Lesotho - A Long And Winding Road - Spring - Part 3

There’s a battle of wills going on with the weather. Spring has shown her true colours with a medley of different coloured blooms and a kaleidoscope of genus, trying to defeat Winter’s relentless efforts to throw us back into its chilly grip. On an inclement day, a weed growing in a crack on a windowsill is cheerful. Such tenacity.

Most days, Spring fails, but when she succeeds in showing her sunny face on a perfect Champagne Day, we all forget our troubles and forgive those blustery days in a heartbeat. Our faces light up with childlike delight, transforming our melancholy into unadulterated joy.

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I have mentioned my FOMO before, but it never reached such pernicious levels as when we asked Dorothee, the French lady we met in Luanda, who’s been travelling in Africa for six years, the question “What was your favourite African country?” and without missing a beat, she replied “Lesotho”. This, after telling us that she’d like to settle in South Africa.

Butch and I, seasoned African travellers, found ourselves in a unique situation. Lesotho, a country we had never considered, was now on our radar. We had explored almost all the African countries on our wish list, but Lesotho had somehow escaped our attention.

There were some extraordinarily magnificent and unique places we’d been to, places I’d never imagined; Lesotho wasn’t one of them. Dorothee, saying, “Oh là là,” uses her expressive hand gestures to say, “Lesotho tops the lot.”

My knowledge of Lesotho was limited to weekend getaways to play Blackjack, Poker and Roulette at the Sun City Hotel in Maseru with friends or colleagues, but that was a lifetime ago, when gambling was banned in South Africa.

Stories I’d heard and read in the Getaway magazine about trips to the Sani Mountain Lodge, perched at the top of the hair-raising, white-knuckle Sani Pass in Lesotho, were just about the sum total of my knowledge.

Known simply as The Highest Pub in Africa, it’s also the only pub on the continent where you can have a beer in two countries at the same time. The thought of this unique experience always conjured thrilling images of a daring adventure in my mind’s eye, with a drink in my hand and wrapped warmly in a coat, as the vast African landscape spread out before me.

This time, unfortunately, we’d also miss the Sani Pass due to heavy snowfalls in the area and Butch’s reluctance to venture there in the truck. Not recommended (Mais pas recommandé), said our intrepid traveller Dorothee, wiping her son’s face minutes before setting off to a do organised by the French consulate. 

With Lesotho now firmly on our travel radar, we eagerly anticipated our future adventures around this picturesque country. Our planned route would take us through the southeastern triangle, a region we were excited to explore.

So! Hop in! We are thrilled to have you with us and look forward to sharing our experiences of the “tiny kingdom with the huge heart”.

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Matatiele

But, before we get to the border post, we need to sleep over. That will be in Matatiele, where a dialect of isiXhosa is spoken ( colloquially called Hlubi), and a town with a name that almost clicks off my tongue.

Matatiele is a reasonably sized town that serves the farming and trading communities of East Griqualand. It is located in the foothills of the Drakensberg, in the Eastern Cape, bordering KwaZulu-Natal and 20 km from the border of Lesotho.

Cattle thrive here in the grasslands, and farmers favour dairy farming. Meat-producing farmers are renowned for their grass-fed and entirely organic meat.

Moreover, the Matatiele Museum (a former Dutch Reformed Church that opened in 1993) displays dinosaur fossils, artefacts of San peoples (also known as the Bushmen), and the town’s history, from its 19th-century gun runners and smugglers to a quaint town filled with friendly locals serving authentic isiXhosa cuisine.

Matatiele is popular with yuppies who dream of living in a small town with renowned schools and excellent facilities. For adventure seekers, there are plenty of hikes, cycle routes, fishing, golfing, and birding. For the less adventurous, it offers a place to listen to time pass.

I am happy to report that there are many excellent and renowned schools in Matatiele, like the Vuyisanani Pre School, King Edward High School, St Monica’s Diocesan School, and Khanya Naledi Combined School.  

We spent an enjoyable night at the Matatiele Caravan Park.

We only had twenty-odd kilometres to the border post, but the roads' condition was neglected and at times hair-raising. 

The Province’s budget didn’t stretch as far as the roads dept. We soon realised as we bounced along, clinging to the edge of the road at times..

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Qacha’s Nek

Our port of entry would be the area known as Qacha’s Nek. This borderpost suited our temperaments.

We were told to brace ourselves for the awe-inspiring, diverse landscape of Lesotho. The grandeur of the mountains, the lush greenery, and the pristine rivers were described as a paradise for nature enthusiasts like us, promising a sight that would leave us speechless.

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A pinch of background information on Lesotho

Lesotho,  formerly known as the Kingdom of Lesotho and earlier as Basutoland, is a landlocked country within Southern Africa. Surrounded by South Africa, it is the largest of only three sovereign enclaves in the world, the others being San Marino and the Vatican City.

Lesotho is situated in the Maloti Mountains and boasts the highest peak in Southern Africa.

This small mountainous country covers an area of over 30,000 km² (the Kruger National Park is approximately 20,000 km²) and has a population of about 2.3 million. Maseru (the honey trap for gamblers in the 1990s) is the capital and largest city.

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A Brief History of Lesotho

Lesotho was formed in 1824 by King Moshoeshoe I. The story goes that continuous encroachments by annoyingly bothersome Dutch settlers in the Orange Free State led the King to agree with the United Kingdom to make the region a protectorate in 1868 and, later, in 1884, a crown colony. It achieved independence in 1966 and was subsequently ruled by the Basotho National Party (BNP) for two decades.

Lesotho’s constitutional government was restored in 1993 after seven years of military rule. King Moshoeshoe II was exiled in 1990, returned in 1992, and was reinstated in 1995. One year later, Moshoeshoe II died, and his son, Letsie III, took the throne, which he still holds.

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The Sotho ethnic group (also known as Basotho), from which the country derives its name, comprises 99.7% of the country’s current population, making it one of the most ethnically homogeneous groups in the world. Sesotho is an official language along with English, IsiXhosa and SiPhuthi.

We would soon encounter the Basotho people, known for their rich cultural heritage, traditional attire, and the unique architecture of their conventional limestone rondavel homes.

“Lesotho is considered a lower-middle-income country with significant socioeconomic challenges, but also one of the highest rates of literacy in Africa (81% as of 2021). Lesotho is a member of the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Commonwealth of Nations, the African Union, and the Southern African Development Community.” Wiki.

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Qacha’s Nek is regionally known as a camp town and the only big town in the district. In the south, Qacha’s Nek borders the Eastern Cape Province and has a short border with KwaZulu-Natal in the far east.

While Butch set up the SatNav (new word learned by Liam, grandson extraordinaire), I hopped out to buy a loaf of the local bread we’d heard about. Unfortunately, all I could find were soft, sweet buns from a very friendly shopkeeper who didn’t understand a word I said but would accept my SA Rand.

This sparsely populated district comprises only 3.72% of the country’s total population.

There were a few small settlements along our route, but these appear to be traditional communal outposts, with maise being the most commonly planted crop.

These farmlands are not the major agricultural zones in the country; instead, subsistence farmers keep cattle, sheep and goats with small patches of maise. Winter had just thawed, and small patches of earth were tilled, awaiting planting season before the summer rains.

The average annual rainfall in the country is 100 cm (39 in), with most of it received during the rainy season from October to April. Though it rains during all the months of the year, groundwater is limited due to run-offs. The region has a temperate climate due to the elevation and is humid during most parts of the year. The temperature in the lowlands varies from 32 °C to −7 °C in the Winter.

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The Maloti Mountains are a mountain range of the highlands of the Kingdom of Lesotho. They extend for about 100 km into the Orange Free State. The Maloti Range is part of the Drakensberg system that includes ranges across large areas of South Africa.

No matter where we were, we were always surrounded by the blue mountains in the distance.

“Maloti” is also the plural for Loti, the currency of the Kingdom of Lesotho. The range forms the northern portion of the boundary between the Butha-Buthe District in Lesotho and South Africa’s Free State.

The voluptuous rolls and smooth, sensual curves of the undulating hills now covered in rich, earthy, autumnal shades of gold, buttery yellow, blood orange, cocoa and burgundy invited one to run a hand gently over the richly textured landscape as we sashayed along, our windows rolled all the way down, my arm dancing in the warm currents of the breeze.

Rather like a luxurious swirl of silky smooth, glossy, chocolate or caramel mousse – one might say callipygian!

We dialled up the volume, the Honey Badger was King of the road and roared with pleasure!

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But there’s always a balance, and we were shocked by the erosion in the high-altitude grasslands and wetlands of eastern Maloti-Drakensberg, which have been devastated by livestock over-grazing, burning and fuelwood collection over decades.

Bad land and water management, along with a lack of agricultural education regarding natural vegetation (grasses) in these finely tuned wetlands and peripheral high mountain regions of Qacha’s Nek, where we travelled, are alarmingly apparent and distressing.

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Captivating Lesotho is home to the Basotho pony – a small, compact pony that is indigenous to the region. It’s rumoured that their roots may be traced back to the 1652 arrival of horses brought over by Dutch immigrants to the Cape of Good Hope. The first horses to come to Lesotho in the 1820s were probably captured or traded from the Zulu.

Common Uses: Hacking, trekking, polo, transport, and racing

Height (size): Average 14.2 hands high

After a few hairy, badly damaged dirt and tarred roads, we soon turned onto a new superb, recently constructed highway, which was just as well, as we were climbing all the while navigating hairpin bends, steep gradients, and snaking upwards onto the mountain plateaus.

The Honey Badger was making good time, a first for us in a very long time, as we sped along the new, modern tarred road.

We could count on one hand how many vehicles we encountered, and most of them were construction vehicles.

The only other road users were a few horsemen, wrapped warmly in their traditional Lesotho blankets on their ponies, one or two pedestrians and a mini bus taxi.

We did enjoy seeing the drove of donkeys, still in their winter coats, who, once they became aware of us, picked up their pace and gave us a good run for our money.

We covered our intended distance within a half day and arrived at our destination well before sunset.

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The landscape was captivating, and on this stretch, I managed to snap at least 1500 photographs, whittling it down to the ones I post wasn’t easy.

Looking back now, I can see how fine art artists like George Pemba, Robert Macintosh jnr, and Louise van Tonder can’t resist the landscapes, and the renowned Lesotho photographer and portraitist Mohlouoa T. Ramakatane continually captured the light. Manoni Lehlohonolo Rametse, a sculptor who uses wire and scrap metal to create everyday objects symbolising and recreating memories of Lesotho. In future, I'll appreciate art created depicting this magnificent landscape.

Intoxicated by Lesotho, they all return here to capture the extraordinary light, magnificent vistas, colours and tranquillity of the landscape, the air and the gentle people.

Although Lesotho is considered a middle-income country, I did not experience the pitiable wretchedness and poverty we'd seen in some other African countries, such as Malawi and even in South Africa.

Our destination was The Sehlabathebe National Park (Sesotho: Pitso ea sechaba sa Sehlabathebe), which is located in the heart of the Maloti Mountains, still in the Qachas Nek District, and is part of the Maloti-Drakensberg World Heritage Site. The park was first established on 8 May 1969 and has since been recognised for its importance in terms of biological diversity and cultural heritage. Grasslands of various types dominate the landscape. The larger ecosystems function to provide freshwater to Lesotho, South Africa, and Namibia. But more about that next time.

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Rondavel

You might notice, while perusing the photographs, that many of the homes are constructed in sandstone and are cylindrical with thatched, tiled, or corrugated iron roofs. This is what is traditionally known as a Rondavel in South Africa.

The rondavel is usually round or oval in shape and is traditionally built using locally sourced materials. On our route, the walls are constructed mainly from sandstone. The mortar may consist of sand, soil, or combinations of these, mixed with cow dung.

These homes are frequently painted, and sometimes traditional decorative styles are employed to beautify the buildings.

The floor of a traditional rondavel is finished with a dung mixture to make it hard and smooth.

The main roofing elements of a rondavel are spars or poles taken from tree limbs, harvested and cut to length.

The roof covering is made of bundles of thatch sewn to the poles with grass rope. The process of completing the thatch can take as little as one weekend or up to a year, depending on whether a skilled artisan or thatcher makes it, as it must be sewn in one section at a time, starting from the bottom and working upwards. As each section is sewn, the thatch will weather and age to form a weatherproof seal.

There’s no cutting corners when a rondavel is built, it seems.

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Until quite recently, Prince Harry referred to Lesotho as “a home away from home.”

Many of Lesotho’s wise sayings are imbued with metaphors drawn from the landscape, such as the enduring strength of the mountain or the life-giving force of the rivers and streams trickling from the snow-capped mountaintops when Spring shakes off her woolly cape.

So far, Lesotho has not disappointed.

I dedicate this blog to the memory of Debbie Airey, whom we especially remember today, as we mark her birthday. Rest gently, sweetest Debs.