Swakopmund, Namibia - Day 288 - Boots on the Loose

Swakopmund is a very tourist-friendly town with an array of possible activities from sandboarding to skydiving, as well as plenty of shopping (assuming you don’t show up on a Saturday afternoon like we knowingly did… like many other spots in Southern Africa, most things close for the weekend starting saturday around noon). Managed to find enough things open in the afternoon to keep us busy, headed to the Tug for dinner which is a really great restaurant on the beach which has been built from an old tugboat. Between Henties Bay and Swakopmund, we managed to have some of the best seafood of the trip!

The next day was a day I had been anticipating a long, long time: showed up at the Desert Explorers office for the 9am outing; loaded onto the minivans with about 30 teenagers from England for the 15 minute drive out to the dunes. About 5 of us signed up for the standup boarding, the rest (including ‘nifer) for the lie down (but the standup people got to try both!). The standup boards are in fact snowboards that they’ve added a special coating to the bottom of, the lie down ones are really just a piece of wallboard. In my opinion the worst part of the whole thing were the boots: kinda still wet when you first put them on from the last person, incredibly hot and heavy when climbing up the dune, and quite painful around the shins when moving around once you get sand in the them. Only one other guy had ever snowboarded before so I was definitely at an advantage and was quickly referred to as “the Canadian Guy” after a couple runs (other than about 10 times more friction towards the bottom of the dune, it really wasn’t too different from snowboarding).

On the first run got towards the bottom and not being used to it had a bit of a tumble, ie. sand in every oriface, right from the start… what do you expect though I suppose. For the 3rd run, hit the wooden jump they have at the top… no major wipeouts, another run or two, and I was pretty exhausted already (from walking back up the dune… apparently they don’t give rides back up on ATV’s to keep it “eco-friendly” as the dunes are public land). Switched to the lie down boards and in all honesty, I’d say they’re a fair bit more exciting! Lying on your stomach, often barely able to see because of the sand blasting designs into your eyeballs… Jen hit 74kph on one of the runs (I only mustered 68kph)!! Pretty darn fun, I’d say. Tired by around noon, did one last standup run to the bottom for lunch. All in all a great time, but if I did it again, I’d just stick with lying down…

Headed back to the hotel to deposit 2 pounds of sand on the floor of the shower, out to the bar to watch the video they do of the day (and actually give you a copy… included in the price!), Italian for dinner and off to bed for some much needed sleep!

Did some shopping the next morning (now Monday, at last), through the craft market, off to Walvis Bay to stay with Judy for one last night…