To Dragon Mountain

Top of the world, Lesotho

It had been percolating for a long time, Kenya being the perfectly fertile soil for loneliness to plant her seeds in me.  Up she sprouted through my most vulnerable little heart as I made my way deeper into South Africa, and further away from those I love and miss so much.  Beyond missing my people from home, I was haunted by the little ghosts of the kids I’d grown so attached to in Kenya: were they safe, eating enough, healthy?  Could they feel how much I missed them?  I thought perhaps I could outrun it, even if it meant only temporarily filling my heart’s fissures with the beauty of this wild country.  But alas, it was not to be: I could neither run not hide from my sad self.

So while I didn’t anesthetize with booze or drugs like so many of my jolly European roommates, I did greedily lap up my personal drug of choice, the great outdoors.  South Africa is the perfect country to be such a junkie, and I took full advantage.  It seemed only appropriate to make my way downwards into Drakensberg, the Dragon Mountains, battling as I was with the monster loneliness.  With Cry, the Beloved Country tucked snugly in my pack, I was eager to see what the fuss was all about.  It didn’t disappoint.  

No Idea

We wound our way through the table mountains and deep velds, hillsides dotted with rotundas, grazing livestock, and segregated black Xhosa neighborhoods: this country, like mine, has a long way to go when it comes to segregation.  I learned how to braai from some gentlemanly South Africans, climbed the second highest waterfall in the world, and even more precariously, climbed down.  On a day trip into Lesotho, I shared homemade maize beer in a smokey rotunda with some local Basotho as they taught me about this their country, the highest in the world.  With every gritty sip I shared from the plastic cup circling the darkened room, I appreciated it more; at least, I tried.

My last day in the berg included a solo hike for which I felt (mostly) prepared.  I slathered myself in SPF 1000, packed liters of water, and carried a well-worn map.  I bought my hiking permit and headed towards the first of the summits before encountering the first of the day’s disasters.  There, staring back at me, was a teenager: a baboon teenager.  I’d been told they were harmless, but I knew better: they were muscles with teeth, rabies with tails, and I was scared out of my wits.  When the teen was joined by her big brother and an entire baboon army, I’d had enough: I fled.  In my hasty escape from their collective barking, I became a ballerina of sorts.  I leapt, and pirouetted, and virtually rolled down the steep incline, ass over teakettle.  I twisted my love handles right out of their cozy little sockets and skewered my unsuspecting forearm on some rusty barbed wire.  I arrived at the base a bloody mess, but invigorated: as far as I was concerned, I’d defeated certain death, Katie 1, Baboon Army 0.  The proprietor, surprised at my sudden return less than 2 hours into a 6 hour hike, gave me some encouragement and convinced me to try again.  I grudgingly made my way back up, determined to find the waterfalls everyone kept talking about and see this trek through.

Once again I arrived to the top, breathless and startled: there, staring back at me, were 3 enormous elands.  I appreciated their less-rabid company and continued across the plateau in quiet, alert for poisonous snakes and trying not to squash any lizards.  Several peaceful sweaty hours later, with my epidermis slowly melting away, I admitted defeat: I was lost, running out of water, and most assuredly, becoming crispy baboon bait, a Katie biltong of sorts.  Sadly, there would be no skinny dipping or scaling waterfalls today.  Instead, if I was lucky, I’d find someone willing to share a frosty consolation beer and some aloe vera.  Though I didn’t fully escape my sadness, I gave myself some credit: at least I escaped the baboons.