This weekend, Jessie and I went hiking in the Draknesberg, the highest mountain range in Africa, and in Lesotho, a tiny country completely surrounded by South Africa. We stayed at a youth hostel, Amphitheatre, located at the foot of the Drakensberg; the hostel arranged the two trips and tour guides. We left the office early on Friday, and took a four hour bus ride to Harrismith, where we were picked up by someone from the hostel. The hostel van was in worse shape than any minibus taxi I've seen, and the guy from the hostel slipped in that he had been in a car accident (we told him we were working at a legal aid firm, which got him started talking about his lawyer, who is helping him with his car crash issues) recently, so the forty-five minute drive to the hostel was a little bit nerve-wracking. Our bus overlapped directly with the Netherlands-Brazil match, BUT, by sheer, brilliant coincidence, our bus stopped at a rest stop where we were given 25 minutes to eat and rest, and I got to see BOTH Netherlands’ goals. I was very, very happy.
The hostel was warm, welcoming and busy, but we didn’t get off to a great start: the tours were twice as expensive as advertised on the hostel’s website and we were never told about the price difference until arriving, which wasn’t very helpful since, by then, we didn’t have much of a choice. Jessie and I didn’t say much about it when we were first told, but after more thought, we got more and more frustrated. We ended up complaining pretty vehemently, but the price didn’t change. After we were checked in, we were served dinner. We ate a table with other people staying at the hostel, and met some very nice people, some who ended up on our Lesotho tour the next morning. After dinner, we watched the Ghana-Uruguay match on the hostel’s big screen. It was an exciting match, but I knew that the outcome didn’t really matter: the winner was guaranteed to get shut out by the Netherlands in the semi. I, of course, was right. (The Netherlands beat Uruguay in a fantastic match last night.)
Our tour to Lesotho left the next morning at 8am. There were three other sets of two on the tour: two recent graduates from Edinburgh University, two Dutch girls who were in the last stages of medical school (both doing the med school equivalent of internships in South Africa), and an older couple (40s at least) from Mauritius. Our guide, Zee, was from the area. The drive to Lesotho was around two hours long (I was asleep for most of it). We had to pass through South African border control, and the drive was only fifteen minutes or so after that. We arrived at a small village, where we greeted by the principal of the primary school, Mamabope. She spoke to us about Lesotho history, village life and education. She took us to the various buildings of the school, all built at different stages. She took us to the large classroom, which serves as a classroom to grades 2-7.
After speaking with Mamabope, Zee guided us away from the village to start our hike. Many of the children from Mafrika de Sou (the village) followed us, and a few ended up staying with us the entire time. Though, according to Zee, Mafrika de Sou is not a Lesotho village that attracts many tourists (it was rather remote, and there are villages closer to a more popular border pass than the one we went through), I got the feeling that the children were very used to seeing throngs of tourists pass through their village. They started off very friendly, and loved it when they got their picture taken. We shared our lunches (pretty gross sandwiches provided by the hostel) with the children at the top of our hike, but after that they continued to ask for more food, water and pictures. It seemed as though they went through the same routine very often , and usually ended up with lots of gifts from tourists (though Zee explicitly told us not to give the children anything). One Lesotho girl, she was 13, took a special liking to me and spent most of the day walking with me; it proved to be especially helpful during the more difficult parts of the hike as, though she was wearing ratty sandals, she was very good at navigating the terrain.
Our hike lasted about an hour. We stopped for lunch and a few of us (the two Dutch girls, one of the girls from Edinburgh and I) climbed up a little bit further to a plateau in the rock, where we were greeted with fabulous views. After getting our way back down, we were greeted into the home of a Lesotho woman, who let us taste homemade beer. It certainly tasted beer-like, but with lots and lots of yeast. Her home was spread out between two circular huts, one which served as the kitchen area, the other as the bedroom. Her children were all old enough that they no longer lived with her. I didn’t ask where bathrooms were, but I couldn’t see any.
Zee realized that we had to leave rather quickly: the border between Lesotho and South Africa closes at 4pm, and it was already passed 3:30. On the way out, we were given some traditional Lesotho food, “map” (finely ground corn) and curried spinach: it was delicious. With a Lesotho beer in hand (this one in a can and from a shop; it tasted like real beer), we made it to the border just in time.
On our way back to the hostel, we stopped in Harrismith to pick up a newcomer to the hostel. I jumped out of the car to check the Germany-Argentina score and was VERY pleased (it was 3-0 at the point, 80 minutes in). I watched the highlights of the game when I got back to Durban. Back at the hostel, we had dinner and watched the Spain-Paraguay match. Exhausted, I went to bed, happy that Spain had won.
We were told our tour would start at 7am on Saturday morning, since we had to be dropped off at Harrismith by 4:30 to catch out bus back to Durban. I got to the dining room at 6:30 am, and had the vegetarian breakfast: eggs on toast, with beans, tomatoes and onions. Unfortunately, no one told Zee that were getting off to an early start, so our tour didn’t start until 8am. Cathy, one of the Edinburgh girls, was the only other member of our hike. The drive was another long one, and the last half hour was spent going uphill on very shabby roads. I was convinced the van was going to break down at any moment. We arrived at the drop off point, which Zee said was about 2000m up. We would be going up to 3121 m. The first hour and a half of the hike weren’t too bad; there was a lot of mixing of walking and short spurts of steeper rock beds we had to climb up. Parts of the hike were extremely frightening, as the “path” we were walking along was right at the edge of the mountain: one small misstep and one would certainly plummet down a couple thousand meters. There were some parts of the hike which were slippery and icy – extremely terrifying.
Then we arrived at the chain ladders. In order to get to the top of the mountain we were hiking, the Sentinel Peak, we had to climb two 15+ meter chain ladders. They were absolutely horrifying. [Obviously] only one person could climb or descend at a time, and when we arrived to climb, there was a group coming down. The group happened to be a family that had camped out for the night at Sentinel Peak. The last member of the family to come down the ladder was a young boy that couldn’t have been older than 13, so I told myself, “If he can do it, I can do it too.” I was the first of our group to climb up the first ladder. It wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be, but I wouldn’t call it fun or relaxing, either. I waited for the three others to get to the top of the first ladder, and went up the second, again being the first to go. I couldn’t have been more relieved to reach the top, and I blocked out the thought that I would eventually have to go back down.
At the top of the ladders, a valley on top of a mountain awaited us. Had I not just hiked for so long, I wouldn’t have guessed that we were up so high (the difficulty I was having breathing at that atmosphere also gave it away). We walked across the “valley” for about a half hour, and finally came to the “Amphitheatre” and Tugela Waterfall. The view was absolutely breathtaking. The waterfall, the second highest in the world, was almost completely frozen over and its stream was very weak, but it was still very impressive. It was extremely cold up there. We sat and ate our lunch and talked for a little while.
The hostel was warm, welcoming and busy, but we didn’t get off to a great start: the tours were twice as expensive as advertised on the hostel’s website and we were never told about the price difference until arriving, which wasn’t very helpful since, by then, we didn’t have much of a choice. Jessie and I didn’t say much about it when we were first told, but after more thought, we got more and more frustrated. We ended up complaining pretty vehemently, but the price didn’t change. After we were checked in, we were served dinner. We ate a table with other people staying at the hostel, and met some very nice people, some who ended up on our Lesotho tour the next morning. After dinner, we watched the Ghana-Uruguay match on the hostel’s big screen. It was an exciting match, but I knew that the outcome didn’t really matter: the winner was guaranteed to get shut out by the Netherlands in the semi. I, of course, was right. (The Netherlands beat Uruguay in a fantastic match last night.)
Our tour to Lesotho left the next morning at 8am. There were three other sets of two on the tour: two recent graduates from Edinburgh University, two Dutch girls who were in the last stages of medical school (both doing the med school equivalent of internships in South Africa), and an older couple (40s at least) from Mauritius. Our guide, Zee, was from the area. The drive to Lesotho was around two hours long (I was asleep for most of it). We had to pass through South African border control, and the drive was only fifteen minutes or so after that. We arrived at a small village, where we greeted by the principal of the primary school, Mamabope. She spoke to us about Lesotho history, village life and education. She took us to the various buildings of the school, all built at different stages. She took us to the large classroom, which serves as a classroom to grades 2-7.
After speaking with Mamabope, Zee guided us away from the village to start our hike. Many of the children from Mafrika de Sou (the village) followed us, and a few ended up staying with us the entire time. Though, according to Zee, Mafrika de Sou is not a Lesotho village that attracts many tourists (it was rather remote, and there are villages closer to a more popular border pass than the one we went through), I got the feeling that the children were very used to seeing throngs of tourists pass through their village. They started off very friendly, and loved it when they got their picture taken. We shared our lunches (pretty gross sandwiches provided by the hostel) with the children at the top of our hike, but after that they continued to ask for more food, water and pictures. It seemed as though they went through the same routine very often , and usually ended up with lots of gifts from tourists (though Zee explicitly told us not to give the children anything). One Lesotho girl, she was 13, took a special liking to me and spent most of the day walking with me; it proved to be especially helpful during the more difficult parts of the hike as, though she was wearing ratty sandals, she was very good at navigating the terrain.
Our hike lasted about an hour. We stopped for lunch and a few of us (the two Dutch girls, one of the girls from Edinburgh and I) climbed up a little bit further to a plateau in the rock, where we were greeted with fabulous views. After getting our way back down, we were greeted into the home of a Lesotho woman, who let us taste homemade beer. It certainly tasted beer-like, but with lots and lots of yeast. Her home was spread out between two circular huts, one which served as the kitchen area, the other as the bedroom. Her children were all old enough that they no longer lived with her. I didn’t ask where bathrooms were, but I couldn’t see any.
Zee realized that we had to leave rather quickly: the border between Lesotho and South Africa closes at 4pm, and it was already passed 3:30. On the way out, we were given some traditional Lesotho food, “map” (finely ground corn) and curried spinach: it was delicious. With a Lesotho beer in hand (this one in a can and from a shop; it tasted like real beer), we made it to the border just in time.
On our way back to the hostel, we stopped in Harrismith to pick up a newcomer to the hostel. I jumped out of the car to check the Germany-Argentina score and was VERY pleased (it was 3-0 at the point, 80 minutes in). I watched the highlights of the game when I got back to Durban. Back at the hostel, we had dinner and watched the Spain-Paraguay match. Exhausted, I went to bed, happy that Spain had won.
We were told our tour would start at 7am on Saturday morning, since we had to be dropped off at Harrismith by 4:30 to catch out bus back to Durban. I got to the dining room at 6:30 am, and had the vegetarian breakfast: eggs on toast, with beans, tomatoes and onions. Unfortunately, no one told Zee that were getting off to an early start, so our tour didn’t start until 8am. Cathy, one of the Edinburgh girls, was the only other member of our hike. The drive was another long one, and the last half hour was spent going uphill on very shabby roads. I was convinced the van was going to break down at any moment. We arrived at the drop off point, which Zee said was about 2000m up. We would be going up to 3121 m. The first hour and a half of the hike weren’t too bad; there was a lot of mixing of walking and short spurts of steeper rock beds we had to climb up. Parts of the hike were extremely frightening, as the “path” we were walking along was right at the edge of the mountain: one small misstep and one would certainly plummet down a couple thousand meters. There were some parts of the hike which were slippery and icy – extremely terrifying.
Then we arrived at the chain ladders. In order to get to the top of the mountain we were hiking, the Sentinel Peak, we had to climb two 15+ meter chain ladders. They were absolutely horrifying. [Obviously] only one person could climb or descend at a time, and when we arrived to climb, there was a group coming down. The group happened to be a family that had camped out for the night at Sentinel Peak. The last member of the family to come down the ladder was a young boy that couldn’t have been older than 13, so I told myself, “If he can do it, I can do it too.” I was the first of our group to climb up the first ladder. It wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be, but I wouldn’t call it fun or relaxing, either. I waited for the three others to get to the top of the first ladder, and went up the second, again being the first to go. I couldn’t have been more relieved to reach the top, and I blocked out the thought that I would eventually have to go back down.
At the top of the ladders, a valley on top of a mountain awaited us. Had I not just hiked for so long, I wouldn’t have guessed that we were up so high (the difficulty I was having breathing at that atmosphere also gave it away). We walked across the “valley” for about a half hour, and finally came to the “Amphitheatre” and Tugela Waterfall. The view was absolutely breathtaking. The waterfall, the second highest in the world, was almost completely frozen over and its stream was very weak, but it was still very impressive. It was extremely cold up there. We sat and ate our lunch and talked for a little while.
We were a little bit pressed for time, because we wanted to make sure we caught our bus back to Durban. We came down the same way we came up, which meant confronting the chain ladders again. Zee was adamant that the way down was much easier than the way up, but I definitely disagree. The problem with going down is that one is forced to LOOK down the entire time. I was very, very scared and as I descended I had to sing to myself (“Aint No Mountain High Enough”) to distract myself from what I was really doing. Eventually, we all made it down and started our descent. I found walking down to be more difficult than walking up, and even fell a few times, but nothing too serious. We made it back to the van, which took a few minutes to get started, and got to Harrismith with few minutes to spare.
We got on our bus back to Durban, surprised by how smoothly everything had gone over the course of our weekend. Of course, our bus broke down in Pietermartizburg (about an hour away from Durban), where we had to wait for an hour and half for a mechanic to fist the bus’s exhaust. At that point, I was feeling extremely ill (probably a combination of the high altitudes, bad rest-stop pizza and being stuck on a bus for so long). We finally got home around 11pm, and I went directly to sleep.
We got on our bus back to Durban, surprised by how smoothly everything had gone over the course of our weekend. Of course, our bus broke down in Pietermartizburg (about an hour away from Durban), where we had to wait for an hour and half for a mechanic to fist the bus’s exhaust. At that point, I was feeling extremely ill (probably a combination of the high altitudes, bad rest-stop pizza and being stuck on a bus for so long). We finally got home around 11pm, and I went directly to sleep.
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