After roughly 6 hours of evangelical Christian propaganda
film exposure courtesy of Intercape, we disembarked in Harrismith, Kwa Zulu
Natal (KZN) and picked up our little white car that we would refer fondly to
only as “The Intergalactic Obamatron”.
(Unfortunately the origins of the esteemed title have faded into legend
and there is nobody alive today who could say for sure from whence the name
originated.)
From Harrismith, we began leg one of our journey by driving
across the breathtaking landscape of KZN to Bergville where we were to spend
two nights at Amphitheatre Backpackers.
After a night of much needed sleep, we awoke eager to explore our new
surroundings. As three PCVs
stationed in the pretty, yet comparatively barren and definitely landlocked
Highveld and Venda areas of Limpopo, the lush, mountainous region in which we
found ourselves was simply awe inspiring.
Our first hike was a relatively simple venture past
Cannibals and up into this beautiful gorge that was hidden within the
jungle-like mountains of the Northern Drakensburgs. It felt so great to be free of the endless dust of my site
and to bask instead in the cool thinness of the air, feeling the moisture on my
face and hearing nothing but the wind cooing through the trees and the soft
chuckle of the small river that flowed crystal clear out of the mountains. Ahhh it was just heaven.
This hike actually proved to be a perfect starter hike as
the three of us were able to get a feel for eachothers’ hiking styles and other
“outdoor mannerisms”. It became
apparent that Doreh and I, when confronted with the boundlessness of nature and
the allure of the unknown, revert almost instantaneously to a state of
child-like glee by running, leaping, climbing, exploring and letting our
imaginations run as wild as our surroundings. Susan on the other hand, was more of a reflective type, who
enjoyed the beauty with an admirable and cautious reverence. In the end we figured out a system
wherein we would all take the trail at our own pace, so long as we never
ventured too far away from each other.
No man left behind as it were.
We became champions of this method as our hikes grew in length and in
difficulty.
The next day we ventured out from Amphitheatre and followed
the mountains South for a few hours around the edge Royal Natal National Park with
our sights set on hiking to Tugela Falls and conquering the famed ladders that
dangle in pairs from the opposing cliffs.
Lets just say that TIO had yet another chance to prove her worth on this
particular occasion as we took a road clearly intended for 4x4 drive up to an
altitude of really who knows how high.
My guess was over 1 mile high, as the air felt similar to that in the
Colorado Rockies.
The hike was wonderful. A few of the parts required a bit of an admittedly dangerous
scramble over wet rock that went sloping downward to destinations unknown, but
true to the team we were we helped each other along with the gracefulness of
seasoned pros. Yes, that is what it looked like. No arguing with my fantasy
here :). When, after a
couple of hours, we finally reached the chain ladders, Doreh and I took turns
accompanying Susan (who is afraid of heights) on one of the two parallel
ladders, with one person bringing up the rear. It worked marvelously and Susan was able to conquer them on
both journeys up and down in the wind and the rain without shedding a single
tear. OooRAH! By the time we arrived back at the car,
our feet were thoroughly drenched from walking through streams that were
cascading down our trail, resulting in our wishing that we’d chosen to voortrek
in aquasocks instead of sneakers, and we were tired, hungry, and happy. I’m sure you can imagine the state of
our car at the moment: NASTY, muddy sneakers, peanuts and raisins EVERYWHERE
(nobody knows how), dirt, mud, sticks, bags of wine, and a Santa hat. It was glorious. We had officially
moved into the car.
From Tugela Falls, we zipped back down the mountain and made
our way to Inkosana Backpackers in Winterton, Champagne Valley National Park. Naturally, as we had chosen to embark
on this adventure during the peak of rainy season, it was wet and muddy when we
arrived at our campsite and we were forced to employ our ingenuity by using a
mash of tent, twine, and tarp to keep ourselves and our now worse-for-wear
backpacks/sleeping bags from being completely and irreversibly soaked. The atmosphere of the backpackers was
great though; you could feel the excitement vibrating amongst the guests as
they reflected the outdoor activities they’d undertaken that day and planned
new ventures for the next days.
Given the weather and our leaky tent situation, we spoke to management
and decided to only spend one night there with the hope of driving off to a
relatively drier location for our planned overnight hike.
On our way to our destination at the Monk’s Cowel trailhead,
we decided to make up for our missed second night at Inkosana and stop for one
night of first world luxury in the quaint, if touristy, town of Clarens. We set up our tent at Clarens
Backpackers, which, in contrast to the others we had been to, was one of those accommodations
that appears to be the womb of hippiedom and is in a constant state of party,
busker-inspired street art-type activities, and hangs somewhere in limbo
between unadulterated partying and the coma of recovery. In short, it was the ideal location for
three young PCVs on vacation.
Aside from the live music and laid back revelry of the backpacker, the
quality of Clarens was revealed to us as we took a stroll through town, lapping
up comforts of restaurants, coffee bars, and…..breweries??? That’s right my
friends: THERE WAS A BREWERY IN CLARENS.
Let me reiterate: THE FIRST BREWERY THAT WE HAD SEEN IN A YEAR.
Disclaimer about SA
beer: If you are a fan of Coors, Bud, Natty, or Keystone LIGHT beers, or happen
to enjoy drinking cold, carbonated piss-water, then the beer in this country is
for you.
With that disclaimer in mind, we were all practically
overcome with emotion when we stumbled upon a local brewery hidden in this
little town on the edge of the Drakensburgs in KZN. We ordered a tasting of everything they had and I settled
eagerly with their Red Ale. Though
admittedly not as stellar as the Reds we’re spoiled with in the PacNW, I
couldn’t have cared less. It was
the most delicious thing I’d ever had in my life and I savored every last sip
of it until the brewery closed and we were on our way. But not without buying a
case to take with us on the road.
The next morning we awoke bright and early, packed up the
car and continued on our journey to Monk’s Cowl for our overnight trek into the
wild. Really I’m making this sound
much more badass than I’m sure it actually was, but hey, the wild is the wild,
no matter how long three city girls spend in it right? Right :) Locking all of our non-essentials in
the car, we took off on our ascent
up into the mist in a scene that would not have been out of place in a Jurassic
Park movie. As we had been warned,
weather in the Drakensburgs can change in the blink of an eye, and true to
form, we were allowed occasional glimpses of our surroundings through breaks in
the rolling mist and clouds that raced with an unearthly competitiveness up and
over the ancient green peaks of the mountains.
After about 4 hours of soggy, upward trekking through the
mist, we arrived tired and happy at a little thicket next to a bubbling stream
of cold mountain water where we would set up camp for the night. Our hike had taken us a ways above the
line of cloud cover, and our view of the landscape below was utterly
prehistoric in its beauty.
Although we passed a few more ambitious hikers than ourselves on the way
up, the area we now found ourselves in was completely devoid of human life
other than our own. In quiet
reflection you could feel the antiquity of the mountains in the very air you
breathed, feel the millennia of monumental upheaval and slow and steady erosion
that the earth had endured there.
Never in my life have I heard such silence, nor have I ever felt so
reverent, utterly small, yet simultaneously in cadence with nature as I did
perched in those ancient peaks looking out over the world as it unfurled below
us. The experience was wholly
transcendental for me and is not one I shall easily forget.
As soon as the sun peaked on the horizon and we tasted the
crisp dewiness of morning air, we filled our water bottles from the stream and
began our descent forward in time and down the mountain back to the car. The view was considerably clearer this
time around, and we were surprised to observe the slippery cliff faces we’d
been able to navigate with relative ease the day before. Regardless of our newfound knowledge
that a false step could send us cart-wheeling over the edge and leave the
remaining members with the awkward task of deciding how on earth to explain the
event to Gert (our safety and security guru with Peace Corps) we made it down
the mountain in about half the time it had taken us to ascend the day before.
As soon as we’d reorganized our filth in the car and had
taken one of the top-five most delicious showers of all time, we piled back
into the Obamatron and took off South toward the town of Underberg on the
border of South Africa and Lesotho.
Underberg was a nice little place, and serves a couple of PCVs as a
primary or secondary shopping town.
There is a decently sized white South African population who lives there
(of either Afrikaner or British descent) and held a few little shops that sold
things like banana chips and espresso over ice. Delish. Sani Pass Backpackers was where we
stayed for the night, and in the morning we arose early to take advantage of
the beautiful DRY landscape by going on a hike before making the hike up Sani
Pass and into Lesotho. 
Doreh wasn’t feeling well, so Susan and I met up with an
Afrikaner we’d met the night before to go on a hike through a game reserve to
this swimming hole. Given our
vastly differing pace preferences, Susan decided to start her morning with a
smaller route as Pieter and I voortrekked our way up into the foothills, scrambling
over boulders, behind waterfalls, and down ravines until we reached the
swimming hole. Aside from the
breathtaking beauty of the location, the experience was made even more
spectacular by the fact that you could not only jump off of cliffs into the
crisp, cold water, but were also able to drink to your heart’s content while
fully submerged. Ahhhh. If only
every river was so pure!
After a bit of an adventure bushwacking our way back to the
backpackers in a loop that was approximately 15 kilometers long, I reconvened
with Susan and Doreh, said goodbye to Pieter and began the journey up and into
Lesotho via Sani Pass. We’d spoken
to fellow PCVs who had recommended we “hitch” up the pass with one of the
4-wheel-drive vehicles that would inevitably be passing by on their climb up
the pass. Best we’d not heeded
that advice. Long story short the
three of us ended up making the hike by foot, all the way up the pass from the
boarder crossing in a torrential and violent thunderstorm. Given the fact that there was nothing
to be done about our situation, and that I was still amped from my morning
adventure, I admittedly had a blast in our situation. Fortunately though, I was wearing tennis shoes and a
raincoat. My partners in crime however, were not so lucky. In the end we made it to the top
unscathed and shivering, and were welcomed into the “Highest Pub in Africa”
with applause by the lucky, paying customers who had past us hours before in their
cars and minibuses. I don’t think
a round of glüvine has ever been so well-earned by a group of silly American
girls in the history of our generation.
After a lovely 24-hours basking in the altitude of Lesotho,
we had a final celebratory drink or two and caught a ride back down the pass to
the backpackers where we’d left our trusty car and all baggage deemed “non
essential” for our ascent up the pass. Thankfully it wasn’t raining as we
rolled and wobbled down the pass in the back of a pick up truck belonging to a
man from Lesotho who, as we learned, owned a Tuck Shop located in Underberg. We
arrived at our backpackers, paid our new friend R50 each (about $4 at that
point in time), then prepared ourselves and the car for the next leg of our
journey. For Susan, that meant taking a taxi to Durban where she would meet up
with another group of PCV’s to travel around the “Wild Coast” of KZN/Eastern
Cape, following a route similar to the one we took almost one year ago, after
IST.
For Doreh and I, it meant dropping Susan off at the rank
outside Underberg, and switching digs to stay at a new backpackers nearby,
sandwiched between Underberg and the evergreen peaks of Lesotho. We camped at Khotso Backpackers for two
nights; the longest we’d spent in one fixed location since we’d left
Pretoria. It was a welcome treat
for us, and we ended up bringing in the Maya end-of-the-world event cliff
jumping and braaing with an eclectic mix of new friends from South Africa, the U.S., and Germany. The weather was beautiful, and we were
able to enjoy quite a few strolls through the surrounding hills and see the
ponies employed by the backpackers to trek into Lesotho via trails hidden in
the folds and rifts of the mountains.
After two lovely and incredibly fun days at Khotso, Doreh
and I were once again seized by our insatiable wanderlust and, after calling
Avis for the umpteenth time to extend our rental agreement, piled back into the
car and sped off toward the beach town of Ballito which is located about an
hour north of Durban. The decision
was actually very spur of the moment. We’d decided to await the results of the
Mayan Prophecy far away from any major body of water and heed the advice of
John Cusak in his smash-flop movie 2012
by waiting out whatever apocalypse loomed ahead in the safety of the
Drakensburg Mountains. After we
could safely conclude that the world wasn’t crashing down around us, we decided
to use the remaining 48 hours before our bus ride indulging in some time
lounging by the Indian Ocean.
Next Time: Christmas in Machipe!
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