Just a Hike.

I went on an amazing hike. In Africa. Like no other hike I have been on before.  My village sits at the Northern end of the Drakensburg mountains. It is really beautiful and I have been saying for quite some time that I want to go hiking in the mountains that sit behind my village. Well, most people don’t “hike” around here. They walk for a purpose.  But, I think my excitement (or maybe persistance?) rubbed off because I talked some women from my organization into taking me up onto the mountain for a hike. It will be a day I won't forget.

Understand that there aren’t really hiking trails. There are cow paths that most of the people know around here because the farmers in the area use them to herd their cattle and get up and down from the mountain. My unlikely hiking crew set off at 6:30AM one morning (okay, it was actually more like 7:00AM – please refer back to SLT if you need to know about being on time here) and it was extremely cold…for Africa. The women had several layers of pants and skirts and dukus (head wraps) as well as their large, dull knife (to be explained later) and lots of food. I wasn’t sure what to expect so I hadn’t brought much so they all gave me a hard time (they don’t think I eat enough) and said if I helped carry things, they might share.

We started off on our journey. It was a real hike (I really wasn’t sure what to expect - like maybe we would walk up the road and call it good)! But, no, we were heading into the hills!  The views were spectacular and I was saying to myself, “It feels just like any other hike?” But then…some changes began to take shape. Which is what made the day really spectacular. Let me point out just a few of the highlights:

• Picked field grass for making small brooms (it’s a special kind of grass that apparently only grows on the mountain – well, the best kind anyway)
• Visited a rural (very rural) African farming family where we were served sweet potatoes, avocado, and sugar cane while one of the older farmers told us stories
• Ended up at another very rural farmer’s place where we were given bananas (and also saw a baboon – although it was dead because the farmer had killed it when he found it eating his crops but I was interested to learn that baboons live in the mountains)
• Stopped for a picnic of pap, chicken, atchar, and gravy
• Learned how I could carry wood down the mountain on my head next time (all of the women actually did carry wood on their head down the mountain but I opted out for fear of stumbling and killing myself) - oh, and the knife was used to cut the wood

I can’t tell you how wonderful this day was for me. The next day I asked if we could do it again. They all looked at me like I was crazy. I don’t think this is something they do very often? Take a look at some of the pictures though. You, too, can come to Africa and experience this hike with me. Maybe I can talk them into it again if I have visitors?