Cya later, Hogsback!
After a very early breakfast, we were on the road again around 07:00 and drove out from Away With The Fairies and said goodbye to Hogback; the mountains rewarded us with a beautiful dawn with thin mists that swept over the mountainside and down into the valley. I’ll come back here, even if it takes me another five years!
The road led us toward Lesotho in the north and our next accommodation, Malealea.
Lesotho is, for those of you who did not know it, completely surrounded by South Africa on all sides and is one of the last real kingdoms in Africa. The country is also known as ”The kingdom in the sky” since its lowest point is about 1 500 meters above sea level and the highest over 3 000 meters.
Thabani drove through the stunning mountain scenery, which you can easily loose yourself in if you let the mind wander. Our truck, Denver, scraped on stubbornly in spite of winding mountain roads and the constant uphill stretches. I was glad we did not have a regular tourist coach!
I let my thoughts wander, just like in the woods in the Hogsback. I had a lot to consider and this was the perfect opportunity.
The problem is that when my thoughts wander, so they tend to eventually get to that door in the deepest, dark places you don’t want to go. You know.
We asked Godfree to put the music on, now it was a playlist from Amarins computer that we had mixed and we obviously had the same taste in music. Except that I do not listen to Dutch folk music, that is.
Of course, I asked in my own special way to get a copy of her music later.
Then came the bomb, the one that hides behind that door.
Meatloaf ”got onto the truck” and started singing ”I Would Do Anything for Love”.
As an incurable romantic, I love that song of course. However, it will always bring me sad memories. It has been 15 years now and the memory will remain as vivid as if it had beed yesterday.
I was torn between asking Godfree to change the song or listen and cry.
I opted for the tears and turned away and inward myself so the others would not see, did not want to be the one dampening the mood.
They are my demons, no one else’s.
About 7 km before we arrived Malealea we stopped at the ”Gateway of Paradise”, a little pass from which we looked out over a huge, lush landscape surrounded by tall, misty mountains on all sides. We arrived at Malealea around 17 o’clock, got the tents up and then we were to go up to the little outdoor stage at the bar to listen to a local band playing traditional music and dance.
I choose to stay away and write down my thoughts about the memories that had come back to me during the day and I did it with a view over the plains below and the mountains far away.
It was the right environment to stay in if you want to calm down a storm within you.
Trine came over for a while and asked if she could join me, and I replied ”yes” with a half-mushy voice.
We sat and talked until the band stopped playing and the others arrived, we went together to the waiting dinner.
After dinner we went back up to the bar and played cards on the terrace until the bar closed and the generator went off at 22:00, those of us who were left (me, Amarins, Roland, Trine, Thabani and Welmoed) continued playing in the light of my new tent lamp I had bought in Cape Town.
Eventually we had to quit and go down to the tents, here I hung up the lantern in the kitchen so that Roland, Amarins and I could continue to play a little longer. Roland and I went stone age on the whiskey, Amarins was happy with the beer only.
And thus ended another day in Africa!