Histoire d'un week end par temps d'hiver au Lesotho, pour aller voir .... la neige. Et oui, en hiver, on peut trouver de la neige en Afrique du Sud, et notamment au Lesotho, pays situé en plein centre de l'Afrique du Sud. Pour la partie historique, le Lesotho est la patrie des Basotho, et des peuples sotho-tswana. Lors du grand trek des Voortrekkers (sud africains blancs), ceux ci envahirent le pays pour s'y installer. après quelques conflits et grâce au génie du roi Moshoeshoe 1er, le peuple basotho réussit à garder le pouvoir. Afin de défendre son territoire, le roi signa [View Full Entry]

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Lesotho, is a gorgeous country! Known as the "Kingdom in the Sky" because it is the "highest" country in the world (measured from the lowest point if that makes any sense at all). Again, very different from other places we've been to in Africa and even better that we were here for three nights at the same place (yay, no driving). The highlight here (besides upgrading from our tent to a nice cabin - which we haven't done since Nairobi) was the pony trekking. These are the most stable ponys we've ever seen and it's amazing how effortlessly they can go [View Full Entry]

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I've been back at school for a little over a week now, but I haven't had time to update from my trip to Lesotho, because this is cram time on campus- papers and exams flying right and left, computer lab full at all times of the day and night, and everyone (including me) is busy all the time. Luckily, before this madness started, I got to spend a week in lovely Lesotho, here is some background on the country: Lesotho (Le-SOO-too) is a small independent kingdom, geographically located in the mountains inside of South Africa. It is the highest country in [View Full Entry]

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Amazing place The backpapers at the Drakensberg organised day tours to Lesotho - The Kingdom in the Sky - and as we were so close we decided to head over there. The roads up to Lesotho are very, very bad and very, very twisty. You wouldn't believe that we could get up there in a normal minibus! on the way we passed Qwa Qwa (to say this you have to use the click found in Zulu/Sotho languages - replace the Q for a click - very hard to get right!). This is another of the Apartheid's homelands and again thousands of [View Full Entry]

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The snow Blizzard started as soon as we left the Sani pass Police post in South Africa. It was chaos, 7 4X4 vehicles in front of us had got stuck in the thick snow. There were vehicles behind us but we persevered after an exciting 3 hrs burning the clutch, screeching tyres eventually we got to the top but ahead the gates were locked and there was no one to be seen. The blizzard grew worse and there were 9 people outside the gate in 0 degrees celcius, half a of meter snow, blistering winds not sure what the next step [View Full Entry]

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Sehlabatebe Nature reserve. Jan/Feb 2008 This is the oldest nature reserve in Lesotho, Sehlabathebe is remote and rugged, with an average elevation of 2,400 metres. and covers more than 65 000 hectares of mountainous grassveld. There are no trees here which makes it a unique wilderness area of valleys teaming with plants, herbs, shrubs, wild orchids and extravagant flowers. It is almost inaccessible, but incredibly beautiful, with some shy antelope and rare birds. The best way to get there is by horseback, 25 km from Bushmens Neck police post. I drove from Durban (sea level) at 05h00 and arrived at Bushmens [View Full Entry]

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Lesotho translates as the land of the people who speak Sesotho; the people of Lesotho are called Basotho. It's a small land locked country - at @30,000 sq/km it's completely surrounded by South Africa and lies entirely above 1,000m - its lowest point is 1,400m, with over 80% of the country above 1,800m. And of its 2 million population around 29% have HIV/AIDS - recent estimates for the average life expectancy are @36 years old. I had just one day in Lesotho but soon realised I could easily have stayed much longer - like many tourists I was on a day [View Full Entry]

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It had been a cold night with little sleep. I looked out of the tent and found Mr Seja scraping off frost from his tent and efficiently packing his belongings into his red German rental car. We'd met him one day earlier as we - resembling two bagladies - had dragged our plastic-bagged belongings across the border at Maseru bridge. He was efficiency personified. Punctuality, rationality, German humour and break-neck driving skills all in one. With him behind the wheel we managed to see half the country in less than a week. - "Bloody cold wasn't it?" I called out, looking [View Full Entry]

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Walking out of the Quach's Nek border-post I tilted my head against the gale-force winds, to see orange pieces of plastic on the ground...strikingly similar in colour to the bikes indicators. Yep, the wind was strong alright, and had blown the bike over, much to the bemusement of onlookers. Battling against the wind, we rode through the beautiful landscape Lesotho provides to Sehlabatebe National Park. It was a long ride, and tiredness prevailed. After looking up the loose-bouldery track, and ranting that I wasn't Alfie Cox (three times Paris-Dakar motorbike champion that I met in Bulungula), we carried on. In [View Full Entry]

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I had found the Africa I was searching for, but, until I had crossed the imaginary line in the sand, I had not found. On the South African side of the line there were towns and cities filled with a fear-based misery that seemed to affect both the obscenely rich and the hopelessly poor alike. All of the fear and all of the racial segregation instantly disappeared as we drove through the border post, received our passport stamps and emerged into the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. It was an amazing contrast! There were no signs of the fortified homes, the electrified [View Full Entry]

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