The day before my son went back to Cape Town, we went on a hike in the Magaliesberg. Well, it started out that way. It ended up by God getting me back for all the horrible things I've done to Him.
My nephew, who's done this before, warned us: "Don't go in the fast group. They're insane. Go in the middle group." So when the guide said "Leisure over there, Medium minus over there, medium plus over here," we went with medium plus. I thought there would be a fast group that followed. Big mistake. Medium plus is hike-speak for fast. These long, sinewy silent types that look sardonic even when they'e pissing into the wind. The tall woman's badges on her backpack said: "Santiago de Compostela Pilgrimage Walk - 880km", and "Drakensberg Grand Traverse - 220km". These weren't poser-badges. She'd actually done them.
By the time my son and I realised that our group's cracking pace was not just a warm-up burst, it was too late. "Our friends seem to have lagged behind," I said to our guide during the twenty second drinks break. "We'll wait here for their group to catch up". "Oh no," he says, "They turned right about four kilometres back. They're slow." The last phrase was said dismissively, as one might disregard a lower species.
This posed a problem. "What time will we get back? We're all in the one car," I said. "The same time," he said, cheerily. "But this group is hiking 22km," I pointed out. "The middle group is only doing twelve."
"Exactly," he said, and walked/ran off to lead our group of sardonic former Reconnaisance Commandos. Then the penny dropped, and with it, my stomach. We would be hiking 22km in the same time my nephew and his friend - oh you lucky buggers - would be hiking twelve.
I don't know if you've ever hiked cross country before, but it's an entirely different experience from walking on even ground. There are no footpaths, roads or anything vaguely flat. There are thick, snagging tufts of grass which hide rocks just loose enough to deprive you of a firm foothold. For the inexperienced hiker trying to keep up with those who can read this terrain like a book, you don't walk so much as lurch. It's a fast-forward stumble, and it was due to continue for the balance of our 22kms.
It was about this time that I realised I was wearing the wrong shoes. Somewhere among our many moves my hiking boots had been nationalised by the cleaning staff, and I was wearing some very upmarket black suede ankle length boots. Not appropriate I grant you, but in my outdoor-challenged wardrobe, they were the best of a bad lot. Just how bad, my feet were now beginning to tell me. And the right boot was beginning to complain audibly. Step groan. Step groan. Please God, stay in one piece, I prayed. We were too far gone to be bootless. In this terrain, to be bootless was as good as being quadriplegic.
In addition to all the above, another reason hiking is one of the most character-building activities I've done, is that the hills in the Magaliesberg are cruelly dome-shaped. They're not honest. In the Drakensberg, the terrain is lest duplicitous. You can see the top of whatever mountain you're hiking toward. Not the Magaliesburg. What looked like the top of the hill turns out to be a nipple on a convex slope that teases you with one mock-summit after the next, all the while leading you inexorably upward. If the Magaliesburg was female she would be the ultimate tease.
Fortunately, unlike the female variety, the Magaliesburg is a tease that delivers. After about eleven kilometres of lurching up one side of innumerable domes and staggering down the other, we slotted into a ravine drenched with greenery and the clearest, coolest water I've ever seen.
The ravine sloped gently upward, and after a few easy rock-climbs we found ourselves at a place my sardonic colleagues called 'Dome Pools'. Six metre deep granite pools so clear you could make out the grains of sand at the bottom. Waterfalls and rapids so crisp and cool you could fill your water bottles from them. Evian and Perrier tasted like drain water by comparison. There was no road, footpath, contour path, cattle path - nothing to give away their existence.
They were literally in the middle of nowhere. We stretched out and unpacked our lunches from our backpacks. The silence was so complete that for awhile, talking felt like sacrilege. Just a forty minute drive from Joburg, and we were in a cathedral so gentle, calm and sacred just thinking about leaving filled you with regret.
Realizing we had to, and that we had eleven more kilometers to cover at the same pace we'd hiked the first eleven, filled me with undiluted terror.
But that was in fifteen minutes. Right now, my son and I looked at our reflections in the water, ate our sandwiches, and chatted about small, insignificant things. It was the best time I'd spent with him in months.
The journey back would be hellish (for me, not for him), and it was. The next day would be even worse. (It was. Getting out of bed felt like being tortured by a hundred gargoyles while walking on red-hot coals.)
But for those moments at Dome Pools, it was as if all our arguments turned into water and dissipated into the cold Magaliesburg granite, and all that was left was each other, stripped down to the silent basic essences of who we were.
And in that essential solitude, we saw and valued what was in the other. Like the hike home, there was a journey to come. It would not be easy. But now we knew each other. We were a team. And that made all the difference.
Yes, God got me back. He got me back like He always does - by giving me unexpected gifts I don't deserve.
My nephew, who's done this before, warned us: "Don't go in the fast group. They're insane. Go in the middle group." So when the guide said "Leisure over there, Medium minus over there, medium plus over here," we went with medium plus. I thought there would be a fast group that followed. Big mistake. Medium plus is hike-speak for fast. These long, sinewy silent types that look sardonic even when they'e pissing into the wind. The tall woman's badges on her backpack said: "Santiago de Compostela Pilgrimage Walk - 880km", and "Drakensberg Grand Traverse - 220km". These weren't poser-badges. She'd actually done them.
By the time my son and I realised that our group's cracking pace was not just a warm-up burst, it was too late. "Our friends seem to have lagged behind," I said to our guide during the twenty second drinks break. "We'll wait here for their group to catch up". "Oh no," he says, "They turned right about four kilometres back. They're slow." The last phrase was said dismissively, as one might disregard a lower species.
This posed a problem. "What time will we get back? We're all in the one car," I said. "The same time," he said, cheerily. "But this group is hiking 22km," I pointed out. "The middle group is only doing twelve."
"Exactly," he said, and walked/ran off to lead our group of sardonic former Reconnaisance Commandos. Then the penny dropped, and with it, my stomach. We would be hiking 22km in the same time my nephew and his friend - oh you lucky buggers - would be hiking twelve.
I don't know if you've ever hiked cross country before, but it's an entirely different experience from walking on even ground. There are no footpaths, roads or anything vaguely flat. There are thick, snagging tufts of grass which hide rocks just loose enough to deprive you of a firm foothold. For the inexperienced hiker trying to keep up with those who can read this terrain like a book, you don't walk so much as lurch. It's a fast-forward stumble, and it was due to continue for the balance of our 22kms.
It was about this time that I realised I was wearing the wrong shoes. Somewhere among our many moves my hiking boots had been nationalised by the cleaning staff, and I was wearing some very upmarket black suede ankle length boots. Not appropriate I grant you, but in my outdoor-challenged wardrobe, they were the best of a bad lot. Just how bad, my feet were now beginning to tell me. And the right boot was beginning to complain audibly. Step groan. Step groan. Please God, stay in one piece, I prayed. We were too far gone to be bootless. In this terrain, to be bootless was as good as being quadriplegic.
In addition to all the above, another reason hiking is one of the most character-building activities I've done, is that the hills in the Magaliesberg are cruelly dome-shaped. They're not honest. In the Drakensberg, the terrain is lest duplicitous. You can see the top of whatever mountain you're hiking toward. Not the Magaliesburg. What looked like the top of the hill turns out to be a nipple on a convex slope that teases you with one mock-summit after the next, all the while leading you inexorably upward. If the Magaliesburg was female she would be the ultimate tease.
Fortunately, unlike the female variety, the Magaliesburg is a tease that delivers. After about eleven kilometres of lurching up one side of innumerable domes and staggering down the other, we slotted into a ravine drenched with greenery and the clearest, coolest water I've ever seen.
The ravine sloped gently upward, and after a few easy rock-climbs we found ourselves at a place my sardonic colleagues called 'Dome Pools'. Six metre deep granite pools so clear you could make out the grains of sand at the bottom. Waterfalls and rapids so crisp and cool you could fill your water bottles from them. Evian and Perrier tasted like drain water by comparison. There was no road, footpath, contour path, cattle path - nothing to give away their existence.
They were literally in the middle of nowhere. We stretched out and unpacked our lunches from our backpacks. The silence was so complete that for awhile, talking felt like sacrilege. Just a forty minute drive from Joburg, and we were in a cathedral so gentle, calm and sacred just thinking about leaving filled you with regret.
Realizing we had to, and that we had eleven more kilometers to cover at the same pace we'd hiked the first eleven, filled me with undiluted terror.
But that was in fifteen minutes. Right now, my son and I looked at our reflections in the water, ate our sandwiches, and chatted about small, insignificant things. It was the best time I'd spent with him in months.
The journey back would be hellish (for me, not for him), and it was. The next day would be even worse. (It was. Getting out of bed felt like being tortured by a hundred gargoyles while walking on red-hot coals.)
But for those moments at Dome Pools, it was as if all our arguments turned into water and dissipated into the cold Magaliesburg granite, and all that was left was each other, stripped down to the silent basic essences of who we were.
And in that essential solitude, we saw and valued what was in the other. Like the hike home, there was a journey to come. It would not be easy. But now we knew each other. We were a team. And that made all the difference.
Yes, God got me back. He got me back like He always does - by giving me unexpected gifts I don't deserve.
1 comment:
dude. i did this hike on sunday, and it's really not all that dramatic.
all the religious references made this painfull to read. just FYI
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