Our small car moves steadily along a tarred road and suddenly jolts on to uneven ground. Bumping past tawny red mountains inlaid with rugged rocks, we take a left turn towards the village, a cloud of bronze dust following our tyres. We are driving west from Matatiele, a small town north of Kokstad, towards the foothills of the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg mountains bordering Kwazulu-Natal and Lesotho.
Masakala village, our destination, is nestled at the foot of a mountain. As we move along the rocky path leading into the village, we pass a cluster of colourful rondavels. Young boys run along the path with a toy truck made from wire as the descending dusk illuminates their silhouettes. An elderly woman looks up at us as she tends her garden.
The mountains harbour the Masakala Guesthouse, a community-based tourism business owned by the Mehloding Community Trust, structured to benefit community members. The community is breaking new frontiers in tourism in the area, and the Masakala initiative presents a unique experience for tourists to experience African life in scenic mountain landscapes.
The Mehloding Community Trust represents more than 25 villages in the northern Alfred Nzo district. The trust launched the Mehloding Adventure Trail in October 2003. It is a four-day trail that connects four stop-over points where visitors stay at the end of each hiking day.
Mehloding means ‘green pastures”, perfectly describing the areas through which you hike.
The trust owns the trail as well as the Masakala Guesthouse, and the aim is to create income-generating opportunities for local people and employment through various positions and the provision of services.
My guide, Elisabeth Degremont, is a volunteer from the New Zealand development organisation Volunteer Services Agency. She cannot stop talking about the benefits the project holds for the community.
The trust deed indicates that any resident of the defined project area qualifies as a member of the trust. A community tourism organisation (CTO) coordinates local enterprises to provide services for the guesthouse. Benefits are paid out to members, based on requests for support and at the discretion of the CTO and trustees, either in the form of grants to emerging enterprises or through the upgrading of infrastructure. All guests pay a levy that the CTO uses to support projects and initiatives.
Employees at Masakala Guesthouse live within 5km of the establishment. Staff members at Masakala and Mehloding make decisions on the businesses and have committees to plan on how to reach potential guests. Members are also given opportunities to receive various types of training, including tour guiding, first aid and housekeeping.
The guesthouse buys goods and services from residents living within an 8km radius and has its own vegetable garden. Soil and water conservation and recycling are encouraged.
Tour guides educate local livestock herders to identify and preserve rock art. They also discourage the illegal gathering and exporting of indigenous medicinal plants.
The project has received funding and assistance from a number of private and public bodies, including the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s poverty relief fund and Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA), a non-profit marketing initiative that uses its trademark to recognise responsible tourism businesses.
In order to meet FTTSA criteria, businesses need to include fair wages and working conditions, fair distribution of benefits, ethical business practices and respect for human rights, culture and the environment. Masakala Guesthouse was one of FTTSA’s initial pilot projects during 1998/9 and officially became a FTTSA trademark user in May 2004.
My visit to the Mehloding Adventure Trail took place during its launch weekend and I was enchanted by the serene atmosphere around me.
Arriving at the Masakala Guesthouse, we walk past a small vegetable garden before entering one of the two coral-coloured rondavels as the sky darkens. Lanterns on several tables glow in the dimly lit main room.
Each of the three guest rooms in this rondavel showcases a different culture of the area: Basotho, amaXhosa and amaZulu. The other rondavel is filled with dormitory bunks. After my guide wishes me a pleasant evening and heads back to Matatiele, I sit down for a traditional African meal: mashed pumpkin, spinach, a marinated meat dish, salad, rice and pap.
As the only guest that evening, I have the chance to chat with the caretakers of the guesthouse as we eat the delicious home-cooked meal. Living in the local community enables them to share first-hand knowledge about daily life in the village. After a thorough discussion about the feast served at the launch of the trail with my dinner companions, I retire to my Basotho room, decorated in intricate traditional patterns.
The next morning, I wake up to the crow of roosters and a hot breakfast of sorghum porridge. Looking out the window, I see a herd of cattle crossing the dusty path that leads to the guesthouse; a young agile calf runs after its mother. Armed with my trusty camera, I am ready for a tour of the Drakensberg backyard.
Robert Mniki is a certified tour guide who grew up in Masakala. It is obvious from the way he talks that he must know virtually every path and trail of these ranging grasslands and mountains. He has stepped off most of them, too. ‘The thorns from these bushes can really hurt you, so you have to be careful when you walk,” he tells me. ‘When I was a boy, we never wore shoes. We used to steal maize from the neighbours and run up to the caves to roast them.”
Flat grassland stretches away toward the mountains. Woolly goats heading off to graze stare lazily at us, horns curved back towards small ears. Two children in white and navy school uniform look curiously at me as we walk past.
Mniki shows me the signs of rain along the way: a termite nest with worm-like indentations made by raindrops, and a sea of black millipedes we struggle to avoid as we walk. Pointing out a small leafy plant protruding from the short, dry grass, which crackles beneath our feet, he picks up a stick and starts digging around it.
‘This is an African potato. I’ll just show you what it looks like underground, but we have to leave it because sangomas need them. Originally, it was thought to be the cure for Aids, so everyone wanted it. But now we know that it’s just good for immunisation. Women who want children eat the root for fertility.” I feel the furry bulbous root before he refills the hole with soil.
Two men from an adjoining village are walking towards Masakala village from over the mountain. Mniki greets them in isiXhosa as we walk pass and they smile.
Climbing up a steep incline of rocks towards a cave, we stop to catch our breath. I turn around from our mid-way ascent and see the dongas are mini desert canyons against the short grass surrounding them. Women in the villages used to walk out to these deep gullies to dig for water.
We continue trekking over rocks and boulders, and I imagine what it would be like to hike and explore more of the mountainside. Soon we reach an open cave, where the rock wall serves as a shelter during a rainstorm or a refuge from a scorching sun. The rondavels look like round Lego houses in the middle of the grassland.
Sitting on the same rock that Mniki used to rest on with his friends after stealing maize years ago, I am shaded from the bright sun as a gentle breeze cools us. The land below looks flat and, as the clouds above shift, they cast soft shadows that dance across the green pasture.
Hours later, we are crammed at the back of an enclosed bakkie to return to Matatiele; 16 passengers with stooped necks, bouncing as the vehicle rocks along the bumpy path. Mniki chats with a man whose shoulder is pressed against mine and I remember the conversation we had the previous evening.
Mniki had confided that he would like to travel overseas. He doesn’t know that I would prefer to roast stolen maize under the shade of a sloped cave in his Masakala backyard.
Ada Chan is the marketing officer at Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa
The route
The Mehloding Adventure Trail passes through spectacular mountainous foothills and rural villages, taking in visits to undocumented rock art, sparkling streams, indigenous trees, medicinal plants, craft projects, traditional initiation cave sites and sometimes the local chiefs. Local entertainment and interaction with the people in the nearby villages is part of the cultural experience. On the trail you are likely to meet friendly Basotho horse riders.
The trail can be hiked in reverse or limited to one, two or three days.
Day one: 12,5km – easy to moderate terrain
Starting at 1 924m, the trail contours along stock paths, meandering through protea trees and across open grassland, giving hikers an opportunity to explore sandstone formations, indigenous forests and plants, with great mountain views. The day finishes at Liqalabeng chalet, at 1 650m, surrounded by proteas and clean mountain air.
Day two: 12km – easy to moderate terrain
Downhill from the chalet and across a crystal clear stream to explore the villages of Makomoreng, Goxe and Ha Seera, then on for a swim in the Kinira River. Climb up to the ridge and explore strange sandstone gargoyles and magnificent views, then on along the ridge and down to the chalet at Maboloka (1 660m). Three Sisters and Makalane Peaks dominate the skyline above the chalet.
Day three: 19,5km – moderate to challenging hike
Starts up in the mountains below the Twins Peak (Makalane, 2 789m), with an easy walk to a stream and some glorious mountain hardpear trees. Some scrambling takes one up to a well-preserved rock art panel in the sandstone belt, and on up to the contour level, where the path meanders through proteas and open grassland.
The second half of the day involves a fairly flat ridge walk with great 360 degree views, taking one down across the Seeta river to reach Mpharane village. Wander between the homesteads of this attractive rural village and up to the Makhulong Lodge at 1 030m.
Day four: 10km
An easy day’s walk which traverses Mpharane village and across the ridge linking Mpharane with the Masupha area, where cold drinks can be bought from the village store, or water bottles refilled at a tap under the huge tree at Tipa’s Place. Some interesting medicinal plants are to be found along the ridge. Curious children may follow you singing down to the Jordan River, before a gentle slope to the ridge above Mariazell Mission, and down to the Lebelle River for a swim, after exploring a cave with rock paintings.
For further information and bookings, contact Masakala Guesthouse at
tel or fax: (039) 737-3289
cellphone: 073 355-4981
email: [email protected]
For information about responsible tourism and Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa, see http://www.fairtourismsa.org.za or email: [email protected]