Thursday January 29, 2015

I awoke with a throat protesting any more wine tasting. Instead doing something outside, no alcohol, sounded more appealing. We knew there are decent hiking areas in the Stellenbosch area, so Nicholas spoke with our host about the best places to go.

It was the first day of our trip where it was truly Africa Hot. 42°C or ~107°F. It’s a dry heat, without the mugginess I’m accustomed to, but it was hot enough that you felt, when the wind blew you, might turn into dust and blow with it.

the view while hiking

Naturally, hiking in the heat sounded like a marvelous idea, and this is how we came upon Jonkershoek Nature Reserve. We paid our park entrance fee of R80, and were informed by the guide in order to get to the waterfalls (where else would we want to hike to?) we just had to follow the gravel road down a ways, and then there would be parking for the trail. Easy peasy.

We got maybe fifty yards from the little entrance hut in our little Hyundai i10 before we understood the difference between American and African gravel roads. The rental car company had told us, quite adamantly, TARMAC ONLY. No dirt roads, no off-roading, just keep the car on the asphalt and all will be well. We had already paid the park entrance fee though and were set on this hike so sorry rental car company; we’re going for it.

Thank Goodness Nicholas has some off-roading experience in his 4-Runner, because his driving skills were put to the test with our maybe six inches of ground clearance and tiny tires. We had a few scares going over some pointy rocks and shoddily filled in potholes. I kept telling myself one popped tire is fine, we have a spare, but two would really be bad. Please only let one tire pop. We managed the 30km without incident, though.

the grotto: an oasis

We arrived to our hiking spot and learned that African hiking trails, like the “gravel” roads, are a little more advanced than back home. When we weren’t walking on the African red sandy clay, we were billy goating over rocks. About sixty percent of the trail was quite rocky.

Three kilometers in we found our waterfall. The entire trail was completely exposed to the hot sun, but the waterfall was tucked into the mountainside. Shaded from the sun, a smattering of moss and algae were able to grow onto the rocks. Our rock climbing skills came in handy as we navigated our way off the trail and into this forty foot tall grotto. Water was dripping by the entrance, and I could practically hear the sizzling as a drop hit my sun-hot skin. We picked our way over the rocks and into a small pool the waterfall fed into. Roasting hot, I got in, clothes and all. The water was FREEZING, but so refreshing after our hike in.

With wet clothes, the hike out was much more comfortable. We climbed into our little meep meep mobile and slowly puttered over the gravel road back to Stellenbosch, happy to have had our first African hike under our belts.