Climb teaches me how best to enjoy journey
THERE are many things you learn on the mountain.
I learnt that I didn’t pack properly. One pair of socks for a two-day hike is several pairs too few. One pair of shorts, when you’ve just lost your footing in an ice-cold stream is one pair too few – especially when they dry with a wonderful tea stain across your backside.
Or you can carry too much water. Enough to inspire a Capetonian to mug you, but too much to carry up the hill, so much that someone else has to carry your bag and almost blow their energy in the process.
I learnt that while Coca-Cola might be the bane of stressed mothers with hyperactive kids, it’s mother’s milk for fat, unfit 50-year-olds. I also learnt that five people can share a can of it – and get enough sugar rush for the next hill.
I learnt many other lessons on the mountain, too, but most of all I learnt to be myself in the company of others, to think about others before myself. To enjoy the journey and forget about the destination.
It’s a key part of the preparation for the Trek4Mandela. In five months’ time, the mountain won’t be in the central Drakensberg but in northern Tanzania, Africa’s highest point; the 5 895m Kilimanjaro. We are all equal, says Trek4Mandela founder Richard Mabaso. It’s not easy this climbing stuff, but then it’s not supposed to be, says his fellow founder, South African Everest legend Sibusiso Vilane.
He’s telling us what lies in wait, not the hike – 22km across and up through the Champagne Valley in the unspeakably beautiful Monk’s Valley Nature Reserve in the central Drakensberg and then across the face of Cathkin Peak before exiting hundreds of metres above the Sphinx and out – but rather Kili itself. He’s an expert, this year will be the 23rd time he’s got to the top.
“It’s a leg-stretcher,” says head guide Sibusiso Dlamini about the Drakensberg hike we are about to do, “it’s shaping up for the next one, it’s moderate, not very strenuous.” He’s lying. Or maybe it’s just been lost in translation.
“Thank you for letting us train with you,” says Vilane. He’s taking two Trek4Mandela alumni with him to Everest’s base camp in six weeks’ time.
As my thighs quake through the rain forest, the exertion is made all the more worth out by the incredible sights that play out. As I lie back and pant like a dog, I’m humbled as my mind spools back on the testimony session the night before in the briefing room at The Nest. The aspirant climbers stand up, introduce themselves and share with the rest of us why they’re doing this.
Some are doing it for the bucket list tick of climbing Kili, but all are doing it to make a difference to girls who would otherwise miss school a couple of days each month and imperil their ability of eventually matriculating.
“Each one of you is supporting 100 girls for a year, just by being here,” Mabaso tells us. “If you think Kili was exciting, wait until you go to the school you have nominated then you see the excitement, you listen to the girls and you hear their dreams.”
Kili hopeful Mags Natasen asks straight out: “Shouldn’t sanitary pads be accessible in restrooms across the country, just like condoms?” It’s a real question that goes to the heart of what Caring4Girls is all about – changing society’s priorities.
Trek4Mandela though is also about taking people who would never have thought about climbing a mountain and getting them out into the open.
Vickey Ganesh, a two-time Kili veteran, first-time Trekker fast becoming renowned as Super Vic for his willingness to help and carry people literally up hills, is waxing lyrical: “Mountains create the Earth, they form the clouds that bring the rain, they teach you humility.”
As for me, the Monk’s Cowl Valley has already humbled me. The next time we’re here,at the end of April, we will be doing it in reverse. I’ll pack more socks – and extra shorts.