On Trek

On what was supposed to be a family outing I found myself embarking on an impromptu 2km hike up a mountain as if the sign that read 'hiking trail' had mysteriously coaxed me to immerse myself inside the thick, dense bush that lay just on the other side of our picnic spot. I had initially expected the hike to be no longer than thirty minutes but the winding, rock-strewn pathway tricked and misled me as I found myself delving deeper into the brush of this well-hidden forest and further up the hill on which the bulk of it is situated. I had set out on this unplanned adventure in search of a mysterious 1000-year old giant fig tree aptly named the ‘Wonderboom’ (which, in Afrikaans, means ‘Tree of Wonder’). After over an hour of searching for this tree, I realised upon descending that I had left it where my adventure had begun, just right across the foot of the hiking trail. What I had initially expected to be the highlight of my epic walk turned out (to me, at least) to be literally nothing more than a footnote.

As much as I love unplanned hikes and walks, I always set out on them with intense trepidation, especially if the area I’m in is isolated. There had been reports that a black mamba had been missing from the local zoo, not too far from the reserve and here I was traversing its natural habitat like my name was Mowgli. The thought of that elusive serpent did nothing to allay my ophidiophobia. What if the mamba was here and it propelled itself at me from the canopy above to take me out with a swift, venom-laden bite? I, however, found solace in the roughly cut stone steps beneath my feet which assured me that people once lived here and, unlike me, found it more safe and hospitable than hostile.

I would soon learn that a plethora of tribes had lived here from as early as the Iron Age and that, for millennia, this hill had been to them an important source of shelter from invaders. At the summit, I would find more concrete evidence (literally and figuratively) that pointed to people having once lived here. A ruined fort, one of four in the city, stood as one of the last remnants of the old Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek and further proof that, despite my worst fears, the hill was safer than anyone could imagine. I swung open the heavy, gargantuan iron door of the once impregnable fort (which, by the way, was still intact save for a little rust) to reveal breathtaking views of the city. I immediately felt like I was in two worlds at the same time.