The Drakensberg

What better time to pick up and leave Cape Town for a short vacation than right in the middle of the second-to-last week of classes? I only wound up missing one full day of classes (since I don’t have Friday class and my classes were cancelled one day), but my two friends who came with me skipped three full days to make the trek out to Drakensberg, located in the province of kwaZulu-Natal. We hopped on the plane to Durban on Wednesday morning and had arrived by 2 pm. After a massive feast of authentic Indian food (Durban is known for it’s high Indian population) and a quick journey around the city, notably down to the beach, we jumped in our car and headed for the city of Underberg, located at the foot of the Sani Pass.

The drive to Underberg was treacherous – I’m still not entirely accustomed to driving on the left side of the road (though you don’t have much choice but to adjust), am not the world’s best stick driver (save your comments, Dad), and, to top it off, there was thick fog for a huge part of the journey. And I mean THICK – I could barely see 10 feet in front of me, and was following the reflectors in the middle of the road. Thankfully, there were no sudden turns, and after four hours we arrived safely in Underberg (though it should’ve taken only two and a half).

We arrived late Wednesday night in Underberg, and given the fog and the darkness we had no idea what the landscape looked like. Waking up in the morning was one of those “wow” experiences – we were clearly no longer in Cape Town. Mountains surrounded us on every side as far as the eye could see. My friend Nick mentioned that he felt like we were in the Swiss Alps, I thought it was a bit like Tibet or Nepal (shout out to Erin Phelps!), but either way, we were definitely out there. We spent Thursday driving the Sani Pass, the only drivable path between South Africa and Lesotho (more on Lesotho soon). I’m very glad we decided to hire a driver to drive the Sani for us – it requires a 4x4 and tons of experience. You see cars flipped over on the side of the windy road as you ascend into Lesotho. We took our time getting up the Sani, stopping to take in its majestic beauty along the way. The drive was certainly highlighted by the Twelve Apostles (the name of one of the ridges of mountains along the side of the Sani) and learning about smugglers. A few Besotho people (people from Lesotho) make a living by hiking through the mountains around the Sani Pass and smuggling up to 30 kg of weed at a time – yes, that’s almost 70 pounds of weed – on their backs. Obviously the South African border patrol is smoking their shit, otherwise they’d be aware enough to stop them from getting it in – these smugglers literally walk within 200 meters of the border post and rarely have problems. Once we got to the top of the Sani, we were met with one hundred kilometer per hour winds (according to our guide, you know it’s 100 km / h when you can’t walk straight into it), a strict border patrol (you’re not allowed to take pictures there, but that didn’t stop me), and the Sani Top Chalet – the highest pub in Africa. We stopped for drinks on the way back into South Africa – now I can say I’ve had a drink while being as high as you can be in Southern Africa. (Read carefully, family members, it’s not what you think it means.)

The Twelve Apostles at the Sani Pass

Brother Jack makes it all the way to Africa's highest Pub

Anyway, now I’ve probably sparked your interest in Lesotho. What’s that? You’ve never heard of Lesotho? It’s a tiny little country totally inside of South Africa – if you didn’t know better you’d think it was just another province. Lesotho is the only southern African country that was never successfully colonized (due to its mountainous terrain: more than 75% of Lesotho sits at over 2000 meters above sea level, and the mountains act as a natural border keeping out invaders, think China style), and has managed to remain an independent monarchy throughout its history. When you enter Lesotho, you feel like you’ve travelled 100 years back in time: there’s no electricity throughout the entire country (except for the capital), and so there’s no phone lines, no internet, no TV, no heat except for fires (a huge problem, given that it’s fucking freezing that high up and people have open fires inside their huts made with mud and cow dung walls and floors, and thatched-wood ceilings, you do the math). For a good portion of the year, women live alone in these huts, called rondawels, taking care of up to six children, despite only have one bed. These children will sleep in the bed with their mom (if they’re lucky) or, most likely, wind up on the floor. Men, from the age of 14, spend these months in isolation in the mountains sheering sheep – they each live in their own rondawel, living only on a huge bag of maize meal (to make pap, similar to grits). They will travel to the villages (which are run by women, since all the men are gone) to trade with the women for random goods: homemade beer, bread, warmer clothes, etc. They pretty much will not eat any fruits or vegetables. Think about the nutrient deficiencies – someone you think is 40 will turn out to be 17. According to Wiki, Lesotho has the 5^th lowest life expectancy of any country at arousing 42.6 years, and is one of the only countries in which men are expected to live longer than women, on average. It’s also the 9^th poorest country in the world. Seeing how these people live was really eye opening – this is the Africa that most westerners think about (though don’t get me started on Western perceptions of Africa – did you know it’s just one big country and that lions walk around in the streets?). A really humbling experience, even though I was only there for a few hours and only saw one village.

Inside the Besotho hut

After returning from the Sani Pass, we got in our car and set out for Bergville, about 3 hours north of Underberg. Underberg is considered Southern Drakensberg, while Bergville is Northern Drakensberg. We stayed at a hostel called Amphitheatre Backpackers on the recommendation of my friend Matt Misbin (who had stayed there on his travels in South Africa), and upon arrival we knew it would be super chill. The dude working the desk, Josh, was a big goofy white dude with dreadlocks. We pretty much instantly found out he is originally from Observatory (about a 10 minute walk from Mowbray, where my dorm is) and we bonded over Wednesday night 2-for-1 drinks at Stones. We chatted with him for a while before going to sleep early in preparation for our hike the next day.

On Friday, we hiked to the top of The Amphitheatre and to Tugela Falls, the second highest waterfall in the world (meaning it starts at the second highest elevation, not it’s the second biggest drop, but they definitely get you if you don’t realize what they’re talking about). The view up there is supposed to be unbelievable, and from the pictures I’ve seen, it really looks like it. We were not so lucky with the weather, though, and the fog kept us from seeing even 30 feet in front of us. It was also cold and rainy – three out of the ten people on our hike turned back – but the hike was still pretty cool. It was especially rewarding when the clouds would break for just a bit and you could get the slightest idea of the rock formations around you. The picture below is what it was supposed to look like – I only wish I had seen it first hand. The coolest part of the hike was going down two sets of chain ladders, maybe the most serious ladders I’ve ever been on. At each set of ladders you had two choices: one that was anchored into the rocks at every rung, and one that was only anchored in at the top and in a select few places along the way, meaning the ladders were swinging free. Take a wild guess at which one I did. One of the key things I’ve learned in Africa: I’m only 20 for so long, I’m supposed to be doing stupid shit like this now and not when I’m older, I may as well do it while I’m here. On our drive back to the hostel it started to hail (but I thought Africa was all desert where it was 100 degrees every day and jungles where you can see rhinos everywhere you turn!), but thankfully we were covered. The hike was a bit disappointing, given how cool it could have been, but such is life.

What the Amphitheatre was supposed to look like

Zach on the ladders

The next day, instead of doing a hike through our hostel, we did our own day hike on Josh’s recommendation (he told us it was his favorite day hike in the entire Drakensberg). It was a much clearer day, and we could finally get a sense of the grandness of the ‘Berg. We started off by hiking along a level path around a bunch of mountains (when you think of Drakensberg, this is what you think of) until we reached Rainbow Gorge, which we slowly prodded our way up to the top of. The path was crazy and involved a lot of bouldering and rock climbing, as well as creativity in making your way up, and was a really cool hike. It almost felt like we had left South Africa and had arrived in a Costa Rican jungle, minus the rally monkeys and the extreme temperatures. The end of it was a straight scramble up a river – I definitely fell in and got my feet really wet – and we knew we had reached the end when we physically could not go any more because of a huge rock wall. The coolest part of this hike was definitely arriving at what we deemed The Giant Rock. A really creative name, I know. This rock was trapped between the two sides of the gorge and was suspended about 8 feet above the ground. It was pretty damn cool to see in person (we’d seen a picture of it the night before), and, of course, we took photos of us “holding it up”. On our trek back to the car, the clouds hovering over the highest mountains broke and revealed snow – that’s right, snow in Africa at the beginning of the summer. Very unexpected.

Damn my camera gets nice colors

I haven't been working out, I swear

Sunday arrived quicker than we had thought possible (this seems to be a recurring theme – how is it possible that I only have one month left here?), and we had to make our way back to Durban to get on our plane back to Cape Town. I woke up Sunday morning with food poisoning and felt like shit, so Nick, despite having only driven stick a few times in his life, manned up and got behind the wheel and got us back to Durban safely. Can he now tell people that he can drive stick? I’d say so – if he can make a 3-hour drive on the wrong side of the road without getting us killed, he’s good in my book.

Overall the trip was a huge success. We had a very chilled vacation (we decided to do Drakensberg instead of Namibia because Namibia would have required a lot more driving and a lot more sticking to a schedule) and saw some really cool shit. Leaving Cape Town makes you realize how influenced by Europe Cape Town truly is. It also makes you realize how spatially segregated it still is. While in Cape Town, I don’t entirely feel like apartheid is a thing of the past (in fact, I’m doing a project for one of my classes on whether or not apartheid still exists at UC). However, I never had that looming feeling while in Durban or anywhere in the Drakensberg. It’s crazy how the most progressive and developed city in all of South Africa (Cape Town) is still also the deepest rooted in apartheid.

One random final note: one of the guys working at the South Africa border patrol told me I looked like Jesus. I’ve now gotten Jesus, Mr. Moses (from that guy on Table Mountain), and Chuck Norris (from the kids who I taught baseball to while volunteering). I’m still waiting on Abe Lincoln. Why would I ever shave?