Lesotho | No 1 Adventurers travel blog

Mountain Zebra National Park

We really did try hard to camp in Lesotho, but in our hunt for a flat, level spot to pitch the tent on, we realised that there’s probably almost no such thing in the whole country. It’s all above 1000 metres, and most of it is either mountainous, rocky and usually both. We have a 4WD guide book that has a self-guided driving tour through Lesotho, which recommends campsites and alternatives, but we were unexcited by their camping suggestions, so we headed straight to Maseru. Lesotho’s capital has a population of just under 250,000 .. so large enough to be a decent-sized city, but it still has constant reminders that we’re in Africa – cows and goats roaming around suburban streets, crazy traffic and even crazier pedestrians, invisible road markings because they haven’t been painted in at least 20 years.

We booked a room at a ‘Guest House’ on booking.com, but it all got a bit confusing. We turned up at the Trinity Guest House, conveniently located close to the SA/LS border, only to discover that there are 2 guest houses of the same name, and the one we had booked was 12 kms away. Then when we got there, the receptionist claimed to have no knowledge of our booking. Luckily there was a vacancy, driving in the dark here is … challenging.

Crossing back in to South Africa the next morning was the usual chaos. We’ve done quite a few African border crossings now, and the only thing they all have in common is that they are all different. Some need slips of paper stamped by several different departments, a couple demand health checks, some want all the paperwork for the car, and some just scan our passports and send us on our way.

We spent a night at the Onze Rust campground at Colesberg. We stayed there on our way to Cape Town last time.

We’ve just spent a couple of days camping in the Mountain Zebra National Park, about 1000kms north east of Cape Town. Went for a drive yesterday and saw lots of mountain zebras (they only have black stripes, no grey ones like plains zebras) and heaps of different species of antelopes. This morning it’s very misty and we wouldn’t see much, so we picked the right days to stay. Heading back to Cape Town today and have booked an Airbnb place for our last couple of nights.

The chaos of cars and trucks at the Lesotho/South Africa border crossing

A truck full of ....Pidgeons — A truck full of ….Pigeons

Everything closed up after another monkey stole a bannana — Everything closed up after another monkey stole a banana at Mountain Zebra Park

Sun setting over the rest camp at Mountain Zebra Park

Windmill pump, a common site over the Karoo just like they are in Outback Australia

To give, or not to give?

By Lesotho standards, we are rich beyond belief. We think we are living simply when we travel and camp, but I see some of the locals looking in the back of our ute and thinking ‘what do these white people do with all that stuff?‘ We have 2 drawers that run the full length of the ute tray and one of them has our food in it, probably more food than a local family would eat in a month. AND we also have a fridge! Not much refrigeration or power in this country

People have approached us asking money or ‘sweets’. We have driven on the main roads here and had kids and adults wave and hold out their hands. They do that because that behaviour has been rewarded by people who have travelled here before us, but we don’t give money just because someone asks for it. That’s begging, and while I understand why it happens, and I’m acutely aware of how much we have compared with the people who live here, I don’t reward begging. But I feel conflicted about it, and occasionally have to remind myself to stop getting irritated. At home I don’t feel conflicted, I just get irritated.

We’ve given money to people who do something for us, and we’ve bought and given food to people who ask for it, in return for them watching our car while we’re in the supermarket. Yesterday a man played some music on a traditional instrument for us and while it sounded like a cat being strangled, he gave us something in return for the food and small amount of money we gave him. And he let us take photos. We’re ‘giving something’ by spending money in villages – Greg has almost cleaned out several small shops by buying up their stocks of Vodacom airtime cards, at AUD 50c each. He has to buy at least 6 at a time to be able activate more online data, but one shop we tried this morning only had 3. He walked past some kids near St James a couple of days ago with a strip of 10, and at least 2 kids asked him for ‘just one’, with no expectation that he’d actually give them one – the school gives their students a very strong message and begging is absolutely not the way to go.

Anyway, I was really just thinking aloud, or ‘on paper’. We’re currently at Afriski, a ski resort in the northern part of Lesotho. We’ve just had lunch at the Sky Restaurant, which claims to be the highest restaurant in Africa at 3010 metres. My sea level-dwelling lungs are letting me know how high we are, I get puffed out climbing a flight of stairs! There’s a small ski run with just enough snow to ski on, but it’s pretty funny to compare it with the Swedish ski resort we stayed at in January last year when we were hunting the Northern Lights. There was snow everywhere there, but it wasn’t open because there wasn’t enough snow yet. And further south in Sweden, there were snow-making machines supplementing what we thought was plenty of snow.

We’ve seen the first white people in a few days here at Afriski, and we probably won’t see any more until we get to Maseru, the capital, tomorrow.

So little snow at Afriski, next to the dry hills of Lesotho

Maloraneng Lesotho

Senqu River the start of the Orange river whcih we crossed a thousand kilometres to the west when we entered Namibia — Senqu River the start of the Orange river which we crossed a thousand kilometres to the west when we entered Namibia

The steep 4WD track into the Lost Valley of Khubelu

Footbridge across the Khubelu river so schools kids and villages can get across the river when it is in flood

Looking back to the Roundavals we stayed in

Shephards Hut and kraal (animal enclosure)

The next village on from where are staying

Judy warming in front of the coal fire. Yes it really is coal and the fire was set by a local villager

Sani Pass Lesotho

After two days of driving from Johannessburg we left Himmeville and headed up Sani Pass into Lesotho. Sani Pass is the only eastern access to Lesotho and is 2900 metres high. It is 4WD only, the customs post will not let you past if you don’t have a 4WD.
The road is a rough track in places, but not that hard. The most difficult part is the last kilometre that is a series of switchbacks up to the summit of the pass.
We then went though customs into Lesotho paying $3 road tax. We then drove on a brand new road (still being built) that was using chinese trucks and construction equipment, with the Lesotho workers supervised with Chinese supervisors. We then crossed an even higher pass Kotisephola at 3241 metres. It was a 50km drive to Mokhotlong passing Basotho villages along the way, as well as herders with their anogora goats and donkeys and horses. We passed 3 cars.

After reaching Mokhotlong with people riding horses down the main street we realised we needed to retrace our course back a few kilometres to reach the turnoff to St James Lodge.
St James Lodge is fairly basic accommodation (no power) next to St James school and has several nearby villages that the school children come from.

working up the hairpin bends on Sani Pass

Stopped on Kotisephola pass with ice still around

A traditional musician that Judy gave some foot and money to — A traditional musician playing for us, that Judy gave some food and money to him

His instrument made with a horse hair string and he blew into the hollowed wood

Heading to Lesotho

We left Jo’burg on Saturday to drive east along the N2 freeway tollroad towards Durban. One of the closest towns to the Sani Pass is Himeville, which is about 650kms from Jo’burg, so we split the drive into 2 days, planning on staying overnight at Harrismith. There’s one campground there, but it’s very close to the N2, set behind a service station complex with at least 12 fast food choices, cafes, a bus station, and loads of parking. We thought it might be a bit noisy, so decided to head out of town a bit to a campground within the Sterkfontein Dam and Nature Reserve. Much better choice.

We were the only ones in the campground, but there were other campers near the edge of the lake. Finding a cleanish site without too much horse poo on it was a bit tricky, but we did find one, and learnt later that the ‘horse poo’ was actually zebra poo! How exotic! Sadly we didn’t see any zebras.

Something that has really puzzled me about South African campgrounds is that they always have at least as many bathtub cubicles as shower cubicles. This one had 8 baths, 3 showers and a disabled shower cubicle with a broken shower head … so that would actually be a disabled disabled shower cubicle ….HA! Yes, I think I’m hilarious, you may beg to differ.

Last time we were in South Africa, we listed some of the things we saw people selling by the side of the road. We saw the funniest one so far in Harrismith … a guy selling whips! Obviously a rural area, unless he was including a free copy of ’50 Shades of Grey’ with every whip he sold.

Last night we stayed in an Airbnb cottage in Himeville, and we’re very glad we did that rather than camp. Huge electrical storm and heaps of rain in the early evening, not typical weather for this time of the year according to our host. This morning it’s fine and clear, so hopefully the drive through Sani Pass will be okay. I’ll leave it to Greg to add some photos.

See you in a few days, we won’t have internet access while we’re in Lesotho.

Finding room for the solar panels in between the Zebra poo

Camped at Sterkfontein Dam. Ground is dry because it only rains in summer and it is winter. Trees are bare because its winter.

Shopping at Pick n Pay Supermarket Harrismith

Its only a bit broken...Harrismith — Its only a bit broken…Harrismith