Camping at Wolfberg Arch, Cederberg
My shirt stuck to my back and my breath was labored as we made the final stretch of the climb up to the Wolfberg Arch in Cederberg. The blister on my heel was stinging as my boots crunched on the rocks. “Almost there,” my uncle huffed. We walked on in silence, conserving our energy, yet there was an air of excitement about us: our goal was nearly in sight.
I kept my eyes trained to the rocks beneath my feet, concentrating on trying to take some of the strain off my shoulders by holding my backpack. “There it is!” my cousin Salman exclaimed, “I can see the top of it!”
We set up camp on the plain below the arch, as the sun set on the other side of the mountain. The sound of our evening prayer echoed across the otherwise uninhabited valley quite eerily in the waning light.
After the sunset, we began our final ascent – me with my diary and camera in hand. Our torches lit up the way and I fell in line behind Uncle M. Our conversation died away as the stars began to appear- the vastness of their numbers, they made one feel small, and as if one should remain silent. The only sound was Uncle M’s camera bag squeaking as it bounced on his back. I could still smell the sunblock I had smeared on earlier, now dried hard on my face. The smell of it made an odd mixture with the soft-green smell of the mountain bushes around us.
The Arch looming over us in front of the star-invested, indigo sky, was something I will never forget. Uncle M gave me a very patient tutorial about Aperture, ISO and Shutter speed, before setting up his tripod to capture the star trail around the south celestial pole. I sat on a rock a little away from our group and lost my gaze on the unencumbered dome above us. It struck me how light it was, even though the sun had set an hour earlier. The cold as now settling in - but it wasn’t your icy wind, it was this all-encompassing chill that slices into your bones and makes your veins constrict in objection. I would have done anything for a cup of my mom’s tea and a homemade rusk. My trouble-knee still ached from the hike so I was content to stare at the stars on this rock, in the middle of nowhere. The stars looked like strewn jewels scattered across the velvet night, sparkling in silence. The Milky Way was rising over us in the night sky – its swirling white smudge of a core plainly visible to us like spilt milk, making clear how our galaxy is named. It seemed to me, looking up at the night sky, like there was snowfall in some far-away part of the heavens across our galaxy. Scorpio, the Southern Cross, Orion’s Belt, and innumerable other ethereal figures, danced above us. The world had never felt so silent, my heart so loud.
Mustafa Karbanee at Wolfberg Arch, Cederberg.
We returned to our tents after an hour to an uncomfortable night in our tents, sleeping over jagged rocks and shrubs. I didn’t get much sleep, perhaps an hour at most. Back to reality in my discomfort, I wanted the night to end my sooner than it agreed to.
I woke up at one point and looked at my phone through blurry sleep-encrusted eyes: 4:20am. I decided to walk outside to relieve my bursting bladder. The sky was lighter than before and the crescent moon illuminated our campsite with a gentle light. It was as if I was watching a scene from an old fable stepping off the page, and I was beguiled by its beauty.
My brother Abdullah shouted at me to close the tent flap. “I’m still sleeping, Mustafa! Do you mind?”
We set about making our breakfast of boiled eggs and oats with a few left–over crackers from the night before, in the pre-dawn dark. Once we had something in our stomachs, we made our morning prayers. The sound of the Athaan call to prayer across the empty valley is something I will never forget. “Prayer is better than sleep.”
We packed up camp, and readied ourselves for the hike back down when the sky began to light up.
Sunrise came then as an angry bruise on the horizon. The red deepened and mixed with the blue in an amalgamation of orange hues. Venus still hung bright in the sky. Clouds lay across the horizon in military lines, rebounding the light of the coming sun. I stood, watching the sunrise, behind a camera; it was a refreshing change from watching it behind my pen. Although, I will always prefer ink. The wind was chilling on my fingers and nose, making my nose sniff from the cold.
As the horizon changed to a red tinge, the sun appeared almost suddenly and surprisingly swiftly – a brilliant orange orb.
Sunrise at Wolfberg Arch
We began our descent, content in our hearts to have experienced such a night and such a sunrise. We miss these things in our everyday lives, yet these rises and settings happen every morning and every evening almost unnoticed whilst we sleep in our warm beds and spend time in mundane things. These stars come out every night yet we city-dwellers see only our neon lights.
The trip was something that will stay with me, always.
Mustafa Karbanee
