6 October 2015: Spring break hike to Semonkong

          October 4^th was Lesotho’s independence day (from England in 1966 in case you care), so for the week of spring break/independence break, I managed to convince Chelsea, Kyle, Lea, and Kristin to hike from my house to Semonkong, a town roughly 50 km (as the crow flies) north of my village. The appeal of Semonkong is that it has a giant waterfall, and, incidentally, the “largest commercially-operated abseil [repel] in the world,” plus a nice lodge/restaurant we planned to camp at when we got there. We planned for 2 or 3 days, depending on how fast we walked or how lost we got.

On Monday, I walked down the hill to the road with Bo to wait for their taxi to arrive. It was exciting to have visitors to my village for once. The only other time someone came to my village was when Lee came in January or some time around then. The road has been mostly graded since then, so their trip was (relatively) comfy cozy on the way down here. They were all tired and sweaty from the taxi ride, so we decided to head down to the river, where we promptly decided not to swim, as we had attracted a sizeable group of kids asking us for candy. I kinda plopped Bo in the water just to see how he’d like it. He didn’t seem to mind the water, but it was too shallow to swim. We then hauled ourselves (and the food I had asked them to bring from town) up the hill again to my house. My ‘me was excited to meet all of them.

          Over a game of Canasta, we roughly planned our starting route over the big mountain across the valley and to Colleen’s house, our mid-day goal. We had asked one of Colleen’s teachers how to get there, as he had led scout hikes from his school to mine and back, so we trusted he knew the way. However, both my ‘me and my oldest abuti (back from high school for the break) said that the way the teacher had suggested was no good because apparently there were a lot of dogs that way. That route would have led to the red and white striped cell tower at the top of the mountain. Instead, we decided to go up the other side.

          Route planned(ish), we made a delicious meal of couscous with raisins, onions, butternut, carrots, and tomatoes. The r
ussians (sausages) we ate were the result of me going to the shop with the intention of buying chicken, but realizing there were only chicken heads, feet, and livers available, I reached for the Russians in the freezer. The shop lady told me something like I couldn’t buy those because she was just keeping them frozen for someone else, but she grabbed a different bag and rung those up for me. Protein, check. I was happy to be able to have an excuse to cook the (expensive!) couscous I found in Maseru. Having experienced Friday Family Couscous in Morocco, in my mind, couscous needs to be a group event. You can’t respectably eat couscous by yourself. After eating, like clockwork, we fell into the all too familiar couscous coma.

          The next morning, we packed up and headed off to tackle what I have informally named Thaba [mountain] Grande, that big sucker that dominates every view from my village. The hike up wasn’t too bad- granted, we had fresh legs (except Chelsea and Kyle, who had hiked all day out of their village to the camp town, this as an alternative to their taxi that has inspired several horror stories). After reaching the top, we wound around to the side of the mountain, where we found some beautiful little villages. We ended up on some road that took us up the back of the mountain, and guess what, we saw the cell tower right there- the one we had probably reached in about half the time had we gone the way the teacher had recommended. We likely wasted a bunch of time circumnavigating the mountain, but it was a pleasant hike and the scenery was beautiful as always.

          We wandered around along different paths for a few more hours, asking every other person we came across if we were heading in the right direction, and consulting a blurry map printed from Google maps. We had wanted to get a legit map from the land survey office in Maseru, but every time one of us went to get it, they were closed for one reason or another or the printer was broken. From a sloped path on the ridge, we finally saw the paved road and a school. We took a chance and guessed that it was Colleen’s school, and descended down toward it. Luckily, it was, and we found her in the staff room grading some tests that she was reviewing with the Form Cs. Since they would be taking their exit exams very soon, the Form Cs were in school for the week of the break to get some last minute revision in. We sat in the staff room with her, and she told us all about how she was in the middle of negotiating with PC to try to stay at her site even though there have been 5 murders in her village. Between rival Famu [ear-splitting Sesotho music] gangs fighting, butcherings due to advice of the local witch doctor, and land disputes ending in a shopkeeper’s murder, PC thinks it’s not such a nice place for her to live anymore. She managed to convince PC that she needed to stay because she was helping a Form E student apply to colleges in the US since she had won a special scholarship. She elaborated on the nightmare that was the logistics and execution of getting this student to Durban to take the TOEFL.

          We soon left her village, needing to cover a lot more ground before nightfall. We followed one valley that we hoped would bring us to our next big landmark, the Senqu river. Our final descent, following the directions of a herder with perfect English, led us down a path where we were able to see the elusive spiral aloe plant. We were all slipping and sliding down this path of loose rocks, then we arrived into a village. A girl, maybe ten years old, walked with us as we trekked through the village. This often happens- people who are bored or curious will just walk with us for a little while, talking with us and asking questions. While the rest of us kind of ignore these people, Kristin is very happy to entertain their conversation and chats everyone up.

          We saw a suitable place to camp for the night and asked the girl if it was ok if we camped here. She gripped each side of her skirt with her hands, her arms turned out and straightened, as she insisted that we had to go see the chief and tell him that we wanted to spend the night in the village. We were so exhausted by this point that we tried to tell her that this probably wasn’t necessary, and that we would be perfectly content here. She kept insisting, so we just told her to go tell the chief that we were here. She came back with him, and he was incredulous at our choice of camping site. Lee kept insisting that we would be fine, already starting to boil water on his little camp stove. The chief wanted us to go to his house and stay there on his land. We just wanted to eat and go to sleep, and we weren’t looking for someone making a big deal out of us. Eventually, he was like “ok, well, I don’t approve of your choice, but whatever.” He started to walk away when Chelsea pointed out that, Basotho being very passive aggressive, he was probably going to send some bad voodoo our way. With Colleen’s story about the witch doctor telling a mom to butcher her kids fresh in our minds, we got a little freaked out and promptly gathered up our stuff and followed the chief back to his house. After a little walk and crossing a stream, we got to his compound and started to unpack and set up our tents. We had a bit of an audience as expected, but they only talked to us for a short while and then left us alone to cook our soya mince. One of the girls talking with us, in some crazy coincidence, had graduated from the school Lee currently teaches at. She also had a baby tied to her back, and she told us that the baby on her friend’s back was its twin. Twins are really rare here for whatever reason. She had named them Mpho and Limpho, Gift and Gifts. I thought this was amusing, but if I were Mpho, I would always be jealous of Limpho, because multiple gifts, being plural, will always be superior to just one gift.

          We woke up, thanked the chief and his family, and headed off again. We made it to the huge Senqu river. We waded out to a sand bar in the middle and took a break to swim and wash some clothes. After that, we crossed to the other side and walked through a village where many of the rondovals were made with walls of vertically lined up tree branches. We sloughed out way up a steep incline that we hoped would somehow give us some potential energy to slingshot down the next valley that branched to the right. Up at the top, it was super windy, but this was refreshing, as the sun had come out and it was keeping us cool. We stopped at a little trickling spring where we used a herdboy trick of putting a piece of plastic in the stream to redirect the water enough to fill our water bottles. Don’t worry, mom, we had iodine tablets.

          After a few more hours of walking, it started to rain and the wind was blowing dirt and sand all over the place. Thankfully, we had stopped at a school to see if their taps or water tanks had water we could refill with. Chelsea, Kyle, and I took refuge in this little empty rondoval that used the thick, asparagus-looking trunks of the tree thing that grew out of the giant aloe plant as walls. With a break in the rain, we all converged at a working tap to fill up, but the rain started again, and we all huddled in or behind the block of toilets nearby. We hung out here a while, using the excuse that we needed to wait for the storm to fully pass. When we figured the storm was gone, we packed up again and kept walking. By this time, I had several very painful blisters on my left foot, and my right foot was taped up to support the arch whose ligaments had been injured in the Thaba Mokhele debacle several months earlier. I was very happy when we decided to stop for the night, finding a really nice, sheltered spot near the river. We made ramen noodles over a fire and settled in.

          The next morning, we headed off in the hopes of reaching Semonkong mid-afternoon. We just had to keep trucking until we got there. The landscape turned from smooth mountain slopes to sharp cliffs, and we had to keep crossing the river in order to find the path. Eventually, we got to the big mama mountain, which we were told was the last thing between us and Semonkong. We saw the switchback trail from the base of the valley. This wouldn’t be easy. As we bushwhacked up to the trail, the mountainside got steeper and steeper, like a 45 degree (or more) pitch for a lot of the way. I was grabbing at plants to keep from sliding backward. This path would definitely not be doable on the way down. You’d just end up sliding on your butt all the way down. As per usual, Lee was chugging ahead, in his method of just getting it over with as fast as possible. Behind him was Kyle, who, in the “worst shape of his life” was at some points literally running up the mountain (in sandals) with a gigantic pack holding both his and Chelsea’s stuff, and he was even happily pointing out little rock rabbits he saw up in the cliffs. After this exhausting slog, we popped up on top, and an insane view of vivid green grass and blue sky opened up before us. Whew!

          We found a road, and realizing that we were a good three-hour walk to the actual town, we luckily found a passing pickup truck that we were able to pile into the back of. With the wind whipping around us, we glimpsed the famous waterfall to our right. Normally, we would have wanted to stop for a photo or two, but this truck was taking someone to the hospital in town, so we didn’t want to interfere with anything there. They dropped us off and pointed us to a path, saying that the lodge was that direction. More walking. Joy. Stiff and aching, we arrived at the lodge and managed to get the last camping spot. Lee, Kristin, and I promptly ran over to the frigid river for a swim, enjoying plunging in from the rope swing. Practically starving, we went over to the restaurant, super excited to eat something that wasn’t peanuts and raisins for once. Little did we know that this restaurant was perhaps the best in Lesotho. As per usual, Lee ordered almost everything on the menu, inhaling beet soup, a cheese platter (with the kinds of cheeses we had given up believing existed in this country), and some springbok carpaccio. And the bread basket! And real butter! Omg. Then the main course came out, a huge piece of braised lamb with vegetables and mashed potatoes. It literally fell off the bone. Then we finished off with some cherry crumble thing with whipped cream. I was in heaven. Apparently, the chef is American. This made me proud of the good ol’ stars and stripes.

We went back to the restaurant for breakfast, then headed off to the taxi rank, where we were able to get a taxi to Maseru pretty quickly. The trip was only 2 hours, and we got to the Maseru rank where Kyle and Chelsea headed north, Kristin got on a bus to the next town south, Mafeteng, and Lee and I went to Mohale’s Hoek. The next day, we hung out with the Hoekers at the hotel and I was so ravenous that I got a chicken basket (like chicken strips) from the awesome chicken place, then I split a big pizza with another volunteer from the hotel kitchen. As you can see, good food has become a highlight of my entries here.

          The next day, I completed the full loop by taxiing back to my village. Feet blistered and taped up, legs sore, joints aching, I arrived back at my house. We walked a total of about 45 miles, climbed 12,600 feet, and reached a maximum elevation of 8000 feet (thanks, Lee, for Google Earthing our path). Never did I think I would become such a hiker, but there is really no better way to explore and really get the feel for the country.