Snow in Cape Town is like a hot day in a Dutch winter, it’s just not really possible. But there’re loads of adrenaline-junkies out there, so they made up something different: sandboarding. We went to the Lost City of Atlantis, just outside of Cape Town, to try it.

Lord of the sandboard

I’m from Europe, but I’ve never boarded in my life. Can you imagine that? Never really had the feeling that is was in the middle of snow, never put the boots on and never got into the groove. I always wanted to, don’t get my wrong, I just kind of never came to really doing it. Quite funny that I have to get on a board for the first time in Africa, in Cape Town. I know, that sounds absolutely ridiculous. No, it hardly ever snows in this city (and if it does, it’s just on top of Table Mountain), but they do have some awesome sanddunes. So what do you do as a hardcore boarder? It’s as easy as one, two, three: you go sandboarding!

Downhill Adventures are the pioneers of sandboarding in Africa. It started when a guy called Axle, a South African snowboarder, got bored in his own country, and started looking for a new thrill. He saw some sand dunes and decided to give it a try. A new sport was born, ‘cause these days there’s competitions in sandboarding as well. They’re even doing it in France now.

Sandboarding is basically not that different from regular snowboarding, it just goes slower. But that’s a good thing for rookies like me, so they can try to get a grip of the moves faster. The bad thing is that it’s impossible to build sky-lifts, since the wind changes the shape of the dunes all the time. This means you have to walk up the dune with your board everytime you go down. And that sucks, especially when it’s a hot day.

Downhill Adventures offers sandboarding trips in Atlantis (for rookies) and Betty’s Bay (for experts). It’s a whole day of falling and getting up, boarding down and walking up.

The South African Atlantis, where we went, just half an hour drive on the R27 towards Velddrif, must be like the Lost City you’ve heard so much about. When you get out of the car, all you see is sand. The first walk starts from the car up to the biggest sand dune. Our guide Barry leads the group. When I first got up there, I was a bit frightened. For sure. But hey, I’m no wimp, so I went down. What a rush! Now I know what my friends have been going on about for so long. It rocks! I went down for about ten times (and ten times strawling up as well). When I really got the fever, and tried to do a trick. Boom! There I went, flat with my face in the sand. My board got stuck but my body moved on. There I lied for a bit, a really hurt my knee. But, hey, that’s all in the game! So I got up and did it again. And again. And again.

Well, you know where you can find me this coming winter; I’m going snowboarding!