"The Mountain Kingdom" a Lesotho Travel Page by John195123

Well, guess what? Supposedly the powers that be in South Africa decided they want to pave the road up Sani Pass. If you want to enjoy the off-road-esque ride, you better do so right now, before it's lost. Why did they do this? In part to help the area economically, and in part for tourism... so more people can get up there. Just great. Once again the beauty of the area is to be spoiled.

We could see the valley, making its way ever upward, past the Twelve Apostles, some of whom were apparently napping when the rocky mountains formed in their honor, and up through a narrow passage... Sani Pass. We bumped around another corner, passing a sign hopefully placed by some official with a good sense of humor, that told us the already windy road was going to get windy. The road followed the valley, from fertile green and a just-drying-out dirt road, up through rutted mud road, then into snowy, mud road, hair-pin turn after hair-pin turn, to icy, snowy, muddy, one-lane or bust Sani Pass. Two cars, one an SUV, the other a pickup, waited just below the snow- and ice-covered stretch of road. Only one other had come this way this morning. We drove past, whether ignorantly, unwisely, or bravely, though feeling simply matter of fact- we needed to drive through Lesotho, and before us loomed our road. The pass was nothing, though a good hand at the wheel, steady nerves and a general spirit of adventure befits any such drive.

Lesotho (leh soo thoo) has no warm welcome. Aside from a small border post building, the Sani Pass Lodge, the only recognizable place to stay anywhere near this side of Lesotho, has for it's grounds the snow-covered mountain plains of the Drakensburg Range. At an altitude of over 3000 meters, the land isn't barren, just covered in a fresh snow- what we received in rain down in the valley the day before.

Our map bore the mark of a pass called "God Help Me Pass," and, considering what we had just come up, we dared not think too much about what else the mountain kingdom might dish out.

Lesotho, by the roads we followed, has more than a few potholes in its dirt roads, although the roads were in better condition -for dirt roads that seem to have just met vehicular traffic for the first time just recently- than the dirt road leading up to Sani Pass in South Africa.

Indeed, the landscape of Lesotho simply feels old. We can communicate with space craft many millions of miles away, yet here, they live in stone huts that appear to have stood for thousands of years. Some, if not most villages have electricity, and elementary schools are prevalant, whose buildings are out of place- their sharp lines and inorganic exteriors don't flow with the hills. This is a true step, or possibly leap, back in time.

Few cars track these roads, yet the kids know what travelers are for- to provide money, but more importantly, "sweets," undoubtedly one of the only English words they know very well, and they are relentless in its use. A scream comes from half way up a mountain, belonging to a young figure bounding down the slope towards the road, and our car, in an almost frantic, vampiric search for sweets.

Between towns, the road picked its way lazily along a cliff that joined the road to an oft-alacritous stream on one side and to sheep grazing under the lazy eye of their herder up the mountain on the other. Lesotho is one of the higher countries in the world, with the highest low point of any country. We never found that low point, but we crossed without notice many of the passes we earlier dared not dread.

The moon's waning light became increasingly prominent as we tried to beat the sunset. We had climbed to over 10,000 feet on dirt roads and had still not come to God Help Me Pass. We hadn't passed more that two dozen cars -maybe not more than one dozen- at the point we hit the dirt road, a road still used and blocked by herders. By the time all sun light had ceased casting its red glow on the mountain ranges behind us, we came to a sign, seen below. Maybe it had been quite the risky pass before the road was paved, but today, unless you're praying to get around a slow semi, there is hardly a notice taken on this pass.

The border post was all but deserted, late on a Sunday night. But the guards on duty were astute enough to let us know that our registration had expired (long before we rented the car). He didn't care that the car wasn't ours and therefore not our responsibility, and since he held our passports and we couldn't show for court the next day, we offered to pay him the 200 Rand he demanded. It was a scam, we knew it. And he found out that we knew it when we asked him for a receipt. He showed us the empty office where the guy who does receipts usually is, and complained that it wasn't fair for us and that we should go to court instead of paying him the money... he became scared to take it, but he still had our passports, and we had more miles to go before Bloemfontein. While I'd have rather beat him to a pulp for being the only one to demand we pay for this infraction in nearly 3000 miles of driving (5000km), especially as he got mad at me for trying to point out that it wasn't our fault because it was a rental car... he got the money, we got our passports, and were off. Maybe it was legitimate, maybe not. I'm sure he could use the money.

And so we departed Lesotho, with somewhat dimmed desires to return, though not fully. There must be more passes to offer challenge, cliffs to white knuckle, and unfortunate locals scarred by well-meaning tourists.

This country's color and outward demeanor would be drastically different in summer when brown doesn't prevail. Yet still, quite a beautiful place that would make an excellent setting for an adventure movie. For myself, I'd like to come back and spend time here, live here, work here, to transcend the tourist-local boundary.