As I sit in a cabin behind Mnyameni peak aka Hog 3, watching the fireflies dance on the hillside in the dark Misty night (the same cabin where Tom my Canadian friend asked me for herbal recommendations for an upset tummy and he didn’t know why he had an upset tummy, maybe the eggs perhaps, who knows lol)
Seeing fireflies always takes me back to my childhood, and some of the things I would do for fun, or to get away from the world’s thoughts, was either cycle out of town or hike all around the area, always wanting to climb the only mountain in close proximity, the Tarka mountain, a mountain very similar to our Hog 1 (yes I stayed in Tarkastad for a big chunk of my adolescent years)
I have gone to the top of the mountain a few times with school and church groups, but never alone, till one day…
In my last year of high-school, I decided to take a hike and concor the mountain, but in my true young heart, I knew it had to be done my way, from the front up, as I loved wall climbing and rock climbing, but I didn’t have any equipment ( a bad worksman blames his tools, I didn’t have any, so I couldn’t blame them anyway, win win chicken din)
So off I went with a trumpeting trump, and I walked straight up to the foot of the mountain, which was an old abandoned railway station. I looked the mountain dead in the face and decided to hike straight up to the top where the cliff face meets the hill ( a 50m cliff)
With my knees still as fresh I walked, up up and away!!! With lungs burning more and more, the closer I get, my determination growing with each step.
Once at the bottom of the very intimidating cliff face ( I swear it looked sooo much smaller and easier when I contemplated doing it from my hostel window) I started looking for the easiest option to the top, with only a slight option to the left, so I decided to go left… up and up and up, one step, one hand, just breathe, up and up, a little to the right, And a little to the left. Don’t look down yet, but I want to! Oh wow I’m high up already! Focus Adi, focus!
Who knew the wind would blow ontop of the mountain, not me, not like the wind didn’t blow every time I went to the top of the mountain…
As I adjusted my hands the wind started playing with me, pulling me away from the cliff! Not my kinda game, I thought while hanging on with one hand, so I made my way to a little sheltered Ridge a little to the right… much better!
Making my way up along the corners of the Ridge seemed like a good way to make great ground, so up I went, clinging and pushing, till the next moment when a rock came whizzing past the left of me, oh no could it be a rock fall??!! Another one, this time to the right of me! I look up, and there they are, baboons!!! Throwing rocks and sticks at me, I thought! I am way to far up, to go back down, so I decide to make my way right and try to move as far away from them as possible without being killed! As I moved up and right, I noticed that I had come across a baboon “nest” on one of the ridges! Heart pounding, I made my way up and away from them, to the top!
Once I made it up to the top and most of the metallic taste of adrenaline had subsided, I sat in pure awe of what I had achieved, and the views that laid before me! I then decided to head back as selfies ontop of the mountains was yet to be invented, and my old NEC brick of a cellular phone had no idea it’s great grandkids would one day have built in cameras! So I decided to make my way back down. I decided to rather take the side route down and avoid any more baboon conflict!
That feeling of being ontop of a mountain has never left me, and it’s the closest feeling to flying I have felt without my wings!
Till next time folks
Adi Forestbeing