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For any adrenaline junkie, it is a
must-try. Which is why I’m up here
with a sandboard strapped to my
feet, staring down the sloping side in
hesitation and with a tinge of regret at
my earlier bravado.
My sandboard is a solid plank
painted blue, approximately 4x1ft,
made out of laminated plywood with a
formica bottom. Glenn Guerrero, one
of the LEAD members, told me earlier
that three layers of material comprise
my DIY board. He then applied some
automotive lubricant on the bottom
to reduce the friction of the sand and
make it a smoother ride. “To make it go
faster,” Glenn grins.
The barren, cinematic landscape
around me looks like a post-apocalypse
scene out of
Mad Max
or a happy
hunting ground when dinosaurs walked
the earth. In topographical parlance,
this 85km swathe of dune field is called
an erg, but locals simply call it the
La Paz Sand Dunes. Location agents
have beheld La Paz’s ascetic beauty
and judged it apt for films, from the
Hollywood production
Born on the
Fourth of July
to the
Panday
series
and, most recently, the remake of
Temptation Island.
“Sandboarding was really just a
hobby for us when we started,” says
Reny Tan, when asked about how they
kickstarted the whole thing in August
2009. “The price of gas was so high,
we couldn’t go out and ride our 4x4
vehicles that much anymore.”
These same vehicular monsters are
what transported us from the city of
Laoag, a short bridge crossing over a
creek, through the village of La Paz,
and, 20 minutes later, to this dune field.
“We saw sandboarders in Dubai and
thought about how they did it,” says
Glenn. “Every afternoon we’d try it out
here and broke a lot of boards as we
tested them out.” He shakes his head
and adds, “I still can’t believe people
are now lining up to try it!”
Better believe it. From the humble
backyard operation, word has spread
like wildfire. People from as far as Hong
Kong, Australia and China have since
flown over to Laoag to try it.
Clockwise from left: Sandboards are made of laminated
plywood and a formica bottom, and strapped to your feet; avid
sandboarders from all over the world are now trekking to Laoag
to try the dunes.
Sandboarding is a bit like snowboarding in
the sense that you , re sliding on and through
material that can loosely be defined as solid
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