South America

Dee wasn't up for the sandboarding so me, Gaz and Claire got a 9 o'clock excursion to a place just outside town where there was a huge sand dune. There was a path leading up to the top and depending on how far you walk up, the sand dune got higher and steeper. Our guide couldn't speak English and he was too busy chatting up another Spanish girl anyway, so he gave us the advice of 'lean back', gave us the boards and wax and then left us to it. Luckily the sand was really soft and falling over was almost as fun as shooting off down the hill. Claire was the only one who had done snowboarding before and I think it worked to her disadvantage because it took her a while to grasp the leaning back thing. As we got more confident we moved further up the sand dune until it got slightly out of our comfort zone so we sat on the boards instead, which actually went faster. We had 4 hours on the dune for £12. By the end of the session there wasn't 1 orifice that wasn't completely filled with sand. Dee would have hated it. Apparently there's somewhere in Peru which has bigger dunes - I'm definitely up for that, but after seeing the state of me when I got back, I think Dee will choose to stay away again.