Hiking in the Berg

Last Monday was our big hiking day. We were starting to climb by 8 in the morning. These mountains are serious mountains, nothing like the ones I’ve been up in Cape Town and nothing like any I’ve ever seen in the states. Climbing up was incredibly steep at points, tall grass, and no paths. It was very hot too! We were almost to the top, and as we scaled some rocks I saw an incredible view of a vast plain before the summit, with the tops of countless mountains you couldn’t see below, as well as gorges, cliffs, and massive dropoffs.

I also saw what I thought were dogs in the distance, but considering we hadn’t seen other souls in days, I called behind to Sarah to ask what they were. She went, “Those are BABOONS!!" I’d been warned to stay far away the ones in Cape Town, as they’d learned they could terrorize the tourists, but Sarah said these were wild and would be fine, so we took off running across this plain to try to see them closer. They kept their distance pretty well, but barked at us a lot. We climbed up into these caves and looked at some paintings bushmen had marked on the walls. It was SO cool, because it wasn’t like I was in a museum or some tourist spot, it was just Sarah’s property. The world had no idea about this history within these remote caves. The paintings were of the British coming in and hunting\killing\chasing the bushmen. We could tell they were on horses, and the bushmen on foot running. It was fascinating. We also saw fossilized dinosaur prints; we had to lie flat on the cave floors and look up and see the prints that had been made in mud, then lava covering the mud and hardening the prints into the stone.

We heard thunder, and saw lightening and clouds over mountains in another gorge. We thought about waiting it out in the caves, but also wanted to get back in time for a braii at 2, so we started headed down. I was in the lead, and stopped to wait for the others, when I heard a “haaah haaah” close to me. I called out to Sarah asking what that could be, and she said “Um, it Sounds like a spitting cobra…” She had barely finished before I bolted, running like a mad woman across this plain. Every aching muscle and my tiredness were forgotten! I never saw it, but it was very close, and we were pretty far away from any medical help! Later on this week we discovered it was a "Puff Adder" snakes, hence the puffing it was doing because it was threatened. While if I had gotten medical attention within 7 hours (the nearest hospital would've taken us about 3 if you count the time getting down from the mountain), it wouldn't have been fatal, but the bite is about one of the most painful snake bites you can get! I was glad I didn't know all this beforehand...

As we continued across the plain, we did get caught in rain. It felt really good, cooling us down. It was incredible: we were 4 specks crossing this tall, windy, swooshy grass with massive mountains, gorges and cliffs surrounding us, baboons watching us, rain pouring down. I felt like I was very much in “Africa” during that time. We made it down 6 1\2 hours later, aching, tired, and very hungry. We downed Boerwoers (kind of like a hot dog\sausage meat here that is very popular with braiis), showered, and slept for a very long time! The next day, feeling more rested and recovered, I was amazed at the nature and what all I experienced on that mountain.