So, last week, Friday was supposed to be a “day of rest” but of course, I can’t miss out on an opportunity and Andrew had made a local friend who was going to take people hiking up the Lebombo Mountain. We have been living at the bottom of the mountain range for the last 4 weeks and every morning I get to watch the sun rise over it in the morning and the moon rise over it at night. It’s gorgeous.
Andrew’s friend, Ujoblani, told us about a cave in the mountain where there are man-eating giants. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to see man-eating giants? We began the journey in the little village of Mbutu. I had packed a small water bottle and even a book and my Bible thinking that I wouldn’t be that interested in the cave and would let the boys go in and I would sit outside and read. We left at 10:20am. We started out the journey with a
3 mile hike just to the base of the mountain, but then before we could go up the mountain, we had to check in at the soldier camp because we were going to be crossing the border into South Africa.
So,
1 mile later we reached the soldier camp. I was expecting a military base with army green barracks and men in uniform walking around. We walked up to four half-dressed men sitting in the back of a trailor playing cards. We sat down as they asked us, well us girls, those really “important” border crossing questions – our names, marriage status, will we come visit them again? We hiked the
1 mile back to the base of the mountain and up we went. I can remember us already saying that we were tired. The hike was pleasant at first, but then was rocky and more steep. We estimated that was a
3 mile hike as well, but uphill. Ujoblani says he usually makes it up and down the mountain in 2 hours. It took us two hours just to get up the mountain. I don’t think he will want to take Americans on the hike again, well, at least American girls.
Once on the top, we had to walk down a little ways through brush to get to the cave. I seriously think every bush in Swaziland has two inch thorns! Luckily, some local kids joined us and I had my personal 8-year-old pricker-holder-backer. It was wonderful. After jumping over a small ravine, we made it to the cave. We were prepared for a hard-core cave, headlamps ready and everything. We got there and it was really just an indentation in the mountain. We took some pictures and then it was time to head back – very anti-climatic.
We headed the
3 miles back down. It was easier except I could continue to feel the blisters on my feet getting bigger. It went well despite some minor rather graceful slips into some pricker bushes. We got to the bottom and us girls had enough energy to make it back to the road, but then we were told we had to check in with the soldier camp again. The smiles on our faces no longer existed. So,
1 mile there,
1 mile back. Then, the last
3 miles dragged on. Morgan and Brady even tried to flag down a man going the opposite way and tried to pay him to take us back. Luckily we ran into one of our local contacts and his wife graciously gave us a ride home. So,
6 hours and
16 miles later we made it back to the camp. We immediately took off our shoes and compared blisters. I think some of us went into shock as us girls were cold and couldn’t stop laughing. We have recovered well though.
Things continue to go well at the carepoints. This upcoming week will be big as we will have our own transportation. Check out Morgan McKeown’s and James Spano’s blogs to find out more as well as blogs from Team Lego.
