Rocking in the Mountains in SA

The Rockies may crumble,
Gilbraltor may stumble,
they're only made of clay
but hard core hiking is here to stay.

No Rockies here, but there is the Drakensberg mountain range here. Lesotho, the only country in the world completely surrounded by another country (South Africa) is situated right in the middle of the range making the entire country a mountainous region. I went camping in the Central Drakensberg, outside of Lesotho in a place called Injasuti. Berg means mountain in Afrikaan, German and other related languages.

It's a real rainy area similar to Vancouver- not that I would hike around the grey concrete jungle of Downtown Vancouver with a backpack stuffed with army ration, stoves, powdered food and tuna cans. It's a not easy being green. . .especially when you are full of rivers that hikers have to ford. In wet tackies (runners), cotton socks and zip-away pants I step from one current immersed rock to the next. Next thing I know, I am thigh high deep in water. Not that it makes a difference from walking in the downpour. It just adds 5 lbs to each leg as I continue on my way.

The neat thing about this area are the rock paintings by the San people, or the bushpeople who migrated up to the Kalahari desert. They hunted Eland (biggest antelope), giraffes, turtles and ostriches. They even had signals for each animal. They used a lot of clicking in their language which the Zulu borrowed. Rock paintings the guide showed us included eland, rhinos and a battle scene with local Black farmers.

We slept in a cave the first night (actually more of an overhang) and the sound of rushing rivers lulled us to sleep. This is actually a bit disorienting especially when you get confused with the sound of rain and the sound of river.

A highlight of the area are the marble baths a winding smooth river area that you can use as water slide. However, drastic results from this activity included raw backs and torn shorts.