'Rocking Botswana' -- Mosetsana style

The tale of Romeo and Juliet is far from a unique one and even in a little town called Otse, an hour South of Gaborone, there is a similar storey of tragic romance.  It is said that there were once two lovers from warring tribes who fell in love and, forbidden from being together, ran away to the village hill and were never seen again. It is rumoured that their spirits/ghosts inhabit the hill and that the laughter of their children can be heard at night – additionally, it is believed that if locals were to venture there that, they too, would disappear.

You can probably already guess that I, together with two friends: Audrey and Jenipher, decided it would be a great place to explore and climb new rocks – doing so as an overnight trip from Gabs. The going was undoubtedly much tougher than at Kgale hill with our efforts hampered by large packs containing sufficient water supplies, tents, sleeping gear, cooking gear and food. 

More challenging, the hill was structured in a series of ‘step’ like blocks that would involve reasonably easy rock scrambles across/upwards only to be followed by much more vertical approaches. At some stages we had no choice but to pass our bags along to each other in a chain so that we could manage pressure climbs forward and upward without compromising our hold and centre of gravity. After all, this wasn’t exactly a proper rock-climbing expedition with ropes or harnesses.

Our intention had been originally to get to the top of the hill and pitch a tent, but night approached during our climb. With no idea how far we actually were from the top, we weren’t too certain about precariously climbing and scrambling with our packs in such low light. We popped our bags down and I scouted ahead. I avoided going too far as I didn’t want to lose the others in the dark, which proved to be a good decision --  even in the small distance I went, the way back was difficult to find in darkness and in the reverse direction. But the scouting wasn’t all for nothing; I found a small but adequate ledge for us to sleep on, albeit not appropriate for setting up tents.

So that night we slept wedged between some rocks on the side of the hill with a great view of the small town below us and the starry sky above us. Sometimes nothing beats sleeping under the stars with fresh, breezy air.

The next day we strategically began our descent, continually weaving our way downwards based on the most manageable routes. One of these was chosen by Audrey’s sleeping bag when it went flying off her bag and into the shrub below – lucky enough it was just accessible. We knew we hit civilization again when we heard the sounds of cows greeting us at the base of the hill. On the bus trip back, however, we were probably the least civilized creatures around with hair teased up by sharp thorns and branches, twigs sticking out of our clothes and hair and covered in dirt from head to toe. This still didn’t stop us stylishly rocking up at Mugg and Bean for pancakes and coffee for breakfast.

Of course, in hindsight there were several things we could’ve done a lot more intelligently. We should’ve started the climb much earlier, avoiding doing it into night, carried better lighting and perhaps not have been so determined to keep going past certain points. We were also somewhat lucky it didn’t rain. On the plus side, we did carry first-aid kits, sufficient supplies of water, and mobiles with reception, told people where we went and kept a decent ‘team-work’ ethic.
Audrey, Jen and I might pretty bad influences on each other though..

Malaka and Phaphatha
Otse hill only seemed to whet our appetite for climbing rocks; in a country with no water to go ‘down’ in, the next best thing is to go up. A few weekends later, we thus headed to a small, obscure village called Malaka in the Tswapong hills – Eastern Botswana. On route we stopped via the transit town of Palaypye where we gobbled down giant chunks of watermelon, face-in-watermelon style, whilst awaiting our next bus to Malaka in the blistering heat.  Watermelon juice dribbling down our chin and clothes in the most inelegant way possible, we copped a few bemused looks by the locals.

Once at Malaka, we ended up making our own way to Old Palapye – a historical area that had previously been occupied during times of Livingstone’s mission where he had established a church.
The day was intensely hot, the track was sandy and our packs heavy, but we slogged onwards to the old church ruins where we established camp for the night. Nearby the church, and extremely rare for Botswana, was a tiny Gorge where a little stream of water trickled from a natural underground spring, supplying us with our cooking and drinking needs. With a feast of cous-cous, popcorn, hot chocolates and mochas, we hung out in the silhouette of the ruined church walls, watching the stars and chatting.

     

The next day we returned to the Gorge early in the morning before our guide was due to arrive and repeated our newly-developing rock scrambling obsession. It was Jen, Audrey and I once more, but this time we had also roped Kaylee into our mischief. From the top of the gorge we could see the green tops of trees all around, quite a contrast to the rest of Botswana and a consequence of both the recent rains and ground spring-water.

A local guide, Cisco, met us at the church ruins to show us around the rest of the old settlement area and concluded with an even more beautiful gorge and spring. We were stunned to see green grass lining these small gorges where the streams trickled by, creating the feeling that we really had stepped out of Botswana and into a fertile paradise where literally hundreds of butterflies flew by. As simple as it was, we got a huge pleasure from just flopping onto soft green grass without having a plethora of different types, sizes and shapes of prickles embedding themselves somewhere.  We could understand how, in such a somewhat ‘barren’ country, such a beautiful gorge has religious and sacred values to the local people. Finally back in Palaype we rewarded our sore, stiff, bruised selves with cold delicious ice-cream before shuffling back on the bus for another ride back to Gabs.