A cold kind of heaven
Trip Start
Nov 07, 2005
1
45
75
Trip End
Nov 04, 2006
Mokhotlong, Lesotho
Monday, July 24, 2006
The first glimpses of Lesotho were astounding. The weather was equally astounding as it was bitterly cold with fierce winds. All the same, I've never seen anywhere so beautiful yet so desolate and I've never been at such a high altitude where I've burnt my lips.
The Basotho rondavels are beautiful stone and mud huts with thatched roofs which all look very similar until you noticed different coloured flags protruding from them: red means they sell meat, green - vegetables, white - beer, and a plastic bag flag means its a church. They do have some confusion with language though: the word maloti means money, beer and mountains.
One of the things I'd been told about the Basotho people is that they recycle almost everything. Sure enough, those decorative silver discs on the traditional healer's belt and anklets that jangled as she danced were coke bottle tops. Their main source of fuel is cow pats, which thankfully, is odourless when it burns. Goatskins are used for beds, blankets and drums, a dried hollowed-out pumpkin for a ladel and shredded plastic for skirts used to traditional dancing. It's the least littered country I've ever seen. Even better than Singapore. This is partly also due to the fact that there are hardly any shops (at least where we were), and so there is a lack of plastic that comes in abundance with Western product packaging.
Our trip synopsis mentioned that we would have lunch "in a lovely picnic spot by the river". In reality, we stayed in the car as it was near impossible to eat outside, since the wind prevented you from getting any food in your mouth.
I'd been warned it was cold in Lesotho, but having survived Norwegian winter and the fact that it had been relatively warm in the Drakensberg mountains a few kms away, I figured the weather couldn't be that bad.
I've never been more wrong. Or more cold. I slept in all my clothes, along with my hat, scarf and gloves. The weather is as changeable as my mind. (A lot).
We stayed in a local village with an ex-teacher and his family which was a great experience. We were honoured with some traditional dancing, with moves Shakira would be envious of, and shown traditional artifacts. The village kids were in awe of us and started off waving shyly from a distance but later demanding I take their photo so they could look at it. English is their second language but some of them still confused me. I asked one little girl (apparently my new best friend) if the surrounding kids were her brothers and sisters, to which she replied: "Yes. No."
It was weird to see so few men in the village - boys become shepherds at 13 and go off to work in the fields. It's one of the few African countries where women are more educated than men and are also more respected. Men have to be granted permission by their wife to enter their home, and when a newborn baby is in residence they are not allowed to enter the home at all, until the baby is 3 months old.
But the kids grow up quickly which was evident at the local school, with the scariest teachers I've ever seen. At first I thought the way the teachers were respected was great, until it dawned on me that the kids are probably just petrified of them. One class of 12 year olds was learning about the U.N. which I also thought was quite advanced, until someone pointed out that the way they were learning about that difference agencies could lead the kids to believe that the U.N. was responsible for their welfare and lead to a begging culture. It's a recurring question of whether aid does more harm than good in Africa. It's a tough call, I haven't made up my mind yet.
Originally I'd wanted to do a 3-day Basotho pony trek in Lesotho but my timing was out, so I had to make do with a couple of hours on day 2. One of the German guys said it was the most boring thing he'd ever done, but for me it was amazing. In the words of that car ad, it was the ride of my life. Is that Peugeot? I can't remember.
Scrambling up and down mountains was slightly scary though.
I'm tempted to go back and do it again in October. But I'm also just tempted to wait until I go to Mongolia and Tibet and do a proper horse trek.
We had some lovely traditional Lesotho food, including bread and peanut butter and a weird pink "juice" which tasted like chemical cream soda.
On the way back to South Africa we went to the Highest Pub in Africa at something like 2850m and I had some weird German mulled wine stuff. I forgot that altitude makes alcohol affect you more and drank mine rather too quickly and spent the bumpy journey back to South Africa feeling rather sick.
