Golden Gate, Cream Cheese, and Fighting Sticks

Friday dinner: mmm... look at that chicken and spinach. My hemoglobin thanks you, Hlotse Shoprite, for stocking up on one leafy green.

So, with no car to take on a long-distance surfing trip, we settled (reluctantly) for a day trip to Golden Gate in South Africa. It was maybe an hour or so from Leribe (Hlotse) and near to the fanciest little tourist town I've seen yet, Clarens. So after a hike (below) we did our best to change out of the wettest and dirtiest of our clothes, and had a super-duper high-class dinner in a dining room full of white people. Amazing how weird that feels after just a handful of weeks. We managed to get a pound or so of ground coffee that smells AMAZING and to cross back over the border before it closed at 10. The boys (Joe, Josh, and his friend Jay) went on for a night of revelling but I retired to Lord of the Rings and mint tea. Some nights you just don't feel like an 80's dance party, you know? Playing A$$hole sounded pretty fun, though. It's a good game.

It may not LOOK like there's a path up there, but damn, did we ever kid ourselves for an extended period.
We hiked up from a campground in Golden Gate National Park and headed towards Echo Ravine. There were doves whose coos echoed throughout the crevasse and it was a little magical hike, though just an hour. We managed to extend it by coming up with tasks beyond our outdoorsman skill sets, like hanging by our fingertips and defying both gravity and the crumbly properties of our medium. No head injuries were incurred but the seat of Josh's wind pants look like artistically torn interpretations of the wings of an angel of death. We all shared the fleeting thought that we might have to med-evac him to Bloemfontein.
We had to use some creative scooting techniques to get down from our attempt to "summit" Echo Ravine. Just after this we spent more than half an hour trying to climb up a soft, sand stony wall. See Joe's blog for a video and better pics http://jausep-lesotho.blogspot.com/2009/03/t-minus-48-hours.html
Joe's the contemplative sort...
Almost back down to the campground, getting psyched for dinner at Clementine's in Clarens: local beer, ostrich fillets, lasagna with feta, crepes with berries... good lord, it's too good.
They're goofy. But the background is beautiful.

This morning I woke up in my convent guest house bed, had a nice slow wake-up with Prince Caspian (the Narnia book, not a new friend) and coffee, and took a quick but rewarding jaunt across the border to Ficksburg and the promise of the cream cheese we couldn't find in Clarens. This morning I was pretty frickin' grumpy --at the endless stream of people staring at me (what?! I'm pink, ok! I was pink yesterday too!), yes, but I think really at the feeling that I'm about to leave this place having grown powerfully attached to and invested in its people and without the sense that six weeks of (presque-) doctoring will make one damn bit of difference here. So, after explaining my crap-ass mood to my carmates and trying to talk my out of it with appreciation for the day-after-a-storm richness of the landscape's colors, I was surprised to feel myself become giddy with awe at the Spar Supermarket in Fitchburg. Lettuce that was really green, four flavors of cream cheese, chicken burgers made of chicken, cous cous, unbendable carrots, jars of pasta sauce, eight flavors of ground coffee, and firm tomatoes. I can't wait to be hungry for dinner.

On the way home I stopped at Maputsoe, the Lesotho side of the Fitchburg border, and bought a beautiful herding/fighting stick with a colorful woven handle from a bunch of men and boys wearing the traditional blankets. I really think it's gorgeous. And despite bargaining down from 100 to 75 Rand, "there was much rejoicing" when I paid up and gave a 5 Rand tip. Suckah...

In a show of remarkable efficiency, I have already been made fun of for carrying it as a girl. I told the manager of Shoprite, who lives on the convent property as well, that girls can fight too. He thought this was pretty funny. Aahhh, how glad I am that I'm not my 17-year-old self trying to stay calm amongst Basotho gender roles. It's not that it's fun at 31 but little encounters like that don't ruin my afternoon. And I could totally take him...