The Hike from Hell--Drakensburg
It was so cold last night. I was tossing and turning for a while and woke up with a puffy face and rat’s nest of hair. I had my same “fake frosted flakes concoction”. I am so sick of it. After breakfast we drove to look at Bushman paintings on the side of a cave. It is sad there arent many paintings left cause some people threw water on them or would write (carve) their names into the rock and mess it up. The most noticeable paintings were the ones up higher on the rock where no human could mess them up. I learned the skinny figures drawn were of the males because they don’t have the hips that women have.
After the bushman paintings we drove for about 5minutes before arriving to our hike. We hiked to Cascade Falls. It was mostly a sidewalk and some shaky bridges. We got there and it was amazing! The water was flowing over many rocks and the mountain was in the background just like in a magazine. Picturesque. Here we sat down on one of the rocks and ate our prepared lunch by Cardi- A cheeseburger- and enjoyed the view.
Following this we had the option to hike to Tiger Falls or to go back to the bus and wait on everyone. So all of us except one of the professors hiked to Tiger Falls. Little did we know it was STRAIGHT UP. I am not over-exaggerating. It was a bitch. I was so out of breath. So was my friend Crysten who is on the GA Southern volleyball team and in shape. We were dying. I chugged my water, but at the same time I was trying to conserve it so it would last me through the hike. We stopped halfway at a giant rock overlooking the valley. It was absolutely gorgeous. It made that part of the hike worth it!
I kept thinking.. “I am doing this to see the beautiful waterfall. It is going to be great!” We continued on to Tiger Falls. We rounded the corner of the mountain and BAM. It was just a trickle.. A FREAKING TRICKLE OF WATER. WE HIKED ALL THIS WAY FOR THAT?? Apparently since it is winter here it is very dry so no enough water was coming out. We all just sat there and drank our water. Then we made our way back down with all the random grasses scratching up our legs. Some of us tripped over rocks on the way down. Luckily noone took a tumble though! We made it back to the bus and all just collapsed on the grass and talked about icecream and how good that sounded. We got on the bus after a break and went back to the campsite. I went to the convenience store and got a magnum chocolate icecream bar called “death by chocolate”. I felt like I was going to die.
xoxo,
Em