We woke up early Saturday morning and were on the mountain at 9 for our hike. It was hot, but not anything ridiculous. When we looked up at the mountain, we thought that we would have to rock climb straight up because it looked that steep, however there were switchbacks that brought us back and forth up the mountain a little bit at a time. Our pace was pretty fast, even though this climb was hot, steep, and exhausting. At this point I was very happy I had been running a bit because it better prepared me. We reached the end of this steep climb in an hour, which is the quickest Hestea said she’s ever done with any AIFS groups in her other 23 trips. We all convened here and some at some lunch as we all took pictures of the amazing landscape. Other than the area with our few cabins and the land owner’s vineyard, there was no other signs of civilization in any direction. All that we could see was savannah terrain and mountains. Unfortunately none of these pictures do that view justice, but at least you can kind of check it out.
At this point we split up into 3 groups, one headed back down, another went an easier route to the top, and the final went up through the cracks. I chose to go up through the cracks along with about ¾ of the group. This part was a lot of fun. There wasn’t as much vertical climb as it was climbing and squeezing through different cracks and in different caves. This definitely helped us bond a little bit more because we at times needed to work together to give people a hand or a boost to get through different areas. I ended up doing a lot of helping along the way because Terry told Hestea that I was an experienced climber. However I am not an advanced climber or hiker, but when you put a bandana on people just assume all types of things. This wasn’t a big deal because nothing was really that crazy that we faced. Thes caves were really cool to climb through and at times we made them a little bit harder than necessary like when Terry, Jeff, Angelo, and I played the ground is lava and avoided the ground by climbing on ledges and whatnot for a long time. I was well prepared for these tasks from all the times we played the floor is lava in this suite trying to reach the refrigerator without touching the ground or shimmying through our hallways trying to see how far we could make it before falling. The last challenge was crawling through this little area just larger than our bodies, but with Jeff pulling everyone through it went pretty
quickly. When we reached the top again the view was unbelievable to the point where I can’t even describe it.
At this point we again split up into 2 groups and one headed back while whoever wanted could go an hour and a half further to the Cederberg Arch. Hestea was pretty strict about who was allowed to go this added bit based on how people were feeling and how much water we had. Me and 12 others decided to go for the Arch. After we reapplied suntan lotion, we headed out quickly because another 3 hours was going to put us back home pretty late. The ground had leveled out a lot up here and it was just minor rocky hills that we had to climb over. The sun was beating down hard, but since we were so high there was a real nice breeze keeping us cool. When we got closer to the Arch we again needed to climb up a steeper mountain, but this wasn’t too bad. The Arch looked really cool and being able to see it for a long time leading up to it gave us a nice boost to work our way to the top.
Reaching it finally was an extremely satisfying feeling. Our group of 13 was very proud of what we accomplished as we sat in the shade of the Arch and shared snacks and drank some water.
After basking in the glory of our accomplishment for a while, we headed out for the descend. This part was a lot less fun. We made pretty good time on the way back until we hit that first steep part we had climbed up about 2 hours into our return trip. At this point the sun was the hottest and there was no respite from its rays and our legs were starting to get tired, but we had to be sure it didn’t make us careless because a fall would have made for a long tumble. At this point I was leading with JP, one of the drivers, right behind me. Earlier we had seen some baboons far off in the distance and we had been discussing them for a while. Mainly these discussions were about how vicious and scary they are, so I had been keeping this in mind our whole trip. It was at one point when I was passing a cave that I heard a rustle, I immediately turned and yelled “JP THERE’S SOMETHING IN THAT CAVE!” I grabbed the biggest rock I could find and ran down the trail a little bit, while JP and the rest turned and went back up. I was all alone and I remembered the advice that another driver, Grant, told me the night before “Don’t run or they will chase and attack you, just stand your ground and throw stuff at them and they will go away.” So with rock in hand I turned and looked up at the cave ledge ready to attack. As I turned I saw an older lady standing there confused about all the commotion below. I simply told her I thought she was a baboon, dropped my rock, and turned to continue down the mountain. Our legs felt like jello, we were exhausted, and had no more water; we were happy to finally reach the bottom at 4 about 7 hours after we had left.
As we were driving back to the cabins we found where all the baboons were hiding, stealing food from the campers right next to our cabins. They were chasing them away with sticks and apparently they had broken the mirrors off of one of the school cars we had brought. After this excitement, Sol, Adrienne, Sarah, JP, and I all went for a swim in the river to cool off. It was very refreshing after the long hike.
That night they made us a traditional South African stew, vegetable for us and beef for everyone else. It was delicious and extremely filling, well after the giant 2 servings that I had. I had gone with a few other people to a cabin to hang out that night without thinking about having to return. Then it hit me that I would have to walk the quarter of a mile back by myself in the dark to my cabin. This was easily the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. All I could think of while I was walking in the moonlight was of the crazy baboons that we had seen earlier. Since baboons have quickly become my greatest fear, this was not a soothing thought. Again I grabbed a rock and headed on my way. Thank god the moon was so bright or I’m not sure I would have made it very far, but I moved quickly and made it back to my bed without a scratch. I feel asleep around 10:30 after that very tiring day and slept like a baby.
On Sunday we headed to check out some caves where San Bushman had left cave drawings 8,000-15,000 years ago. I was completely taken back by that huge number and that I was standing where people had stood so long before. The drawings were simple ones of hunters, elephants, or handprints, but absolutely amazing that they had stood the test of time, while my mom says you are suppose to repaint rooms of your house every 5-10 years. Like all parts of South African history, this history of some of the people native to the land was also clouded by that of Apartheid. In a large cave very close to these painting, the walls were filled with names and dates from 1882 to the early 1990’s. These caves were used as secret meetings of the racist Apartheid regime, since they were so far from anywhere. When meetings were held they, would write their names and the dates on the walls. These names included extremely famous people in South Africa history including P.W. Botha, the last president of the Apartheid era. It was interesting to see these names of black native South African oppression scribbled across the walls of such an important and beautiful part of the history. It was easy to see the disgust on the face of our AIFS assistant resident director, Angelo, who is a black South African while seeing these names ruining this wonderful place. We then got some free time to wonder around exploring caves and climbing more rocks and stuff. Here's a picture of one of the little guys that i had climbed.
This really was a cool place to visit and happy we got to spend time there. After 2 days of hiking and climbing, I was talking to some girls in the caves and took a step back, tripped on a rock sprained my ankle and cut my knee. Neither of these injuries were serious, barely leaving me with a limp when I got off the ground and not dropping the sandwich I was eating, but it was funny after so much activity and crazy feats, I fell down while I was just standing talking to someone. All and all it is a weekend I will never forget!
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