Adrenaline Junkiesville

It's back to Windhoek today, having spent four days in an adrenaline seeker's paradise. We toured the famous sand dunes of the Namib Desert in the best ways possible. We sand "boarded" (more like tobogganed) our first day here. Later we got a bird's eye view of the landscape, as we plunged from 10,000 feet in a 220 km/hour, 30 second freefall. That's right, people, we jumped out of a plane.

I had decided a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to take the opportunity to skydive in this incredible setting. I was really surprised when Justina told me she was onboard and Heather followed suit. So I made the booking for three, not sure if all three of us would actually make the jump. But we were off the very next morning to the airport. I was calm from beginning to end, more excited than anything else, having no expectations, though I was a little goofy throughout the whole process.

When they opened the hatch of our tiny plane, which only fits 6 people squashed together plus the pilot, and they insisted Heather jump first, I was a little nervous about seeing her drop out of sight. It was bizarre. They dropped, but the plane keept right on going ... obviously. I was the next to go, followed by Justina. Heather and her skydiving master turned out to be floaters, first to jump but last to land. My dude, Craig, decided to take me for a much crazier ride. We were doing donuts and swirlies all the way down, which cuts your time in half. But he also gave me the opportunity to enjoy the serenity as well. He told me to close my eyes and spread my arms ... we flew like a bird, feeling the rush of air on my face as we dove downwards and the sun as we sailed upwards. Justina's experience was more like mine, and landed about a minute after I did. We both were elated and jumped up and down on her landing. Heather was a little more subdued, getting a more tame ride than we did. But we all agreed on the sheer awesomeness of the experience, something I would do again if the setting could compare. A desert set against a bright blue ocean is probably tough to compete with, let alone beat, however.

Fortunately, we caught a lot of it on film, thanks to our handicams. Our videos reveal what freefalling at 220 km/hour does to Justina's cheeks, my nostrils, and Heather's face in general ... not pretty, folks. My video also includes a 15 second tanget at the end, when Craig egged me on to chat about my experience and I got a little sentimental about the past six months of my time in Africa. (We also have a really fun video from our time sandboarding, which we got for free!) It will be cool to share the experiences with you all, when I can figure out how to post them. And hopefully they will convince my parents that the experience was well worth the expense (ish!)!

It's off to the bus station for us! Can you believe I'm home in just a few days?!? I can't! Whoa ... whoa.

Peace out,

Allison