In Turkey, and I assume in many other places around the world, we are used to hear warnings from our parents, specially our mothers. These warnings include “Don’t go out with wet hair or you’ll catch cold.”, “Don’t eat for at least an hour before you swim or you’ll get stomach cramps!”, “ Put your sun cream on or you will get sun burn.” , “Don’t stay out till late or you won’t be able to wake up in time tomorrow morning.” , “ Drive carefully!” and the list goes on and on. Today I am going to share a story about me and my sister’s adventures in South America which actually meant ignoring all those warnings 🙂
While we were going to Las Palmas to start our Atlantic Crossing adventure my mother didn’t warned much because according to her the Atlantic crossing itself was such a great danger that no warnings could have any effect. So she just said “Beware of yourself. I hope God will help you!” with an offended voice. Thank God we hadn’t any problem or danger during our crossing and trip. However we got involved in some activities which may take part in the dangerous things list of my mother. So let’s just keep it between ourselves and please don’t tell my mom 🙂
Sandboarding
When I was lying on the beach in Florinapolis, Brazil, in 2007 I saw some young people carrying boards similar to snowboards. I wondered what these people were doing. Then I found out that they were going for sand boarding.
Thanks to our Dominican friend Javier who took us with his car to the south part of island Bani where there are infinite beaches and we did our first sand boarding there. Unfortunately there is no public transportation to this place. Dunas de Las Calderas in Bani is the only dune in the Caribbean. We climbed up the sand dunes in a hot day and we sat on the board and slid over the sands like sledge. Right after that we tried to stand on the board but we didn’t succeed. We heard that the sand board tours will start soon there but we didn’t stay long, so I’m not sure if it actually did. If by any chance you pass Bani, I suggest you to visit Dunas de Las Calderas and have a fun day in the dunes.
After that first trial in Domican Republic we had our second sand boarding experience in Peru. That was why we were much experienced surfers in Peru. While we were travelling from Lima to Cusco (both cities in Peru) we stopped by Huacachina to see the famous and surprisingly small oasis where just about 115 people were living in and we did some sand boarding there. A SUV car like the ones in Mad Max movie took us to safari. It was real fun to climb over the dunes with those cars. This time sandboarding proved to be much more comfortable and enjoyable because we didn’t have to climb up after sliding down. We went up about five hills. I advice you to take the last tour and enjoy the sunset. The weather is also not too much hot.
Here is a video of our sandboarding experience and the result of ignoring my mom’s warnings 😀
Such a cool experience – I’ve also seen pictures in Dubai