No joke, that was my instructor’s name. Konstantine with a K, very coool I thought. I booked my sandboarding experience the afternoon we arrived and luckily got to go the very next day; I was going to be picked up at a certain spot at a certain time.
That morning I walked out the gate of our camping ground and to my surprise saw a nicely sign-written van parked right outside with snow (sand) boots and boards piled up neatly in the back. Yusssss, no awkward waiting. Or so I thought. I took a longer look at the writing on the van, more like a leaning in stare really. The smartly dressed driver looked over at me as if to say ‘what do you want?’ and I realised it wasn’t the company I booked with. Gutted, I did have to wait awkwardly, and now I had to wait in front of the cool van in my sweet tramping outfit. I sat down on a fence and soon enough two scruffy non-uniformed guys came over and one asked me if I was going sandboarding today.
Fantastic! We got into the non sign-written taxi (that was parked in front of me, of course) and headed off for the dunes.
I never thought I would be wearing snow boots, track pants and a thermal on the sand dunes. Ever. It was hard work walking up the dunes every time, surprisingly not hot work though, quite the Atlantic breeze was flying over us. After a hell hike up, I found the actual ride down was more of a rest than anything, but it was still so much fun. What I didn’t like, was after a few runs we would head for the next steepest dune, which of course meant the next hike was twice as strenuous as the last. Good ol Konstantine only liked giving each dune two runs before moving on again. I gave him my two cents once I cottoned on to this behaviour don’t you worry. Ate my words (again) soon after though. There I was whinging and moaning every time we started our dune ascent. He would first take my board, then my bag, then we would have constant pit stops, and he would walk ahead so I could follow in the footstep groves, yet I was still praising chairlifts or escalators as if they were a godsend. I started joking around how chairlifts are such a better way to go and soon enough he told me he hadn’t ridden in snow before. Ugh! The guy hadn’t even seen snow before! I felt rubbish afterwards, absolutely rubbish. But he told me how in Swakopmund they still have sand boarding comps with slalom, jumps, and downhill blitzes and it all sounded like good times. It made a lot more sense afterwards though, thaaats why he wasn’t really responding to my comparisons of sand versus snow. Shot Merryl.
On our last dune slide we raced to the bottom. Kosta (nick name) let me beat him, but I didn’t let on I knew. I did a fake wee ‘yay I won’ parade and then downed a well-deserved Windhoek lager on the beach. Thanks Kosta, I had a ball on the dunes!
Next activity on the list – dune buggy thrashing! Or Vic falls bungee jump, rumours aside it doesn’t cost more than my entire student loan. Being that it thrives off such a tourist attraction though, I’m not holding my breath.
me and my mandatory helmet
No comments:
Post a Comment