Weekend trip 2/2: Drakensberg

The post on Lesotho took ages, and I put off writing the second half in the hopes that Kyle and Jesse would share their photos from the trip, and I would have better pictures to put in this post (and edit in the last post). However, that appears to have been a vain hope, and I've put off finishing the trip for long enough. I can always come back and add more interesting photos later.

In the morning, Melissa had arranged for the rest of the group (Kyle, Keith, Jesse and herself) to go abseiling. Abseiling is what South Africans call repelling. I had said from the beginning that I was not going to participate, but Sunday dawned with bright and crazy, apparently, because I announced I wanted to do it too! We ate breakfast at the hostel, Inkosana, and then drove out to a field in front of a helicopter flight school. There was absolutely no one around, so we called the abseiling company, and they assured us that we were in the right place and sent the guide to find us. The spot was right around the corner from where we had parked, and it was a quick 25m hike to the spot. As soon as I got up there, I was like, "yeah, okay, never mind. I'm not doing this."

I deemed myself the official photographer instead, and I think I was much happier that way than if I had tried to push myself. I really thought at first that the first step was just to jump backwards off that sharp ledge, but it wasn't like that.... but still, I would not have done well. The theme of the entire second day of this trip sort of ended up being "Katie learning how to recognize and acknowledge her limitations like a self-aware adult." Oi.

So, the others all went abseiling. Twice. Keith went three times. I took pictures and enjoyed the scenery of the Champagne Valley in the Central Drakensberg.

Kyle abseiling.

After everyone finished abseiling, we drove to the entry to the actual park of the Drakensberg to do a hike, which was designed to take us to two waterfalls and take 2.5 hours round-trip. We were in an area called the Monk's Cowl, which may or may not actually be part of the Champagne Valley (depending on who you ask, it seems....). It was really easy going for the first bit, and the first waterfall only took about half an hour to reach. We also found the pools that feed the waterfall and went to investigate them; we had been warned it would be freezing in the Drakensberg, but it was actually hot and really sunny, so we were hoping the pools would be deep enough to swim in. They weren't, but some of us dipped our feet in anyway. The water was freezing cold, which was a nice shock to the system. It was also so pure that we could refill our water bottles there, and it tasted much better than the bottled water we had bought before we set out. Such a nice surprise!

Melissa, Jesse and Keith chilling at the pool.

Kyle filling his water bottle with real spring water.

Afterwards, we walked for ages and ages, and the sun was beating down on us, and I just started to.... not feel right. Part of it was of course just that I'm not the most athletic person in the world, and I was tired. But I also could feel that I hadn't eaten enough, and I certainly hadn't had enough water. I rested for a while, and tried to keep pushing on, but it got to the point where I realized that I am all too familiar with dehydration, I'm prone to dramatic bouts of needing IV fluids to rectify it when things get too far, and I just didn't want to deal with it. I was willing to admit failure and look a bit like a sucky hiker to everyone else in the group in order to.... not end up in that kind of situation again. So when we finally hit another 4-foot patch of the trail that in the shade, I got my water bottles and the food I had brought on the trail and stayed behind. It was a really, really good decision.

I've never had to actually stop in a situation like that -- not when I was hiking Huayna Picchu in Peru, or climbing up to the Treasury at Petra.... it always takes me a long time, but I always make it. So this was a bit strange, and I'm not sure why it was so extraordinarily difficult or draining, but at least I knew enough to stop. My second moment of self-awareness of the day.

The others kept hiking, of course, so I had a while to sit and look around and just enjoy being in the area without watching where my feet were going. I also may or may not have napped for a little bit.... but they found me again (hooray!), and we headed back to the car. We passed a huge area that had clearly been burned in a controlled fire; everything on one side of the trail was black and ashy, and the other side was green and alive. I'm not really clear on why they do controlled burns in the Drakensberg, but there was a warning sign at the entrance to the park about it. We also saw a fire burning on our way down, which got bigger and bigger until the smoke was everywhere.

Black and green.

The ashy residue left behind.

Fire on the mountain.

When we got back to the car, we set off for Joburg directly. The "2.5 round-trip" hike took about 4 hours -- probably at least in part because of how much time everyone spent waiting for me, if we're honest (but I like to think that wasn't actually an hour and a half). Still, we left while it was still light out, which was good. We took highways pretty much the whole way back, stopping only for a quick dinner at Wimpy's again. We made it back in good time, and then I crashed into bed pretty shortly thereafter.