VOLUPTUOUS PEAKS

Pikachu eyes a voluptuous peak

IN JULIA'S WORDS

9 April, Tuesday

Route A1 that plods and clamours through Butha-Buthe, to Mokhotlong and on to Sani Pass is woven through the sexiest of landscapes – well, sexy to those who delight in buxom women. It’s a raunchy eyeful of breast after voluptuous breast-shaped peaks, many topped by proud nipples. 

The place we’ve stopped – Sani Pass Lodge – throws me through another notch in reality, this time in place not time. The pub on the cliff’s edges is none other than the pub on the cliff’s edges of Rhossili, a village in south Wales. 

Rehana notes that I look more Welsh here: my hair wind-scrambled blondish floss, my eyes a brighter green. It’s Rhossili’s pub in the smell of pub food and booze, worn wooden tables, the cliffs outside, and crooner’s tunes played on the big-screen TV - those of Bonnie Tyler and Stevie Wonder.

A man who should have had a bit part in My Big Fat Greek Wedding just came to tell us it’ll snow here tonight. Just as well we declined to camp. We’re in the backpackers quarters instead.

And hopefully the forecast is right, and we shan’t be inching our way down Sani Pass - the steepest 4x4 route in the world - not only on brutal roads, but on icy ones too. 

Vegetation at the top of Sani Pass - heather or fynbos?

IN REHANA'S WORDS

Tuesday April 9, 2013

I’m not at all stiff from my hour-long pony ride yesterday and for that I have to thank the St James netball team. They invited us to train with them yesterday, and although we only joined them for the last 15 minutes or so, the bossy teenager in charge gave us a proper workout.  There were enough squats in her routine to chase away the stiffness threatening my thighs.

What a village! I’m so glad we’re up here in this mountain village. The high school girls are as eager to learn from us as we are from them. They ask us such brilliant questions about ourselves, about our reasons for coming to stay in their village. One of the girls interrogated me about the kind of friends Julia and I were, where we first met and how we knew that we wanted to take this trip together. She didn’t seem very convinced by my unprepared, halting answers. Every woman we passed on the ramshackle roads stopped to talk and teach us Sotho.

We realised yesterday that the stone building in front of the lodge was the primary school, and their day ended with beautiful music. St James truly is the singing village. They should post themselves on Youtube.

Elias and Rehana at the end of the ride

My pony ride was fun. It’s been years since I was last on a horse, but it’s like riding a bicycle. I found my seat quickly. The land wasn’t flat enough for anything faster than a trot and most of the time Elias and I had to cajole our horses up steep slopes and down them again.

The people of St James live uphill and downhill. There’s no benefit to either location: if you live downhill and visit a friend up the mountain, you have to go up and down again and so do they when they come a visiting. 
The kids scamper up and down the slopes to get to school, and so do the goats, the sheep, horses and donkeys. I didn’t see any gogos going up the mountain to the village above; social lives must be badly constrained when arthritis sets in.

We left St James this morning and set off to our next destination: Sani top. The road was awful and we switched to 4x4 mode halfway. What a car we have: willing to take on boulders and dongas and corrugated ruts. The landscape was spectacular, scrubby like the fynbos slopes of the Cape mountains, with lush patches of bright green in places.

The road followed a river, which rewarded us with waterfalls to admire along the way. I say “us” but this isn’t true. Whoever is driving is forced to keep her eyes on the road, looking out for sharp boulders and dongas. And the earthmoving equipment the Chinese workers were using to repair the road. There were sheep and goats on the road, with minders wrapped in blankets and balaclavas.

A Chinese road builder and his colleagues on Sani Pass

There’s an icy wind blowing at the top of the Drakensburg. We booked a campsite at Sani Mountain Lodge but quickly changed that to a backpackers’ room. The pub has two roaring fireplaces and we're hunkering down, taking Pikachu outside for briefs forays in the icy landscape when we work up the courage to go outside for a smoke.
I'll say it out loud: I’m chicken and proud.

THE GLORY OF MURALS

Baking in the April sunshine

Down in the gorge, a river runs

IN REHANA'S WORDS

Sunday April 7, 2013

Sitting on the stoep of St James Lodge, cobbled with grey and golden stone. The sun is setting behind us, and there’s a shadow climbing the mountain ahead. We’re ringed by mountains, terraced up to its highest slopes with fields of mielies, some stacked into neat rows of triangular bushels. People probably walk the distance we would call a hike to plant and tend and harvest their mielies.

For a village with a population of around 1 000 (my estimate) St James has a lot to offer. To our left is a gorge and the river that carved it flows between walls of black and grey. St James Catholic School probably contributes 400 souls to the village population. There’s a convent as well, with a garden rich with vegetables and late-season apricots.

The church is astounding. Built of ancient stone like many buildings in the village, every inch of it except the floor has been decorated with the most intricate murals.

Inside St James Church

Phineas who opened the church for us

The children at the school have big dreams, but you can hear the nerves in their voices when they ask casually, “so how is it in Joburg?” You look at their beautiful, hopeful, ambitious faces and you want to warn them to stay away from the shitty city. You start to explain that you’re so glad you escaped from there to here, but you can’t crush their dreams. Yes, you can study pharmacy there, and engineering, you tell them.

There’s a shadow climbing up the mountain. It’s shaped like an eagle. I don’t know when last I watched a shadow climb a mountain. The ring of peaks to the left is bathed in rosy sunshine.

I tried to read earlier, but I couldn’t. There’s too much to do, too much to see in this tiny village and down in the gorge where the river winds its way through the mountains. 
I’m glad we’re choosing places like this village, where people stop to ask who you are and tell you a little about themselves. A few days into our trip and we’re already learning so much.

Oh, one last thing about being a member of the Landcruiser family – when I woke up and stepped out of the rondavel this morning, there was a wizened old man smiling at me, before I had my first cup of coffee which may have allowed me to return his smile. “Lesiba,” he said, pointing at himself. 
Elias, our host at the lodge, explained that the man played a lesiba, a traditional instrument, which was now being waved in front of my face. The man was going to play for me, Elias said, and I should give him money afterwards.

The lesiba has a mournful tone

A few minutes later Elias presented me with a menu for St James community tourism. We could hike to the river for R400 with a guide who will cost R80; we could do a village tour for R250 each and have lunch thrown in at someone’s house, who should also be paid. Or we could do a pony trek. 
I chose the pony trek. It was the cheapest item on the menu, but those who know me know that I really love horses and was planning a ride in Lesotho long before I got here.

Going back to my eagle-shaped shadow now. Can’t look down at a screen when there’s a spectacle of light and shadow playing on the mountains ahead of me.

THINGS I FEAR MOST ABOUT THIS JOURNEY I’VE PLANNED FOR YEARS

1. Toilets. Without a doubt my worst fear. So far so good. Noses pinched tight closed when we pass the pit latrines at St James Primary, but our lodge had a splendid en-suite offering with a fancy shower offering almost warm water. We were en-suite at Karmel Guest Farm as well, after we lowered our tent’s ladder right down to the steps of the bathroom door. Claw foot bath and all!

2. What if I don’t like this adventure? I don’t really like camping and I’m terrified of ablution blocks. Fortunately, I’ve made no promises (I hope) and we could go on holiday for a year to somewhere else if this doesn’t work out. Perhaps a tropical island with an all-inclusive resort?

3. Jules and I will snarl at each other when we can’t find a toothbrush, a tweezers or our gas tank key (don’t know yet whether we have one, or two). An adventure may test our relationship.

4. I will miss the people I love terribly. I’ve never been away for so long before. Our cellphones are working.

5. Personal safety. This fear shrunk to a peanut months ago when Outsurance told us we’ll pay much, much less after we cross the border. Since we left home there hasn’t been a locked door between us and the world – and it’s been just fine.