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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I have returned to Khotso Backpackers in Underberg in the Southern Drakensberg Mountains. I first arrived here on March 21. In between now and then, good times have been had. Readers Digest Version I left Khotso on horseback and rode into Lesotho. Two days were spent riding to or around Sehlabathebe National Park in Lesotho. After that a few days were spent in the capital Maseru. From Molumong Lodge I did another two days of pony trekking. After Molumong Lodge we hiked down the famous Sani Pass back into S. Africa. So I arrived in Lesotho on the back of a [View Full Entry]

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Hello to you all let me start by starting how much I love South Africa. When I last left you I was just heading to Jeffery's Bay. I was in J-bay for three days and had a good time chilling out there to the reggae vibes in the bar. This town was the South Africa location for Bruce Brown's 1964 film"The Endless Summer" which many consider the best surfing film ever made. From J-Bay it was on to East London just for night. On the bus that night this lady just put her 9 month old baby on my lap [View Full Entry]

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Lesotho: The Roof of Africa (March 25-29, 2007) The gravel road snaked its way up, through, around and up again over the seemingly never-ending range of mountains. The four-wheel drive whined as it carefully edged its way over cavernous holes and ruts, the loose rocks churning under the wheels, getting ever closer to the plateau of cliff known as the Drakensberg Range. I peered over the very close edge and looked down into the bottomless canyon. “What’s that?”, I asked our guide, Steven, as he carefully maneuvered the route. “It’s a Mercedes truck that didn [View Full Entry]

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When the British were ruling they said Lesotho was the remotest place on earth. Today its a bit more accessible for tourists. Having said that, it took 3 and 1/2 hours for us to enter by the best road from the north east. The Sani Pass is reached via Underberg and lies next to the Giants Cup. Its almost impossible to ascend without 4WD, unfortunately for me the Land Rover we travelled in was over 25 years old with no seat belts. We had to stop several times on the pass to cool the radiator down as the steam emanating from [View Full Entry]

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We are in Lesotho having just crossed from South Africa. We have visited some local tribe people in one of their summer homes, they seemed very nice and we had some home made beer and bread. Now back to the jeep and down the Sani pass again. [View Full Entry]

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Today Lesotho celebrated its 40th anniversary of independence. This small kingdom has had a rough history in recent years. In 1998, the political parties in the country contested the national election, and riots broke out, primarily in Maseru. Instead of supporting the government in efforts to restore order, the army also began to riot. Unable to find local resources to quell the chaos, the government invited several neighboring countries to come in and restore order. South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia sent troops in to stop the civil conflict and managed to restore order, but not [View Full Entry]

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One our first trips into the country was to visit Thaba Bosiu, the hilltop fortress that was used by King Moshoeshoe to resist the Zulu invaders in the 1820’s. Moshoeshoe was a great ruler and diplomat who welcomed and offered assistance to all of the varied peoples who sought refuge from the invading Zulu. Within a short period of time, his small band had expanded to a considerable number, which he united under the Basotho banner to form Basutoland, later called Lesotho. The site at Thaba Bosiu repelled many assaults, at first from the Zulu and later from the Boers. Moshoeshoe’s [View Full Entry]

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On September 25 we left Johannesburg and began driving southeast out of Gauteng Province and into the vaal, or great grassland of the Province of Free State. Later that day we entered the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho, pronounced Leh-SUE-too. We were invited to stay in the home of Kal and his family, a very successful Bahá’í businessman who has been in Lesotho for 33 years, in the capital city of Maseru. Kal was born in Central Asia and raised in the United States. A couple of years ago his wife passed away and he remarried Thato, a young Basotho woman who [View Full Entry]

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Having said my goodbyes at the airport I took a taxi into Jo'burg. I hadn't exactly been looking forward to returning to the city and I was feeling pretty apprehensive as the Lesotho minibus stand is not inside the official bus station. Things were made worse by the fact that my taxi driver was blatantly a criminal. As I drove through the city he insisted on pointing out all the places where he goes when he is on the run from the police. As you can imagine this was not very reassuring. He also had absolutely no idea where he was [View Full Entry]

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