testmeat photoblog

i've been sandboarding twice before. the first was when i was in florianopolis in brazil where it was really windy and i didn't have any sunglasses - so i spent most of my time half blind with eyeballs full of sand. the second was in san pedro de atacama in chile. i remember that there was a little kicker at the bottom of the dune that i kept riding towards with the intention of jumping over. i consistently lost my nerve at the last minute and speed checked which meant that i barely made it over the jump, let alone caught any air. on the final run i told myself to go for it, which i did catching the nose of my board in the sand and wiping out fairly spectacularly. compared to snowboarding i've learnt that sand is considerably slower to move on, and ski-lifts exist for good reason - it's exhausting carrying a board up a dune. the third time was a lot more enjoyable, partly because the dunes were steeper, therefore faster to board down. however it was mainly because we were transported around in a dune buggy which meant that there was no need to tire ourselves out walking uphill. i still miss snow though.

here's the original