Happy Birthday To Me

29 years old! How did that happen already?! It's been a pretty good birthday weekend so far.

I went for an incredible hike yesterday with Gillian and Jesper. We left at 6 a.m. drove to the Korannaberg Conservancy in South Africa, and began what was touted among the expat community as "The Hike". It's a 27-32 km loop (depending on which map you consult). Yeah, that's about 18 miles. The South African hiking books, say this is a two day hike, with an overnight in a cave at 18 km. They're not so hardcore here, so we planned to do it in one day, We thought it would take us about ten hours, but we didn't think it was unreasonable. So given that the sun goes down around 6:30 now, we hauled butt as soon as our feet hit the ground. I've done a lot of hiking in my life, but never starting at the pace we had. So we're going and going, running on some of the flats and downhills, really trying to make sure we didn't get stuck on the mountain in the dark...Then, all of a sudden, we hit a trail blaze that indicates we've gone 16 km. What!? It was only 3 hours or something into the hike. Then we made the big climb up to the ridge and headed toward the cave (our mental half way point). It took us 3.25 hours to do that 18 Km. So the last 12 was a breeze. It began to thunder about 45 min before we were slated to finish, but we made it back down before the storm hit. Then it was a flash flood for about 15 min, but we were safely in the car....at 2:30 p.m. Insane. I was pretty tired, but not wholly wiped out. The elevation gain wasn't too much, so we could cover a lot of ground, but it was definitely a worthy hike.

I ate about 30 kilos of food when I got home, and then Sarah and I got ready for the expat party in Lower Thetsane. Actually, strangely, it was a joint birthday party for two women, one born Apr 5 and one on Apr 6! When I got the email forwarded to me (since I didn't really know these people), I was like "How weird, everyone has the same bday as me". My boss, Senate, has a son born today, and Suzanna's brother is also born today. I've never met other people born on April 6, so there's something in the air here. Anyway, we had a fun time at the party, ate some fantastic desserts, and at midnight we toasted one birthday gone and two birthdays arrived.

My plans for today....well, I woke up this morning to a deluge, and it's Sunday, so nothing is really open in Maseru anyway. I'll probably go to the gym (yeah, even after doing a 30 km hike. I'm insane. I know), then watch movies with Sarah. That's the big day.

Oh, FYI - our internet is on the fritz, so if I don't email back or you need me urgently, get my cell number from Caleb. It's not too expensive to call fro Skype (I don't think).

UPDATE: I did go to the gym, and the best birthday gift I got was that no one hit on my or asked for my phone number! 'Me Zinnia, the woman we live with, treated us to lunch at Lesotho Sun (where she works). It has this amazing buffet, and we definitely indulged!