Thabana Ntlenyana: The highest mountain peak in Southern Africa

Mount Everest is on most avid hikers’ bucket lists. Not mine. I h*te myself I know this, but not enough to go looking for death. The hikers’ bug started in 2014 when a friend suggested Mt Kilimanjaro. I took the idea and ran with it, summitting namaHili-Hili in February of 2015. Summitting mountain peaks has since become an addiction. Mt Kilimanjaro was followed by Mt Fuji in 2018.
When the itch came again this year to visiting izintaba zokhahlamba (the Drakensberg you illiterate swine) I thought instead of doing just the Drakensberg, why not make it a thing and summit Thabana Ntlenyana, Lesotho the highest peak in Southern Africa? Let’s just do the whole thing or forget about it, right?
An email to the usual suspects rendered the expected response, “yes, lets”
My brother could not make it this time. He’s a family man in a house full of queens, we could not convince him. 

We drove down to Underberg on the day of the expedition to meet our team, crossing to the Kingdom of Lesotho via Sani Pass the mountain pass that to my knowledge is the only route to Lesotho from Kwazulu Natal. A marvel I tell you. Google says the route up climbs 1332 vertical metres to an altitude of 2876 m. The road is a steep gravel road on which by South African law only 4x4 vehicles are allowed.

We came across a cyclist  that almost lost his brakes in front of our very eyes. He was descending the mountain on high speed and lost control. Upon braking successfully he poured water on his brakes and steam came out like we were watching a boiler. We also heard of a case of motorbikers that could not make it up on their way to Afriski. Poor sods. Sani pass is not a road for sissies, it’s scary yet so beautiful. I’m not driving up that mofo again though,  Ne ke shapile tsipa the entire trip up and down so no thanks. 

Izintaba zoKhahlamba

Anyway there’s an ongoing project to tar Sani Pass.  Another project of the ” wasted nine years “ I guess. I cannot say I’m happy with this but I hear it is for better trade between the two countries. Sani Pass is Sani Pass because of the gravel, what is it going to be once tarred, an e-toll road?


We reached the top of the pass and had Maluti beer at the Highest pub in Africa spending the first night at a backpackers. We froze half to oblivion. 


We had the company of three Queens: Quinton; Clarke and one unnamed. They were LOUD!!! No more about them, they were a lot of fun though. We slept fully clothed that night: 3 layers of thermal pants; 3 layers of thermal underwear; shell jacket; gloves; hat... [insert more clothing here]

We slept and woke up like this 
We started walking at sunrise the following day. I don’t know what made me take the trail lightly. Perhaps it’s the false marketing on the website, I fully blame the agency for my lack of fitness LOL. My mind sort of expected one mountain with 800m elevation, Table mountain types? God was I wrong!!! We climbed at least 2 mountains of 600m elevation plus the last one which is Thabana Ntlenyana.

God dammit I struggled so bad. Team members even carried my backpack at some point. It was not the legs that killed me but thin air, essentially what had happened on preceding mountains. I could not take deep breaths, meaning very little oxygen sent to the rest of the body. Noz was in front of course taking the entire thing in her stride. I had a lot of conversations of self-affirmation. You know what they say you have to believe in yourself before expecting the world to do the same. I told myself no matter how long this takes, I’m going to finish the trail.

Keep going, Queen
Instead of waiting to summit the following morning, we chose to summit on the same day, mostly to ensure our bodies kept in motion for longer and avoid the cold.







WE MADE IT 



Jeff the chef served supper as soon as we were back at the base camp. Just what the body needed. Warm wholesome food. I do not even know what was in that curry, it was BEAUTIFUL. We were in bed by 7pm, tired, cramps, sore limbs, dry mouth, dry lips, Cranky AF!!! That was arguably the longest night of my life. We were in bed by 7pm. What else could we do? It’s not like we had options: 2 man tent, freezing, no bonfire, no network. We tossed and turned all 12 hours. Overclothed, body itching cos hey we had not had a bath in 2 days. 

It did not help that we woke up to -9 degrees Celsius the next day and could not even brush our teeth as water streams had frozen.
The white layer covering the ground and tents. Guess what it is

Summitting any mountain peak across the world is a beautiful feeling. Is it worth the discomfort, unhygienic state of affairs, physical and emotional pain? Will I climb another mountain in the future regardless of the hardships? Does a zebra have stripes?

Highlights/Lowlights/Observations
1. Noz & I went out to pee in the middle of the night. We had been given the memo to pee behind the rocks, perhaps 50m away. Uhm… NO!!! We took 2 steps away from our base camp and Noz said “switch off that light. Asiyi kwalapho” We peed right there LOL! This brings back the day we peed in front of someone’s cabin at Mt Kilimanjaro.

2. Jeff the chef made us forget we were in the middle of nowhere. He woke us up with pancakes, bacon and eggs lark

3. Community on the mountain. Hikers’ code, we eat, drink and share tents. We even share utensils like we would even attempt that in real life.

4. Hospitality at Underberg. We had nowhere to leave our car for the nights spent on the mountain. We took a chance & phoned the B&B where we’d spend the night on the day after summit & asked whether we could leave our car there. In my heart I expected to be charged for parking per night, as is customary in the big cities. The old lady went as far as storing our car in her lock up garage, letting her own car “sleep” in the cold.

To the people of Underberg and the Kingdom of Lesotho: Siyabonga, re a leboha

 Thank YOU for reading 

                                            

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