Sandboarding in Swakopmund

Okay okay okay. Day 2 Namibia. Sandboarding. Swakopmund.

We wake at eight. Or Kiran does, somehow. Maybe his belly is revolting from the beer. (Or, maybe his belly is just revolting.) Whatever the case, K stumbles to his feet, stretches his arms skyward, belches gratuitously and declares he needs 'brekkies'. Stat. Pallen and I sigh long breathes of stifled frustrations and utter exhaustion, look at one another with 'are we really friends with this guy' glances and tell Kiran to get lost---we'll have our 'brekkies' soon enough.

Aside: Can I just say that I hate the term 'brekkies'? It grates on my ears. Really. Take a totally normal conversation- '...so yesterday, we're like running late and I'm like hey where's Tina? and Bobby's like she went to get brekkies----' and suddenly it's as if a velociraptor is scream-screeching in my ear. EEEEERRAAARRRRGH! Yeah. Weird, I know, but that's the exact sound my brain makes. Same thing with 'rezzies' (reservations). It's all too baby talk barf barf to me ('wee wee'? 'tinkle'? 'poo poo'? I'd rather be shot.)

I digress.

So, Kiran gone and velociraptors dispersed, Pallen and I relish in the opportunity to get dressed without fearing what it will do to K's libido. We bundle up because it's disgustingly gray and slimy outside. We're both skeptical of how sliding down sand dunes on a snowboard is going to work let alone when the sand is all compacted by drizzle and fog. About 20 minutes later Kiran barges in with nary a knock. Glad we weren't changing, champ. Looks like it's Pallen and my turn for breakfast (see? silence) and he march downstairs. We sit at a sticky, but otherwise nice wooden table and wait for food. P opts for bacon and eggs, me for muesli yogurt fruit. And COFFEE. Always in dire need in the am, and sadly seems to be a rarity for vacations, when all I'm trying to do is relax except I can't because my body is demanding caffeine. We get food and leaf through some trash magazines. I learn that Brangelina have had twins. I didn't even know Angelina was pregnant. Or that Lilo was a lesbian (or that she even went by lilo... cue the velociraptors....) I'm clearly out of the loop of Hollywood trash talk which leaves me feeling rather smug to have rid my brain (at least somewhat) of all that waste of words. Except of course I'm greedily delighting in this magazine NOW, but... you know. (And in case you DIDN'T know, well 'you know' is just my way of making an excuse for myself without actually having to go to the trouble of formulating a logical one. I mean, you, dear reader, if you've made it this far, are clearly friend, and in so being my friend, you SHOULD know what I mean by 'you know' or at least should know that by saying 'you know' I have no explanation whatsoever.)

Right.

We're supposed to be met by the sandboarding people (also from the Desert Explorers company) at our hotel. From there we will follow them in our car since the dunes are a bit out of town and we'd like to leave straight from sandboarding to drive to Sossusvlei, a good 4-5 hours from here.

Unfortunately, Kiran swears on his mother's grave that we are supposed to meet the sandboarding people at Desert Explorers, so we drive in the thick mist over there. We wait, the group is coming, and finally we are ready to disembark towards the dunes. It's a 15 minute drive there. At one point we turn off a road and literally just start driving through the middle of the desert, the van in front of us our only indication of 'the road'. Amidst all this nothingness, dunes rise up from the horizon, and one especially large dune, if you squint your eyes and look carefully, has skid marks crisscrossing all the way down. Looks like this is our dune.

We keep pummeling the ground forward, our tires kicking up major dust clouds even on this overcast day. Finally we park out in the open by another van that's being unloaded with equipment. And that's all there is. The towering dunes, the vans, us. Nothing else as far as you can see. It's like being swallowed up and spit out in a sci-fi movie. And of course, with all this barreness, not a building or tree or shelter in site, my bladder decides that now is the time to pee. Grand. I try to demurely ask one of the guides where I can go pop a squat semi discreetly. I guesture towards a nearby dune, the guide nods, and I'm trudging up through the very soft sand over the dune. And over the top I am alone. Alone. It's eerie. I half expect one of those sandmonsters from Beetle Juice to burst forth from underfoot and devour me. But no, just quiet. Quiet nothingness, pure unspoilt sand. Until I came along at least. Circle of life, er something like that.

Back at the van, I lace up some snowboarding boots, grab a snow/sandboard, plop on a helmet and start schlepping my way up the big dune. Which. Takes. F.O.R.E.V.E.R. My legs are burning. Everyone looks drained. I keep a steady pace, but it's tiring, even with all my marathon training. The sand is soft and just sinks after every step. I feel as if we're making little progress. And the worst part is we know there is no lift to the top, meaning we have to do this trek for every time we want to go down. Yikes!

Finally though we reach the summit, and it's lovely. We drop to the soft sand, dig our boards in, and gobble down bottles of water. There are about 25 of us, and it's a bit cramped at the top. Almost everyone is a beginner and you can tell none of us wants to tumble down the slope accidentally. So we crowd around at the top, trying not to let our boards be whipped from our hands by the gusty winds and trying not to step on other's feet/legs/hands/faces with our massively clumsy moonboots. The instructer stands up. In a nice Australian accent she starts her lesson. Toes into the dune. Don't panic. Weight on back foot. Make sure to wax board every time before going down. Yes there is no lift-get over it! Clothing, bags, etc can be left at the top. Sand & cameras are not friends. Keep your shoulders square....etc etc. She demonstrates. Stops partially down the dune, and selects a victim.

Before I tell you how poor Andrew goes down the dune, let me first appropriately set the scene: we are all now about 300 feet up, sitting in soft sand at the top of wide faced dune. Looking behind us, there are dunes, dunes, dunes-- like a sea of sand stood still--and then way off on the horizon, a sliver of blue indicating the ocean. Straight ahead at the foot of the dune is a gravelly looking 'vlei' or dead space. Past the vlei are a few shorter dunes, and behind those our three cars appear in miniture, like long discarded micromachine cars left to rust alone in the sandbox. And beyond? Flat flat vastness. Nothing save the occasional hardy green shrubery. Somewhere past that I imagine is the road we turned off of, but who can be certain. The dunes are disorienting. And again we feel like we're looking out over a movie set instead of a real landscape. But real it is, and so is poor Andrew's terror at flying uncontrollably down this very steep sanddune.

The instructor coaches him to get in position (a method involving sitting in the sand, turing at a 90 degree angle, then flopping yourself over... very graceful) and how to get started (wiggle board, bend knees, weight on heels). And sure enough, Andrew is moving...and slowly. Very slowly. Just a few feet forward and he falls forward. Again. This repeats. It seems pretty boring and harmless until enter stage right Kiran Reddy who having dune boarded before decides to show us all up. And barrels down the slope. Which allows him to maintain proper form and balance, for oh, about 2 seconds. After which time he snowballs (sandballs?) downward at an alarming speed crying out 'ah ah f*#$&*(#$!' tumbling head over heels, arms and legs akimbo until he finally slows himself at the base. He gives a thumbs up to show only his pride has been wounded, and the instructor adds 'and that's the OTHER way to stop. clearly not recommended' and then she gives us a hearty wink.

So poor Andrew really is pretty well off now and makes it down the slope no problems. Kiran on the other hand, has assumed the role of poor Andrew for his abysmal performance as a pro sandboarded. Honestly I felt sorry for K. He really does have experience boarding, but I think the physics of this slope must have been different because he really did lose control. And so even from half a kilometer away, I could see from his slouched stature that he was pretty frustrated with himself and the dune.

My turn. I do the weird floppy motion to get in the right position and stand up. I'm nervous. This dune is steep and Kiran has just shown us all that we are capable of totally wiping out. I have my toes in towards the dune which instructor lady assures us is easier. I've never snowboarded or skateboarded or surfed before so this is a weird feeling for me. I wiggle my board, put some weight on my heels, lower my center of gravity, and I'm moving. And easily enough! I just get it. I slow down then speed up and use the dune just once to catch my balance. My legs are burning a bit towards the end, sure, but it as exhilarating, even if my velocity was more tortoise than hare. At the bottom I rejoice, jump up and down, and am pretty much giddy for having picked up this new sport so easily. I grab my board and start the loooong trek back up the dune. Oddly, the second journey up isn't as bad as the first, and after about 20 minutes of climbing I'm back at the summit. I slap some more wax on my board and wait my turn. Pallen goes down ever so slowly, but does go down without much trouble. Kiran appears and is not happy with his performance. I try to console him, but he's obviously frustrated and embarrarssed that the dune got away from him. I tell him to shrug it off, but he really only does a few runs later. Run number 2 goes very smooth for me. Kiran gets a video of the whole thing. Runs 3 & 4 I try turning, but find the sand (or my feet) too unstable and just fall over after each turn. Falling turns out to be painless as the sand gently envelops any wayward boarders (at least at low speeds). Indeed, I'm so emboldened that on run 4 when we have the option to go off of a ramp, without a second thought I throw up my right arm and volunteer myself. Unfortunately, after having signed myself over to the fates of the great ol' Swakopmund Sandboarding Ramp God, I do have second thoughts. Primarily, "Are you mad?! You haven't even snowboarded before and you're trying to do jumps!" and "You damn well better not break any appendages. Namibian hospitals? Ha, good luck." but also (and this is important) "Check out what a badass I am!" So with my fear of dejointed bones quelled by my desire to one up Kiran and everyone else sitting out, I scooted down towards the guide and was assisted into position in a bee=line towards the ramp. The surly instructor asked perfunctorily if I was ready- I meekly said no, not yet, but she pushed me anyways. And then hurtling towards the ramp I go, until off off and up up sailing through the air, then PLOMP-PFLOMP into the sand. And because I was laughin the whole time and becuase I wasn't even close to sticking the landing, I have sand EVERYWHERE. Mouth, sports bra, hair, cheeks, boots-- you name it, it was sandy. I must have resembled some sort of sport sand nymph. As I'm trying to get sand grit out of my teeth who do I see above but Kiran, readying himself to propel off the ramp. Peer pressure! I peer pressured Kiran! Success. And he did the 2nd coolest thing possible, that is the best performance possible besides doing like a ollie backflip off the ramp: what did he do? Well he wiped out massively, of course.

And as soon as I verified he wasn't hurt, it was funny. He basically just fell off the side of the ramp and tripped and made a mockery of the sport.

ugh ugh ugh... more to write about lie-down sandboarding, but I'll get to that tomorrow or something!

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