cowabunga!

today i went sandboarding and ATV-riding on the sand dunes of atlantis, south africa. i've finally found the lost city :]

anyway

the guides picked us up at 9:30am after a freaking crazy night for me that involved half a bottle of jack, stripping down to my spongebob squarepants boxers, donning my giant 3-ft sombrero and running into the room where 15-20 girls were celebrating their "girl's night out", and party-boying a few of them.

we arrived in atlantis, which is about 45 minutes outside cape town...looking back, we could see the whole city with the ever-picturesque table mountain in the background. seriously, so many postcard-worthy views every day here.

sandboarding is exactly the same as snowboarding...except it's on sand. they even give you snowboard shoes and a snowboard. except speeds are a little slower due to the higher friction so we had to wax the boards before every run so they would go faster. it was freaking sweet...unfortunately, the runs only lasted like 5 seconds or so cuz the dunes werent THAT big. but the worst part was definitely climbing back up a sand dune...felt like quicksand fo sheezy.

i was a little nervous cuz i suck at snowboarding, but i improved rapidly so i was happy. i even did some board grabs and jumps [sweet action pics of course]...extreemmmeeeee. im going snowboarding all the time back home.
i only wiped out 3 times the whole day! once was just cuz i did...the second time was trying to land a jump and the third was..well.

while we were waiting for the ATVs, jeff and i built a sandcastle at the bottom of a dune, which quickly turned into a sand table mountain since it was way easier. but it still had the castle walls haha. so anyway, after making it, we decided to board down straight into it and destroy it. i went first, hit the wall and broke it and then hit our sand table mountain...my front end got stuck a bit, but that was all it took for me to flip up and over the whole thing and eat sand as the back of my board absolutely demolished 45 minutes of hard labor. it was so sweet. so that was my 3rd and last wipeout. not bad :]

the ATV's came, and that was actually even MORE fun than sandboarding. sandboarding was just too much work climbing up the hills, waxing the boards and stuff for 5 seconds of mediocre speed. but the ATV's....wooooow. so awesome. vroom vroooom.

we were actually about to go down the first dune, which i swear was like a 70degree decline and jeff was in front of me. we were goin really slowly braking and stuff...but he braked too much and flipped over his ATV and it landed on him. i was right behind him and saw him get destroyed so naturally i freaked the fuck out. but i made it down the dune OK--turns out you're not supposed to brake so much going down..if anything, get some speed going down.

we were going all over the dunes in these ATV's and i couldn't help noticing how fucking beautiful it was. a few plants here and there, but the sand was completely white. sitting on an ATV hearing the engine roar behind you going 60km/h and the cool wind blowing into your helmet, feeling the shaking of it on your legs, feeling the sand from the guy in front of you spray you in the face and seeing a vast OCEAN of pure, white, soft snow..i mean sand. it was that clean-looking and white. the softest sand i've ever felt in my life.

man...i've pretty much done most everything i wanted to do here--except for a safari and maybe paragliding. but i figure i can find a place to paraglide in the states, since i'm REALLY strapped for moolah now. mama oh is noooot going to be happy..

but whatever. T.I.A.