RANDOM RAMBLINGS
It’s funny how simple items can unlock memories just as surely as old photographs. For me, that happened the other day when I hauled two hiking backpacks from the top of the bedroom cupboard where they’ve been sitting for almost 25 years.
A friend mentioned he was looking for a top-class hiking backpack, because he is getting into fitness and heading for the Berg shortly for a challenging climb.
In the end, he was offered one by someone else, so he didn’t need mine, but hauling them out – and trying them on (I had to adjust the waist belts a bit because I am no longer 25) – brought back memories of my short-lived “travel with everything on your back” phase of being a tourist.
The reality is that the two packs – one for my then girlfriend (now my wife) and one for me – were only used in anger once, on a three-day hike into the magnificent Chimanimani mountains on Zimbabwe’s eastern border with Mozambique.
Anyone who has been there will know what I am talking about: awesome, craggy quartzite-veined mountains; alpine valleys of waving grass, crystal clear streams and icy waterfalls. The hiking community in Zim know about it and, no doubt there are a few South Africans who also do, but it is an out-of-the-way treasure which, from what I can gather, has been little touched by political and other turmoil in Zimbabwe.
That’s because the national park itself – and a good chunk of the Chimanimani range is protected area – has been left to its pristine natural state. There is still the park “base camp” – although a Google search tells me it’s a bit run down these days – where you can stay prior to heading up into the range (a strenuous 90-minuteplus climb if memory serves).
Up at the top – behind the rocky wall – lies the valley, which feels (and is, I suppose) a hidden paradise. You can camp where you want there – for free. True story.
In those brand new backpacks, we took all of our food and a plastic bottle with the cheap Zim copy of Van Der Hum liqueur. That was for the chilly evenings. I wrote once that Chimanimani gives new meaning to the phrase “night falls”, as the sun goes down so rapidly, you can almost hear the night hit the earth with a thud.
Before 6pm we were zipped up in the tent, having eaten our awful soy meal (just add water to the plastic cup … lesson learned about weight saving also being taste saving), we turned on the battery power lamp and read books. We closed up because, in a remote environment like this, leopards are always something to worry about.
And the mornings were glorious. Unzipping the tent flap was, momentarily, like opening a fridge door, although the morning rapidly warmed.
The space – there were no other humans around – was at once eerie and soul-expanding. Later, on our way out, we stopped at the famous, and beautiful, Bridal Veil Falls (so called because it looks like a bride’s veil) and then spent a memorable evening at the local hotel.
The scalding hot bath – after days hiking – was heavenly, as was the huge pot of tea and sandwiches brought up by room service.
The hotel is still there, although judging by recent comments, is a bit patchy when it comes to realities like having electricity all the time, or even bacon and cheese for the burgers. But that’s more of a factor of life in Zim these days than any specific hospitality failing on the part of the hotel.
The two backpacks were never again used on serious hikes, although they were used by family members as substitute suitcases on camping trips a few times. And, I seriously don’t think I will be able to clamber up mountains, or sleep in a two-person tent, or eat soya meals again.
So, if you do know of a deserving home for two, hardly used backpacks…