Xtreme Weekend in Swakopmund

This past Friday a group of us left at 3 AM to make it to Swakopmund by sunrise. On our weekend adventure we were joined by our guide, Shaun, Andrew (from Team Canada), and Robin and Hishu (from Team Sweden). It took us about four hours to drive west from Windhoek to Swakopmund and the Atlantic (a different) ocean. On our way, some of us slept and others of us listened to a mixture of pop, rap,  and South African club music to get us ready for an epic weekend.

When we got to Swakopmund, our first stop was the beach. Swakopmund is based largely on tourism, so it was interesting to compare and contrast it with Windhoek. There were a lot more tourists and touristy shops and businesses. After the beach, we had breakfast at a cute little cafe, stopped to drop off our things at the hostel we were staying at. The eight girls on the trip shared one room with bunk beds and two bathrooms. We had a half an hour before we left for our first adventure of the day.

Photo courtesy of Alicia Copeland

We got picked up and got driven out to the dunes. These dunes were different from the dunes at Sossusvlei, because not only were they smaller but also you could see the ocean on the other side of them. I was very thankful that the dunes were smaller, because we had to climb them in sandboarding boots with our sandboards in tow. 

They taught us how to sandboard and it was rather steep and scary. It was pretty fun though. I just panicked a little every time I got going too fast, so I would purposely fall. The sand provided a nice soft landing. Although, one time I was going pretty good and I don't know what exactly happened, but I majorly biffed it and somehow did a somersault. My neck was very sore the next day and somehow only two people witnessed it. We also all managed to get very sunburned. I had put on sunscreen, but I was so covered in sand I did not reapply. 

A fox was under the jump. Only Cinnamon and Rayna were brave enough to go off it. 

I have come to learn that sand is to Namibia as snow is to Minnesota. Therefore, I was very excited when we got to try lie-boarding, which to me was like the Namibian version of sledding. Our "sleds" were big pieces of wood and we went down headfirst down the dunes with our feet and elbows up. At the bottom, two of the group leaders were waiting with a radar gun to track our speed. On my first run I tied for the fastest speed at 73 km/hr and ended . I loved it! I went again and was the last person to go. The people called up from the bottom and said that Cinnamon had beat the record with 74 km/hr. I knew I had to beat it. As the guide pushed me he told me to think of going 75 km/hr. When I got to the jump, I got massive air and when I landed I immediately turned around and asked what my speed was. My group members thought that I had been injured from the landing, but I was just excited to see if I had got the record. I did get the record, with 76 km/hr. It was awesome! I did not even notice that I had totally broken the board too, where my elbows had smashed down when I landed. My first thought was, "Do I have to pay for it?" and the guide said, I think jokingly, "No, it is awesome. They are insured." So I had my picture taken with him and the broken board. It was definitely one of the highlights on the weekend for me. The guide even carried my board up the dune before we had one last sandboard run. 

By the end, I was thoroughly covered in sand. Including in my left ear, still. 

After our last run, we all walked back and someone noticed that someone else had ripped their pants down the back seam. It was pretty funny. We ate lunch and I ate a lot of sand that had been in my teeth. We stopped briefly at the hostel to get a change of pants and then we were on our way to quadding. PS: We got a video of our sandboarding, which will be aired at a later date. 

When we went quadding I ,apparently naively, thought that we would spend like a half an hour driving around in a parking lot before we went driving on the dunes. I was wrong. They gave us a hairnet, helmet, a quad, and then we were driving up the side of dunes. Earlier, the members of my group told me that when you rode a quad you needed to lean forward when you are going uphill and lean backwards when you are going downhill. So I thought it would be just like horseback riding. I was also wrong about this. 

The first half an hour I had so much anxiety. We went in a line and our guide told us that we had to follow the tracks that the person in front of us took, or else we could get stuck or thrown off of our quad. Also, there was a hand signal for danger, which was used like every two minutes. I was worried that I was going to die and I think I almost did like three times when I was making a turn on the side of the dune. My quad got stuck twice. It also stressed me out because you can't always see where the tracks were and sometimes I would fall behind and I thought I would die in the sand and sometimes you needed to accelerate when the person in front of you was going too slow. We stopped for a little bit and I was shaking. Lauren and I commiserated together and she said, "I just want to go and see some dolphins!" Shaun decided to help us with our fears, he was going to take us one by one all the way up the side of a dune. I held on so tight. After we got going again though I was actually able to get over my anxiety, sing "My Favorite Things" and then I didn't feel so bad. I actually had fun. 

Shaun showing off

We had a little bit of downtime before we went out for dinner. We ate at a pub and I had fish cordon bleu, which had smoked salmon in it and it was very good. After dinner, the majority of us crashed because we had been up for 17+ hours. However, we woke up at 7:30 the next morning to drive about 30 km to Walvis Bay for our dolphin/seal cruise. This post is getting rather long, so I will write about the rest of my weekend tomorrow.