Freewalkers: Sand Surfing and Snorkeling

So luckily before we even left the states we had a connection to the coolest group in the world called Freewalkers. They take groups out..tourists, families, anyone and do fun trips and activities for charity. I contacted them before I even left the states letting them know that we would be coming to Port Elizabeth,  South Africa and that we were interested in traveling and working with them. They emailed me just as I arrived in Port Elizabeth and set up to go sand surfing and snorkeling on Sunday from 9am to about 3 or so.. when we didn't even get back until almost 6pm. Murray, the co-founder of Freewalkers picked us up Sunday at 9am sharp in his van and we began our trip! He took us to some of the tallest sand dunes in South Africa and we sand surfed for hours and hours! The drive there was so gorgeous! We saw literally hundreds of dolphins! The sand dunes don't look tall at all until you actually begin climbing them.. Whew what a workout! I was able to sand board right away and all of us girls had fun taking turns boarding down the dunes. With the wind blowing just right we really didn't really feel the hot sun beaming down.

 Murray made sure we had plenty of water to hydrate and after a couple hours of boarding he took us to a beach side restaurant called Barnacles where we got fresh calamari, fresh queen pawns (shrimp), and the best ocean view around! Since the exchange rate is so low here we are able to pay practically nothing for meals like this! This meal cost us about R70 (70 rand = $7) or really only cost us $7 USD. People had written all over the walls so we of course had to join and stuck a U.S. dollar bill up on the wall with all of our names on it and the Freewalkers website!

Our meals that only cost us $7 !

Nicole and I sucking the brains out of the queen prawns

After Barnacles Murray took us snorkeling at a nearby cove full of reef. I'm not sure if we had more fun actually snorkeling or putting on the wet suits. We laughed historically at one another struggling to get these things on! Then we climbed over the dunes and snorkeled in the reef. It was pretty shallow and we saw lots of colorful fish, octopus, and gorgeous marine life. After that we grabbed some South Africa popcicles, which were delicious and headed home. We all got TOO MUCH sun on this day trip so Murray was kind enough to stop at the Pick'n'Pay by our house and let us get "After Sun," for all of our burns.

Murray trying to help us in our wet suits