It is said that if one wants to find solutions to one’s problems, the answer always lays in nature. It is therefore through the exploring of nature that we come back from these hikes more informed about life and equipped to face its impediments.
These hikes have always provided formidable platforms for life lessons. Life does not necessarily give second chances, one always has to work around what he/she has in order to survive. Grocery packs that have to sustain us for the duration of the hike can be metaphorically described as life giving an individual something and how you use it is entirely up to the individual.
“Adapt or be destroyed” is a commonly used quote that can be ascribed to this kind hike. One that is not only adventurous, but also a lifelong lesson as how life works and how to survive. The greater the intensity, the greater the life lesson.
Fatigue, was a word that was mutual to us all. But that gleaming moment in destiny, the dilemma of having to decide between moving forward and going back. Trust me, it can be a very dreary moment in the course. With blisters under the feet and knee injuries to some, compounded by lassitude can indeed cloud one’s decision in the dilemma. But nonetheless entertainment along the way provided much needed distraction from the whole negative thought of surrender. Rugby along the way to our next destination (in this case being the next camping site). And music after the evening meal, guitar jams complemented with harmonic voices of a Capella, rapping and rhyming to the sound of the jam and not forgetting, providing respectability to poetry as well.
Waking up from an uneasy slumber and having to pack up our tents to ready ourselves of the day ahead of us (normally about an 18km hike). The smiles, laughter and bliss that yet plagues us from the prior night is what kept us moving. The whole journey, of only 3 days, which often felt like3 weeks to most of us, was nothing but a compilation of life lessons.
By: Sibonise Gcilitshana
