I have recollections of two places where I have spent the night, where—ordinarily—I wouldn’t have freely chosen to be; however, the circumstances made them supremely attractive. One was a cave, the other a backpackers dormitory.
In 1974 a few friends and I set out to climb Towerkop, a peak that looms over Ladismith, in the Western Province of South Africa. Its summit is 2189 meters (7182 feet) above sea level so, when the weather is bad, it’s really bad. The week-end we chose for our expedition produced some exceptional weather which put paid to our rock climbing, but gave us a chance for some wonderful snow and ice climbing. With the minimum temperature dropping below –20°C each night, we certainly needed to sleep somewhere sheltered. The only option was Nel’s Cave, near the summit. This cave stands out in my memory as the most wonderful, hospitable cave in which I have ever slept. It protected us from the life-threatening wind and cold, and kept us dry.
It came as a bit of a shock when I returned a year later, in much warmer weather, and discovered that, when the temperature is above freezing, this cave is the most miserable damp place imaginable. We elected to sleep outside on the ledge because one just could not find a dry spot inside. I still prefer to remember the cave as having been hospitable when I desperately needed hospitality.
This month I rode my motorcycle to the top of the Sani Pass—about 40% higher than Towerkop—went through the border post into Lesotho, and booked into the Sani Top Backpackers for the night. As you might expect, it was pretty basic. During the night, the temperature dropped to around –5°C, with a westerly wind of about 60 kilometres per hour—a combination that could make sleeping out in the open potentially the last thing one did.
Inside, the building is gloomy, even during the day. The generator—fed by diesel that is brought up the pass in a four-wheel drive vehicle—comes on around six in the evening and goes off at ten. After that, it is useful to have a torch readily available. The passage is illuminated by a solar lamp. A battery is charged by such sunlight as there is during the day in order to power the lamp during the night. It consists of a few LEDs with reflectors which make the light seem to dance and shimmer amongst the clouds formed by one’s breath. It is not very bright, giving just enough light to see what it was that you smashed your toe against, but not enough for you to have avoided the collision in the first place.
Once the pipes freeze, you can’t shower, neither can you flush the toilet, so you need to schedule your abluting activities for sometime between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. Again, this wasn’t exactly five star accommodation, but, in terms of life preservation, it is right up there with a space-station, or even the womb. Ultimately, it’s all about needs determining values.
Now, let’s discuss hotspots.
There are two hotspots in the lounge of the Sani Lodge, the hotel at the top of the pass. One is a beautiful open fireplace that has a fire burning in it non-stop—I think—right through winter. The other is an electronic “hotspot”, provided by the mobile telephone networks, from where mobile phone subscribers can—like ET—phone home; or Ulaanbaatar, for that matter. Move a few metres away and your mobile is useful only for telling the time, or hammering in small nails.
These are the two social foci of the lounge. The most obvious difference between these two spots is revealed through people’s clothing. Whereas those near the fire gradually peel off their jackets and jumpers, those at the comms hotspot gradually put more on because they are standing next to a wall that is mainly glass, and it is below freezing-point outside. If one’s need to contact the outside world supervenes one’s requirement for warmth (in defiance of Maslow), then the electronic hotspot is the place to be.
Most people seem to prefer the warmth of the fire. We haven’t really drifted all that far from our Cro-Magnon roots.