On our final day in Lesotho, we had a rushed breakfast and set out in a small truck with five of our six guides, plus another adventure tourist Johannes from Germany, for the waterfall. Counting Gywen, that's nine of us plus gear in the truck. We drove to the falls, which took over 1/2 hour on terrible dirt roads. Upon our arrival, we were met by the sixth guide who brought additional gear on horseback. We went to a great vantage point to see the falls and left Gywen there to observe.
The rest of us followed the horse down a steep bank to the abseil location about 15 meters above the river and the top of the falls. The guides assembled everything while we took in the magnificent views of the gorge and marveled at the shepherd and his flock on the cliffs across the river. Before long, it was my turn to attach the harness and step backward over the cliff edge.
I began my decent. Due to the weight of the rope, it was not easy at first to pull the rope up through the harness and force myself down the face of the cliff. Before long, the cliff cut back a bit, leaving me to hang and spin as I slowly got lower. When I met the wall again, I could more normally walk myself backward down the cliff. A few minutes later I was even with the top of the falls. More spinning, more steps down, a few jumps outward to decend more quickly. Then I had great views of the massive falls to my side. I kept going until the mist started hitting me and making the cliff face more slippery. Closest to the bottom, it was like being out in the rain. Water was pouring down crevasses in the rocks, but I finally made it to a slightly sheltered indentation at the base of the falls where the guide was waiting to unhook me and walk me out of the river's furious spray. I had done it: 670 feet down the cliff, the 2701st person to ever do so (not counting guides)!
Next was Barry's turn, and I watched as his tiny figure descended further and further down the massive wall. All went well, except for a little slip on the wet rocks near the bottom. He quickly recovered and finished the descent. He climbed up the slippery canyon rocks to join me and we watched Johannes come down (and slipping in the same place). Once Johannes joined us, the three of us and two guides began the long climb more than 700 feet out of the canyon. This was the hard part! Fortunately, we stopped a couple of times on the way up to rest, have cool drinks, take in the amazing scenery, and ponder the sheep on the cliffs.
Once back at the top, we all piled back in the truck and took the dirt road back to the lodge. After showers and a nice lunch on the terrace, we settled our bill and got back in the car to leave.
The little VW actually made it up the rocky road in first gear, then through the puddle, past the horses, people, and shops to the main road. The beautiful road took us further through Lesotho past breathtaking mountain scenery and nearly unimaginable climbs and descents (see photo). Eventually, the nice road ended but the remaining stretch was passable; albeit with some rather frightening-looking boulders which had fallen onto the road along the way. As we got closer to South Africa, it started to rain.
We climbed higher to the bustling little town of Qacha's Nek where we were apparently in the actual rain cloud. Through a steady rain and low visibility, we found our way to the border post. On the South African side, we had to go in the building and wait in line to get our passports stamped. Nine workers in there, but only one serving the crowd of people trying to cross from one country to the other. Soon enough we were on our way, only to discover that the road was now gravel (see photo). Apparently South Africa does not encourage people to take this route out of their country. Eventually we came to a tar road, then a main road, but we drove up and down massive hills through pouring rain for the rest of the night stopping only once for dinner.
We arrived at our hotel in Durban around 10 pm. The dance club adjacent to the lobby was quite loud, but we couldn't hear that from our rooms on the 11th floor. Barry and I enjoyed some craft beers in the hotel bar before going to bed.
The next day was rainy so we postponed our plan to go to the Moses Mabhida Stadium skydeck. We had a wonderful breakfast in the hotel restaurant and took our clothes to be washed while Barry worked in an Internet café. After shopping for groceries and wine, we picked up the laundry, dumped it at the hotel, and headed to the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.
Barry used Google to find a great spot in Pietermaritzburg for lunch (see photo). It was a gifts and collectibles/antiques/book shop with formal English garden and tea room. The food was delicious. We were not too put off by the cat which ran in the shop with a live mouse in its mouth. (The mouse escaped.)
After lunch we stopped at the Nelson Mandela Capture Site where he was arrested in 1962. We quickly perused the somewhat confusing museum there and walked down "the long walk to Freedom" to see the amazing memorial sculpture.
The day's destination was Michaelhouse, the boarding school where my cousin Chris attended school. More recently, the movie Spud was filmed there. We met the head grounds keeper who was generous enough to give us a nice tour and an overview of the school's history. He showed us the chapel, a dormatory, and some classrooms before taking us around the grounds in the car to see the sports fields, staff residences, pond, amphitheater, and other facilities. In spite of the dismal weather, it was a beautiful place to visit and wonderful to imagine my cousin living there in his formative years.
Next we headed back through the hills, fog, and rain to Pietermaritzburg. I'm sure the Midlands are lovely, but we would hardly know. Fortunately, the rain broke just as we descended into the city. We grabbed some fast food and headed to Harry Gwala Stadium to see a S.A. Premier Soccer Leage match between Maritz United and Sundowns (see photo). It wasn't a big place, but the crowd was good-sized and very enthusiastic. There were lots of interesting sites and sounds to take in as the home team fell 0-2. After the match we made the late night drive back down to Durban, where we were surprised to learn that access to the beach is cut off at night, except to cars with a pass. Our hotel had never mentioned this, so Barry kept asking the police officer "so how can we get to our hotel?" until she finally let us through.
We took some pictures of the abseil, hotel in Durban, and Michaelhouse, of course, but I'm blogging from my phone and can't post them now. I may post some here later, but all of the best photos from the whole trip will be put up in a Facebook album eventually. Stay tuned!
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