Did You Eat Your Holiday Well?

23 April 2009
Did you eat your holiday well?

Success! Thank you again to everyone who donated money to the KLM Scholarship Foundation! We were the 3rd highest fundraisers and are helping some awesome, deserving kids go to a great school and hopefully on to university. The marathon was also a great success. A whole bunch of PCVs and community members got up bright and early to do the 21km walk/run from the top of Longtom Pass down into the town of Lydenberg. It was a beautiful day and everyone had a wonderful time despite the blisters! We even had a few PCVs complete the 56km ultra marathon! Woah!

The following morning 14 of us haggled a ride down to begin our hike in the Drakensberg Mountains, which border the east side of Lesotho. We hiked out of the backpacker (hostel) where we were staying and on to the Giant’s Cup hiking trail. Day one was without incident. It rained for about 30 minutes but it didn’t slow us down as we snaked up mountains, leapt over streams and enjoyed the amazing views. In case you didn’t know, it was the Drakensberg Mountains that inspired J.R. Tolkin to write his Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. The first night on the trail we spend in a semi-gutted house with bunk beds and a large fireplace. Luckily all of the places we stayed had water- for drinking at least.

We started off Day Two with high spirits but ended up walking out of the hut first thing in the morning and taking a wrong turn. By the time we figured out our mistake we were a ways from where we wanted to be. But have no fear! We had 20+ college degrees, an eagle scout and a map, no problem. Turns out our map was only about 75% correct. Enough correct that you were tempted to believe it, but enough false to get us a bit lost. So we made our best guess and headed straight up a trail to the top of a serious mountain (roughly 2000+ foot elevation climb in about 1.5km). At the very top we came to a large beautiful plateau, which had 8,000 year old San Bushman rock art and secluded waterfalls. It was absolutely beautiful and amazing! So we lounged in the shade for a while and had a long picnic lunch, all the while thinking we were on the right track. Eventually we began our decent only to find that the trail ended! After much map consultation, pointing and squinting and group discussion we decided to “free style” our way off the other side of the plateau. I won’t go in to details, but I think that if you asked any of us about the two hours we spent getting down the mountain we would all say it turned out to be much harder and more stressful than we could have guessed. Thankfully our map reading skills and determination came through and we caught up with the trail and made it to the hut within moments of night falling. Eish.

After a heck of a Day Two, Day Three was a piece of cake. And it ended up with a beer from a local bar, a fantastic lightening storm and taking shelter in rondovals.

The final morning we caught a ride back to the back packer where we started and spend the next couple of days recovering and enjoying the area. It was a wonderful vacation and I am continually impressed with the amazing and varying beauty of South Africa.

It is nice to be back at home again and school has gotten off to a busy start. In addition to the literacy and computer classes I taught last quarter, I am also doing some small group work with Grade 4 and helping start an income generating project to benefit the Drop In Centre.

I have officially booked my tickets to come home to CO for a visit 18 June- 13 July. I am looking forward to family, friends, food and fireworks! I hope to be able to see anyone who is around! Just let me know and I will pencil you into the schedule of fun! See you soon!