{"id":70,"date":"2015-07-23T14:46:18","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T14:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/?p=70"},"modified":"2015-07-23T16:14:23","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T16:14:23","slug":"kingdom-in-the-sky-falling-in-love-with-lesotho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/?p=70","title":{"rendered":"Kingdom in the sky: falling in love with Lesotho"},"content":{"rendered":"

This feature appeared in issue seven of Journeys<\/a> magazine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m enjoying an early evening beer in the warmth\u00a0of the Duck & Donkey Tavern at Semonkong Lodge<\/a>.\u00a0Thunder is crashing across the heavens outside, lightning ripping apart the night sky,\u00a0rain hammering down relentlessly.<\/p>\n

A guy staggers in, wearing a glazed expression. He\u2019s American, touring southern\u00a0Africa for three months on a motorbike. He came off once today in the sea of mud that\u00a0used to be a road and he\u2019s had several near misses with skidding 4x4s. \u201cIt took me a\u00a0whole hour to defrost my feet when I arrived,\u201d he rasps. I ask if, like me, he\u2019s visiting\u00a0Semonkong for walking and pony trekking. \u201cNo, I gotta move on tomorrow,\u201d he says, a\u00a0faraway look in his eye. \u201cI\u2019m here for the Sani Pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Maliba<\/a>

Maliba Lodge<\/p><\/div>\n

The tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, surrounded entirely by South Africa, attracts\u00a0this kind of thrill-seeker. The Sani Pass is one of Africa\u2019s most legendary roads, a series\u00a0of treacherous switchbacks snaking over the Drakensberg mountains that straddle the South Africa-Lesotho border. In the world of motorcycling, it\u2019s the Big\u00a0Daddy of extreme off-road racing, impassable in winter, when Lesotho is\u00a0blanketed with snow, and claiming vehicles and lives when it rains.<\/p>\n

Driving from Maseru, the capital, had been tough enough for me,\u00a0battling for hours through one bone-shaking thunderstorm after another,\u00a0enveloped by dense cloud at altitude, wallowing along a quagmire of a\u00a0road that\u2019s still only partly built. The arduous journey, though, is a small\u00a0price to pay for the extraordinary beauty of this tiny country, located\u00a0entirely between 1,000 and 3,000 metres above sea level.<\/p>\n

A few days before, we\u2019d crossed the northern border at Caledonspoort,\u00a0just beyond the chichi South African town of Clarens, all teashops and\u00a0art galleries in the centre, a sprawling, depressing township tarnishing\u00a0the outskirts. But once on the other side of Lesotho\u2019s bustling frontier\u00a0town of Butha Buthe, I felt as though I\u2019d stepped into a parallel world;\u00a0a time warp in which there were no mechanised vehicles, no satellite\u00a0dishes, no teashops. More to the point, no townships.<\/p>\n

The road to Tsehlanyane National Park climbed through steeply\u00a0terraced valleys, high above rivers carving channels through the red\u00a0earth. Weeping willows draped over the rushing water, knee-deep\u00a0in meadows of pink, white and magenta cosmos flowers. Mud brick\u00a0rondavels with thatched roofs clung to the hillsides. Ladies in their\u00a0Sunday best were walking to church, gossiping.<\/p>\n

\"Locals<\/a>

Locals in traditional garb – courtesy of Shutterstock<\/p><\/div>\n

Most strikingly, there were horses everywhere, grazing on the hillsides or mounted by young boys ushering herds of sheep and haughty-looking Angora goats along the dirt road. Lesotho is famed for its sure-footed mountain pony and the Basotho (as its people are known) are fast and fearless riders, clad in their standard garb of a colourful wool blanket, a conical hat and in winter, a balaclava. Everybody rides; the horse is the main and usually, the only form of transport.<\/p>\n

Lesotho only has a smattering of tourist lodges (not forgetting one\u00a0ski resort), mostly dedicated to pony trekking, fishing and walking.\u00a0Our first night was spent at Maliba Lodge<\/a> in the Tsehlanyane National\u00a0Park. We feasted on velvety pumpkin soup, mountain trout and molten\u00a0chocolate fondant for supper and slept in a rondavel with a giant-sized\u00a0bath and a fireplace; more honeymoon than the hardship I\u2019d expected\u00a0in a place where tourism is still at the cutting edge. I rose at dawn\u00a0and stood on the wooden deck, clutching a mug of steaming tea and
\nwatching the rising sun striking the tops of the hazy mountains. It was a\u00a0scene of incredible beauty and peace.<\/p>\n

The raison d\u2019\u00eatre of Semonkong, our second stop, high in the\u00a0mountains in the very heart of Lesotho, is the Maletsunyane Falls, one\u00a0of the highest waterfalls in southern Africa. A Guinness World Record\u00a0certificate for the world\u2019s longest single drop abseil, on which you\u00a0drop down the height of the falls, tied to a rope and drenched in spray,\u00a0is proudly displayed in the bar where I\u2019m drinking. There\u2019s a royal
\nconnection, too; Princes William and Harry came to Semonkong in 2010,\u00a0visiting projects connected with Sentebale, the charity for vulnerable\u00a0children that Harry co founded with Lesotho\u2019s Prince Seeiso. They, too,\u00a0partied in the Duck & Donkey.<\/p>\n

\"Maletsunyane<\/a>

Maletsunyane Falls – courtesy of Shutterstock<\/p><\/div>\n

The following morning, the rain has stopped and the American biker has\u00a0packed up and left. We ride with a guide to the waterfall and yet again, I\u00a0am blown away by the ravishing beauty of this strange and exotic place.\u00a0The clouds have cleared to reveal high peaks encircling the lodge. We\u00a0follow the contours of the hillside, past rippling patches of maize and\u00a0barley. The horses\u2019 hooves squelch in the mud. One huge, sweeping vista\u00a0after another unfolds, the constant stream of blanket-clad Basotho and\u00a0their animals creating splashes of brilliant colour against the lush, green\u00a0fields. Some are accompanied by donkeys, weighed down by sacks of\u00a0grain, headed for Semonkong village to shop and trade. Cowbells clank\u00a0and people call out greetings to one another. In such a remote place,\u00a0where an individual may ride the mountain trails alone for days to reach\u00a0a village, extending greetings to all and sundry is an essential ritual.<\/p>\n

In the distance, a deep, red chasm opens out in the rocks, great\u00a0spikes and towers of basalt and sandstone rearing up from hundreds\u00a0of feet below. We tie the horses up in a copse of pine trees and pick\u00a0our way along a narrow trail to a view that takes my breath away. The\u00a0Maletsunyane Falls cascade in a long, graceful silver ribbon over a vast\u00a0cliff, the water thundering as it hits the rock and spray creating a cloud
\nof white mist. There isn\u2019t a soul in sight.<\/p>\n

This magnificent isolation could change as World Bank money is\u00a0paying for the road across the centre of Lesotho to be tarred, which will\u00a0bring a new kind of tourist once the need for a 4×4 and a pioneering\u00a0spirit has gone. The opportunity will create much-needed jobs for locals,\u00a0which is, of course, a good thing, but I, for one, feel privileged to have\u00a0stepped briefly into a world still so utterly beautiful and unspoiled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This feature appeared in issue seven of Journeys magazine. I’m enjoying an early evening beer in the warmth of the Duck & Donkey Tavern at Semonkong Lodge. Thunder is crashing across the heavens outside, lightning ripping apart the night sky, rain hammering down relentlessly. A guy staggers in, wearing a glazed expression. He’s American, touring southern Africa for three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,8],"tags":[50,53,14,52,49,46],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-journeys-magazine","tag-adventure","tag-africa","tag-hiking","tag-journeys-magazine","tag-lesotho","tag-safari"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suebryant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}