I was a man once, for a short while. A burly, rather handsome, hirsute man.
As I'm a female of medium height, it was quite a nerve-wracking few hours, which could have ended in a cross-border political incident. Luckily it didn't.
Nick (not his real name), a charming, heavily bearded chap had invited me to join him on a trip up the Sani Pass.
He ran an African adventure company and had heard I was a keen quad biker.So early one Saturday morning, we headed to the rendezvous point near Himeville, KwaZulu-Natal.
Nick allocated me a suitable bike then took me out for a cross-country jaunt to see if I could handle my 250cc machine over rough terrain - which would be nothing like what we'd encounter up the pass.
We met the others and, all suitably jacketed and helmeted, set off.
The mountains loomed lilac-coloured on a beautiful morning. The thought of going up the pass had my heart thudding like a fist bashing inside my ribcage. It wasn't fear, I assured myself, just excitement.The fear kicked in when we reached the small, squat building that is the SA-Lesotho border post. Greg stopped and went from person to person, gathering little coloured books - their passports. I felt sick.
"Why didn't you tell me I needed to bring a passport?" I asked. Duh.
"Didn't you get my email?" he replied.
No I darned well hadn't - stupid erratic farm-style internet.
"Now what?" I asked.
"Don't stress," my hairy hero answered, pulling his own passport from his pocket."You'll go in on mine. They know me so well they won't even look at the names and pics or count how many. Just don't take off your helmet and try to look like a man."
He sauntered through the doorway.
My palms were sweaty.I slumped in a "bored, macho" pose, resisting the temptation to scratch my imaginary beard. Time ticked on. Then Nick shot out of the building, and quickly returned passports to the law-abiding riders. He turned to me and said, "Let's go, and keep your helmet on."
The trip was incredible.
As it got steeper, the boulders got bigger and the drop over the edge became more and more scary.Buoyed by my narrow escape, I soaked in the views, until my bike started chugging in an unhealthy way.
"Stuff it," I thought, or words to that effect. To have made it through the border only to have my bike break down seemed incredibly cruel.
Yet again, Nick came to the rescue. He'd seen it all before and the removal of the bike's air filter - so the two-stroke engine could breathe in the thin air - did the trick.We climbed onwards, passing 4x4s rocking slowly over the huge stones. Nick waved to a man on a bicycle, who was heading up with a load of wood on his handlebars. Apparently he travelled the pass daily to fetch wood - there are few trees at the top. I wondered if he showed his passport each time.
A long while of winding road later, we reached the top, bald and flat, just how I imagined the moors of Wuthering Heights.
Sani Mountain Lodge, the "highest pub in Africa" at 2,874m, welcomed us.
Never had a pub lunch been so inviting; and the loo was even more so.But what goes up must come down, so a bit later we lowered our saddle-sore rumps onto our bikes, and headed back to the trail.
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