Archive for June, 2008

Sandboarding is said to be the “latest” board sport following closely in surfing and snowboarding footsteps.

On the popular BBC series, Ski Sunday, Graham Bell and Ed Leigh discussed sandboarding. In fact Ed Leigh gave it a go and was most unimpressed – though a comment on the BBC blog mentioned that perhaps his board hadn’t been waxed satisfactorily.

Here in southern Africa it is looked on as the latest and most fun sport. Although the environmentalists aren’t too sure. They say that people carving up the great dunes in Namibia are doing untold damage to the fragile eco-system and they are trying to bring a stop to the increasing number of boarders – or at best, to at least control the sport.

It is perhaps not true to say that sandboarding is a new sport. Some sources claim that the ancient Egyptians as well as the Chinese were not averse to the idea of sliding down dunes on planks of hardened pottery or wood! Whether this is true or not black and white photographs do exist showing upright sandboarding dating back to the 1940’s.

For the next 20 years enthusiasts used anything they could lay their hands on to ride the dunes – from pieces of cardboard, trays, car hoods, surfboards and even water skies!

By the mid-1970’s sandboarding was gaining in popularity, but snowboarding became the rage and sandboarding was pushed aside for the next 12 years.

However, not entirely – countries that have no snow had a major disadvantage!!! Places like the Mojave Desert in America lacked snow but certainly had plenty of sand and wonderful sand dunes.

Early sandboards were slow and inconsistent performers and to ensure that this fledgling sport survived developers looked to the snowboarding industry for guidance. They helped to such an extent that one could now say that sandboards were developed by the finest snowboard designers!

With the help of the Internet, sandboarders have come together from around the world to share their experiences. People from all parts of America, Australia, New Zealand, Namibia, Egypt, France, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Holland, Belgium, England, Japan, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Canada, and South Africa.

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I am confused. We have just been rapped over the knuckles for using someone’s article on the world’s most extreme waves – despite crediting the original authors.

Have I misunderstood something here? People use our content all the time, but as long as we are credited I thought that was the way this wonderful media worked. Using someone else’s information and crediting the orignial author spreads your own blog further afield – further than just your efforts to circulate it can do. Or am I wrong? As Yul Brynner said in The King And I – “It’s a puzzlement!”

I am always pleased to see someone using our stuff. It means it’s worth repeating – and that’s cool!

To see several people using it is awesome.

We have once before used someone’s article and although giving her name the link didn’t work. She very politely contacted us and asked us to add the link another time. Without hesitation we went straight back to that particular blog and added it then and there. If someone has written a wonderful article they are due full credit. Not the next time – immediately.

So I shall redo the wave blog and see if I can’t make it even more awesome than the previous one!!! But it leaves an unpleasant feeling in the pit of your stomach to be ticked off – especially as I said the article was so good that I couldn’t possibly better it!

Ah well, now I am just going to have to try to…

I think when you book an extreme vacation you should be thinking more along the lines of what amazing adventure sport you can get up to, mountain you can climb, ocean you can conquer – rather than taking this vacation in a country in the midst of proabably its worst political crisis ever!

You got a fairly good breakdown several days ago as to what things are like here in Zim. It is scary. It is frightening. It is probably the last place anyone should have gone on holiday! But being a Zimbabwean this is our annual pilgrimage to see family and friends, to give ourselves that dose of the bush that we need so badly and miss so desperately in the civilised first world, and to revel in the wide-open spaces and endless horizons. When we booked the tickets way back last year, the elections were meant to be in March and well and truly over by now…

But the reality here is something else. Deciding that it would be better to err on the side of caution we have elected to remain in Harare over the next few days. The thought of heading for one of our favourite places like Kariba on the northern border or Nyanga in the Eastern Highlands would entail a 5-hour journey through the fabled rural areas where a lot of the worst atrocities are occurring. To everybody’s horror though, these atrocities are now occurring on a daily basis right here in the heart of Harare.

We arrived on Wednesday18th June and were able to change our money at ZW$6 billion to one. 2 days ago we changed again at ZW$15.2 billion to one US. Today it would probably be 20. The freefall is out of control. I have just heard on the BBC (from John Simpson who is here in the country and reporting on this election) that he was with a friend shopping in one of the supermarkets – which have very little in them anyway apart from fresh produce, and that the price of a bag of apples changed from the moment of taking them off the rack – to getting them to the till! This is no exaggeration. We had to return one 4-pack of loo paper because the same thing happened with us! You do NOT want excess zim dollars on you because within hours they have devalued by half if not more.

The largest note here at the moment is ZW$25 billion. This was worth about US$3.00 two days ago. Today it is worth US$1.50.

My mind blanks when presented with figures like this. A meal in a restaurant can cost you trillions. Imagine that?!

But that’s not the worst of it. Actually being able to find the necessities you need is an art. We call it “foraging” and I must say you do get good at it pretty quickly! You have a contact for meat here, sugar over there, maize meal (the staple diet) behind that house, wine (VERY necessary!) over the other side of town… and so it goes on.

So not only an extreme vacation but also an extreme shopping experience.

However, this is the lighter side of the country and one that you quickly adapt to. It’s the fear on the faces of everyone that is so tragic. And you find yourselves constantly fearful too, watching everything out of the corner of your eye, never directly looking at a young youth on the street, stopping for no-one (no matter how guilty you feel about this), and hurrying back within your security gates as quickly as you can.

Bush telegraph works well here. The moment there is trouble somewhere: a riot, stone throwing, plastering government posters on cars at intersections, axe wielding youths or anything along those lines someone from somewhere will sms you saying “don’t go in this direction…” There is a 9p.m. curfew on travelling at night.

The staff houses are filling up with relatives from the country who are coming in with horrendous tales of beatings, rape and torture – even children aren’t spared. Houses are being burned down – and this is winter. Everything inside the house is lost – blankets, clothing, pots and pans, what little food that might be stashed there.

This is despotism with impunity.

And the world mulls over it all talking about sanctions and that things must be left to the regional countries. Well, this poor country has been waiting for regional intervention for 8 years – why the west thinks they might do something this time I don’t know. Smaller countries surrounding Zimbabwe are now voicing disapproval – but Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is the man everyone is waiting for and he does nothing – despite the fact that his own ANC party is now vociferously against the situation here.

And this is an extreme sport site – not an extreme politics site! The next time I give you news on this beautiful country it will be more light-hearted I assure you! There is so much to do here. So many exciting things to do and see. And as soon as we are able to leave town I shall start documenting them!

Watch this space….

It can be described as nothing else than boys with their toys but this is a fabulous clip of just that – thanks guillam11 and YouTube – extreme footage of a trimaran pulling two kiteboarders in its wake as it powers its way across the ocean flat out. Sorry its a bit long but its worth it – did I mention the helicopter?!

Great kite surfing video from gloomer666 on YouTube with some excellent action of kite surfing at Tenerife – where’s that I hear you say – its one of the Canary Islands duh – where are the Canary Islands?………Ok you have a point – somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and America……..will that do huh? Look just get on the darn plane that’s going to Tenerife and hope the pilot knows where he or she is going!! Enjoy.

I am delighted to bring you this story of para gliding in France kindly provided by Greg Kelly who is a paragliding instuctor from the United States. If you are in France this year and are into paragliding or hang gliding he has certainly found one of the best places to practice the art.

We are in Annecy, France, a world-class paragliding and hang gliding center.
After I get the word of where the paragliders launch, my partner and I drive the quaint back roads around the farms, lush fields of alfalfa and crops and the occasional raging horned bull guarding a field, to our starting point. I will be flying tandem today with my travel partner Karen, who has flown with me before.

Karen and I began our pre-flight preparation. In Europe, you want to be prepared with harnesses on, glider checked, lines cleared and basically hooked into your glider when ready to go. Once the glider is laid out you must be ready to take off when a favorable wind cycle comes, or you risk being yelled at or run over by other pilots taking off behind you. No messing around here.

When flying at different sites, sometimes you don’t know the development or skill level of the other pilots flying. Some may have 30 flights, while others may have thousands of hours under their belt. So there could be a plethora of antics out there to keep you on your toes, but generally there is more organization than chaos, and you can relax and enjoy the sensations and amazing views.

Pilots share a passion for this sport like none other, and all believe the quote from Leonardo Da Vinci: “For once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been, and there you will long to return.”
The environment is saturated with excitement and adventure just waiting for you to experience.

A launch from Planfait for a 3-hour cross-country flight around Lake Annecy – Special to Daily/Greg Kelley

Annecy is due east of Lyon, c. one hour by car and only about 40 minutes due south of Geneva.