Horseback Hikes....

First off let me please apologize for my lack of blogging. I've gotten some complaints from friends, and I'm sorry. There's really no excuse....except that I have no idea who reads this, so I get a little overwhelmed when it comes to describing my day-to-day life....I'll try to get over it :)

This last weekend myself and another (he will remain unnamed for this post) PCV decided to take our horses on a little hike to find "Narnia". As many of you know, Lesotho is a beautifully mountainous country, and many of us volunteers live somewhat or extremely remote. A few of us have a mission to find our own personal "narnias" around our sites. A narnia is simply described as a beautiful, private, place where we can relax, that hopefully isn't too much of a hike to get to. This particular weekend we intended to go a further distance to find a narnia that was above and beyond......and this is how it played out.

I will describe our adventures as best I can, however I know that no matter what I write, or what pics are posted (later this week) I will be unable to portray just how insane it all was.

We picked up our horses around 10am or so. Two full grown gorgeous horses, one black, one brown, and an adorable little colt who tagged along the whole way! The weather was amazing! It's Autumn here, so all of the leaves are changing color and falling. The air had a slight chill to it, but the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Niether one of us are outstanding on horseback, so we rode at a nice walking pace and took in the views. Some of the trails were a little smaller than I would've liked and since there are no landscapers in the mountains of Lesotho we were beaten by branches along the side of the trails a few times. Those horse riding helmets aren't only cute, but they also come in handy when large branches are coming straight for you, and there's no way to avoid them.

Our first stop was just across a small stream. We found a nice patch of grass near a tiny but beautiful waterfall. We took a pic here.....but my accomplice slipped in the mud twice trying to pose, so the pic isn't the best ever. We rested at this first stop for 20mn. or so letting the horses drink while we munched on fried rice we'd prepared the day before. Upon departure our horses freaked out a bit at the site of another horse. This other horse appeared to be chained, or was just dragging a chain behind it, of this I'll never be sure. We threw a couple rocks at it and moved along. Situation averted.

Next we continued up the mountain as far as we could take the horses. One of the other PCV's students lives near the top, so we stopped here to tie up the horses. We explained (in our amazing Sesotho) that we would be back for them later, and that we were going in search of the metsi (water). The family wished us well, and then the mother said, "the small boy is there." I still don't know what that meant. Maybe one of their sons had gone in the same direction earlier. Either way, we never met up with a small boy, and at the time it seemed like a creepy, horror movie, thing to say. As we set off on the second half of our adventure my buddy felt the need to remind me that this trek had only been made once before, and therefore the path wasn't well known. I had no problem with this, as I'm usually down for a good adventure.

Soon enough we reached a waterfall. Our goal was the waterfall that has the "constant rainbow".....this was not that fall. We'd been hiking for a good 15 mn. up a stream, and my friend was sure if we just went a bit further we'd find the one we were looking for. However, we were kinda stuck at this one. The only way out was to back track, or to climb up a small ledge. By this point I was tired of carrying my riding helmet. I didn't want to leave it at the house where we tied the horses, so I'd brought it with me. I decided to risk looking like and idiot, and just wear it. From this point on, I was thankful to have that helmet! Getting up the ledge wasn't too hard. My friend went first, and stated that, "if you can't make it up this, this might be the breaking point." Yee of little faith. There was a dead tree 1/2 way up so all I had to do was grab onto it and pull myself up, using my amazing upper body strength (yeah right). Somehow I managed, and he snapped a pic which I will insert later. Once we got up the view wasn't very promising. We were faced with a lot of overgrown greenery and dead branches. No trail in sight, but we kept on trekking (like idiots).

As we continued hacking our way through over grown roughage I began to wonder how we'd ever find our way out. Eventually we came to a good sized waterfall. However, it was not the one with the contstant rainbow that we'd been in search of. We were now located at the bottom of a waterfall, Surrounded on both sides by steep mountains, and behind us was a good 30 minutes or so of hiking through tree branches. We were at a total loss. My fellow PCV was convinced that if we just got to the top of the waterfall our prospects would be better. I had to agree, as my other choices weren't any better. The only way up was to scale the side of the mountain to our left. I took the lead, as he has a tendancy to fall, and I didn't want him plummetting down onto me! Within two steps I knew this was going to be a bitch. Those two steps got me absolutely nowhere being that the dirt I was climbing up was loose, and the more steps I took the more dirt and rocks slid down. Our only option was to haul ass up this mountain and grab onto every dead tree along the way, hoping that they were still rooted to something. At this point I began to get a little worried.

I don't do well with heights, although I'm getting much better. About 1/2 way up the side of the mountain we came to a decent resting point at yet another dead tree. I looked down and realized that if either one of us fell we'd probably end up seriously injured, if not worse. My legs were shaking, and I wanted to cry. Just making it to this far had been ridiculously challenging. My buddy almost fell once, and my only response was, "NO!" as I kept on up the mountain. We were now halfway up and I was fiercely gripping onto the two most stable rocks around me. We still had a ways to go, and from this point on we'd be bouldering. No more landslides, now it was straight rock, and we still had no idea what we'd find at the top.

Bouldering was much better than the land slide climbing. I spent a few drunken nights bouldering barefooted on the beaches in Bellingham ( say that 3 times fast), and am thankful for that experience now! My body has never been so angry with me. I was using every muscle I had to get to each new rock, while aslo trying not to ever look down, as I would've freaked out! My PCV was an amazing spotter, and he claims to have saved my life once by holding my foot, but I would've been fine ;)

Once we made it to the top of the waterfall we found some stable ground, which was all I really wanted at that point. However, there was still a very long way to go before we'd be out of the wilderness and back on a decent trail. This next part of the journey was taken slowly. We had to climb for awhile up large rocks, but they weren't steep and/or scary. We stopped often to rest, reflect, and search for those elusive Lesotho diamonds. Soon we were about 3/4 of the way up the big mountain. I'd mention its name, but its a little x-rated, and as I said before, I don't know who's reading this. Soon we spotten civilization, one lone hut, which isn't exactly a safety sign cause you have to wonder who the hell lives all the way up this mountain? Anyway, we'd been packing around (actually I hadn't carried anything) the fixings for egg mc-muffins all day, so we finally came to a good place to stop, build a fire, and eat. I didn't want anything to do with food, as I was still in panic mode, but I ate anyway, and I'm glad I did. The mc-muffins, cooked over an open fire, consisting of english muffins, cream cheese and fried eggs were delicious! I know it sounds gross, and maybe it was just the addrenalin, but they were yummy! We snapped a couple photos, and began our journey down....finally!

I've gone into great detail about the adventures on the way up.....and as readers you're probably bored by now. As far as the journey down I'll say only a few things. We may have suffered some elevation sickness, as we were both light headed at a few points. The trails were not always made for or by humans, there was a lot of butt sliding, and once we got in sight of the house where our horses were tied I'm SURE the family was laughing at us! We rode our horses home, and made it back before dark with almost no problems....except when my buddy fell off his horse onto river rocks, and almost got trampled, but that's a minor detail :) He's fine now. I learned a lot about myself during the hike, and probably will do a few things differently on the next outdoor adventure, but we made it out alive, and can look back on it and laugh now!

Hope this blog didn't totally freak Mom and/or Dad out. I'm tough guys, don't worry! Love you all, and thanks for reading. I really will try and keep up on the blogging from now on!!!