Blogs from Lesotho, Africa
May 20th 2012
Heading into the Drakensberg to do a little hiking we didn’t realize that the reward for a beer would entice us to hike to the highest pub in Africa and walking the Sani pass at 2865m along the way. The Sani Pass we have heard quite a lot about over the years, the views are breathtaking, road is tough and the wind is bone chilling. This is why, like most others, we were looking to do a tour up the pass to reach the famous pub in Lesotho overlooking South Africa. The problem is that they want a large amount of money to do this and at this stage of our trip it just didn’t seem possible. The thing that the tour operators don’t tell you is that it is possible to walk the 18km return ... read more
March 11th 2012
There are these two small countries on the Southern African continent that we have heard of, but most of us don't know much about them. I name the first one the Kingdom of Swaziland, sandwiched between South Africa and Mozambique. I visited Swaziland for 3 days back in 2011. Swaziland is peaceful, and pleaged by HIV....with friendly people and low lying hills. The second little country is Lesotho. To the European that I am, Lesotho is even more of a weird kingdom. The country, basically a "circle" of 180km diameter is stuck inside South Africa. There is no access to the sea here, and to nothing else than South Africa....by land, or by air. Sadly, the reputation of Maseru, the capital, is way less friendly than the reputation of the Swaziland capital of Manzini. Swaziland is ... read more
January 5th 2012
I have decided to do a separate entry about this day because it was a completely different experience from our hike in the Drakkensberg. We were picked up in the morning (which dawned bright and sunny but eventually became cold and rainy at the top of Sani Pass) by our guide Stuart and set out in a group of 7 people in a well-used Land Rover. The day before we had eavesdropped on the owner of Sani Lodge telling a caller that they could attempt to drive up the Pass in their rental car, but they may end up leaving pieces of their engine behind. There was a reason that the only vehicles that we saw on this road were Land Rovers and Land Cruisers and other such four-wheel drives. A few kilometers past Sani Lodge ... read more
June 22nd 2011
Lesotho was on my route simply because it is a visa free country and people said there were mountains. I had even considered skipping it due to rumors of snow and negative temperatures, which after over a year in tropical African I was not enthused or prepared to experience. Needless to say, I am glad I went. From the moment we left the South Africa border post and started winding our way upwards on the steep switchbacks that traverse no man’s land, it was clear that Lesotho would be the most culturally and geographically unique country that I have visited in Africa. The Afrikaans family that gave me a lift up Sani Pass, the 2874m southeastern gateway to the kingdom, had the same idea as the majority of tourists who reach the top: take some photos, ... read more
January 7th 2011
1 January 2011 Happy New Year!! Today we were attempting to get to Maseru (the capital of Lesotho) in one day. Public transport isn't great, so it was going to be a challenge. Our first challenge of course was getting from our lodge in the middle of nowhere to the main town of Mothoklong. So we got up early, showered and walked out of the lodge at about 7am. Our best option was to walk along the road and hope for a car we could hitch with or a local mini taxi van. Looking around the emptiness, we really didn't have a lot of confidence. Surprisingly after walking along the road for about 10 minutes, a taxi arrived. This took us all the way into town, a lot quicker than our ute ride last night. At ... read more
January 1st 2011
Drakensberg into Lesotho Friday 31st December 2010 Today we left the beautiful surroundings of Drakensberg to travel over the dramatic Sani Pass into Lesotho. After a slow start we walked 3km's up the road to some ruins where the 4x4 mini taxis apparently wait to pick people up. It was in the middle of nowhere and difficult to imagine that this was a bus stop. We had made a weak attempt to hitch hike on our walk up, but at this point we had decided that it would be rude to try and hitch hike while we waited at the bus stop with the local Basotho people (Lesotho people). The 4x4 mini taxi van arrived at about 11:30, so we were pretty happy, thinking we were going to get to our destination Mokhotlong at a reasonable ... read more
December 23rd 2010
Our day trip to Lesotho began bright and early with a six-thirty pick up in Durban. Three hours later, after driving north we arrived in the South African town of Underberg, a cattle and dairy community located in the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains. Its second source of income was tourism and it was here that Angela and I were required to change vehicles for the harrowing ascent up the Sani Pass, a track notorious for its accidents due to the loose gravel and death-defying bends. Underberg was actually a pretty nice town with a lot of hustle and bustle going on. It was also a popular place for tourists, with lots of backpacker hotels and tour companies plying their trade. While we waited for the next segment of the trip to begin, we had a ... read more
August 4th 2010
We spent the last week in Lesotho which is a small kingdom embedded in South Africa. It is roughly circular, about 150 miles in diameter. Although independent, it is closely tied to South Africa; for instance, its currency (called a loti) is tied one for one with the rand, and inside Lesotho rands are used interchangeably with maloti (maloti is the plural of loti). Journey to Losotho It has been said that getting there is half the adventure and that was certainly true of our journey to Lesotho. We arose at 5am and quickly dressed and packed; our taxi was waiting for us at 5:30. The taxi driver knew exactly what bus we needed and dropped us off in the right place. We went up to the bus departure point and there were very many buses. ... read more
July 13th 2010
July 13th Nicio and I had arranged the day before to get a ride with one of the owners of the Semonkong Lodge to Maseru, where we would get a bus to Johannesburg, South Africa. The lodge does two weekly trips to Maseru to get supplies and even though they were already planning on going they still charged us. Things like this kind of upset me, seeing how he basically was paid to have us give him conversation, I mean it’s not like he was going out of his way to give us a ride, he was heading that way anyways!! Anyways, the drive was great as you can already imagine from the previous posts and pictures. I was able to get a couple photos on the way to Maseru and the border of Lesotho and ... read more
July 12th 2010
July 12th In the morning our plans for the four of us to hang out together kinda disappeared, we had all planned to goto the Maletsuyane Falls together. But due to the weather our new friend wouldn’t be able to abseil, it had begun to snow and that makes the conditions to dangerous to try rappeling down nearly 200 meters. So with the snow falling Nicio and I went for a walk, it had began just as a walk to the top of the nearby mountain pass to see the plateau before us. On the way to the top we met a young Basotho boy named Joseph, he was 11 years old and walking home from school, it had been canceled due to the weather as well. We walked and talked with him and he explained ... read more
