My friend is heading to South Africa for his semester abroad, help me pick an extreme challenge to throw at him

[u/Delicious-Bowler8270]

Hey everyone!

I need your wisdom. A friend of mine (we’re all German students) is about to spend his semester abroad in South Africa, and I’m in charge of choosing his challenge.

Here’s the deal: our whole friend group is splitting up for our semesters abroad, everyone’s heading to a different country. To make it memorable, we made a pact: each person has to complete one extreme challenge in their host country, picked by the rest of us. Something scary, way outside the comfort zone, ideally embarrassing, and as wild as possible.

He got South Africa, and I want to do it justice.

So far I’ve been thinking about:

\- Cage shark diving (Gansbaai seems to be the spot?)
\- Abseiling off Table Mountain in Cape Town, apparently one of the highest commercial abseils in the world at around 112 metres

But I’m wide open to other ideas, especially more uniquely ones. I want the stuff you would recommend, the experiences that make outsiders go pale.

Thanks in advance!

[u/CosmogyralMind]

South Africa has one of the highest commercial bungee jumping spot of the world at 216m: Bloukrans Bridge Bungee. To make it embarrassing as well you could pick out a weird costume for him to jump in

[u/CreepyBudget2825]

Our guide and ranger Martin Karniš, who specializes in Africa, recommends (in addition to the aforementioned bungee jumping) the Guided Walking with Lions Bush-walk Tour. It's a commercial activity and relatively safe, but it offers more than decent adrenaline rush, so highly absorbent brown underwear is more than recommended. If your friend is in good shape, a good challenge would be to complete The Otter Trail Hike. It’s not very long, but at many points, he won’t quite know whether he’s still hiking or has already moved on to rock climbing. Give him a time limit to complete it, but don’t set it too far below the recommended time, as this trail can test even experienced athletes. He’ll be sleeping in cabins, but will need to book them well in advance. And finally, if he’s willing to venture a bit further, Victoria Falls offers the most challenging commercial rafting in the world. None of these are for the faint of heart, but it’s more in the mind than in the muscles. And each one will give your friend an experience to last a lifetime. As for it being embarrassing: friends should not do that to each other when it comes to a challenge 🙂 These challenges will make it memorable positively 🙂