Lesotho

Next I went to beautiful Lesotho, the "Kingdom in the Sky". Lesotho has the highest low point in the world, the entire country is above 1000 meters above sea level. I travelled to the capital Maseru by bus from Bloemfontein in SA, and the first thing that struck me other than the beautiful setting of the city within the mountains is how genuinely helpful the people were. People went out of their way to help me and give me information with absolutely no agenda or expectation of anything back. As the "public transport" in Lesotho consists of shared minibus taxis, this helpfulness of everyone that I encountered was very useful!
I spent a couple of days in Maseru before heading to Morija, a town in the "lowlands" where you can hike to see dinosaur footprints. I couldn't get into the guest house I wanted to stay in because it was fully booked with a school trip from Cardiff! Anyone that asked where I was from thought I was with them, and one woman that was giving me a ride up the hill nearly took me to the school where she was heading to meet my "friends" and assumed that's where I was heading too!
Next I went to Senmonkong, a beautiful town in the Highlands where I trekked on a horse to see the stunning Maletsunyane Falls. I decided to ride a horse there because the Lesotho people still largely travel by horse so it seemed fitting, but an hour in I was regretting it and got off to walk! The scenery was incredible though, and getting to wander through the villages and see the people riding around on their horses usually wrapped in blankets, balaclavas, and pointy hats was really interesting.
Next was a 2 day journey to get to Sani pass on the southern border, not because it was so far but because of the taxi connections. People in Lesotho seem to consider any journey longer than 2 hours to be very long, and you have to leave at the crack of dawn! Sani pass is an old donkey trail used for transport between Lesotho and the southern Drakensbergs that winds up the mountain, it's known to be a very difficult road that can only be done by 4x4. I finally made it to the pass just as the clouds were climbing up the mountain, it ended up like being inside a rain cloud. So I did the only reasonable thing and settled in for some drinks in Africa's highest pub! The next morning the clouds had cleared and I had a perfect view of the pass and the surrounding valley. After a short hike I was ready to hop onto another minibus taxi and head down the pass and back into South Africa. Luckily the taxi drivers are very experienced at driving this road and it all went smoothly!Read more