly completely from our backs. As well in Kitesurf as in sailing you have to know that you cannot move in all the directions depending the direction of the wind. There are the so called directions, which mean the way we are obliged to take by the law of the pressure on the sail. They vacillate more or less around a perpendicular line depending on the wind’s direction. And not even the aristocrats can escape from the law the of pressure on the sail… Well, it’s not worth insisting. When destiny’s against you, doing everything to makes things go wrong, sometimes it’s better to surrender…As this sport allows you to change in a few moments from the ground to the water, so why should you want us to stay attached to our desire to cross Africa only on the sand ?! It’s so pleasant to let yourself taken by the wind without having to think of returning to the starting point, just thinking about following the river, watching the landscape passing by in front of your eyes and doing some well-supported curves along the shore to impress the cows! After having so much success with the cows, in the middle of the afternoon I even dare to try the famous “handle pass” (passing the bar behind the back), the Kitesurf’s ‘golden goal’!! We finish this day of intense navigation by crossing the river Senegal breadthwise… and rest on the other shore, where other cows expect us already impatiently to say hello… We don’t pay them too much attention because we are really tired...

Transahara Day 7:As usually we left. Our legs feel every day heavier, our arms a little longer. But we’re near to the end of our adventure. The ground is now hem by thicket and a quite different vegetation, which makes it much more difficult to glide without stopping and at a good velocity. There are some quite flat zones where we accelerate a little bit. The slalom between the little trees and other plants is a pleasant game with the mountainboard. It’s not the same sensation of emtyness and infinity as when we crossed the large plains of hard earth in the heart of Mauritania, but it makes a lot of fun and causes even surprises... At the end of the day, we pass Senegal’s border through the ‘bush’, continuing for some kilometers before deciding to stop... definitively. Saint Louis, in the north of Senegal, is only at a few kilometers from here. We go there by our assistance-car, exhausted but very, very happy! Tomorrow, at the beginning of the day, it’ll be time to sum up this great adventure in the desert and to plan immediately the next ones that are already waiting for us in our future. But for the moment, it’s time to pack our equipment…