19^th September-22^nd September – Days 354-357 – Semonkong, Lesotho to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

Semonkong had treated us well, but there was only a certain amount of times that you could walk past Pep to a Chinese supermarket and then back to the lodge before it starts getting repetitive. Hunter and Jana were going back to work in Jo'burg and offered us a lift to Maseru. In wonderful South African style, we set up camp in the back of the bakkie with all of their camping equipment, including two thick mattresses that they'd put at the back as some makeshift sofa. They left the hatch up so we took pictures, let our feet dangle over the edge and took advantage of various other simple pleasures that would be totally illegal in Europe until the dust got too thick and we closed up. It was the same road as we took down so I won't describe it all over again (even if it would be in the opposite direction) and the trip passed uneventfully save for the obligatory flat tyre not far from Maseru. As luck would have it, the car ground to a halt just outside a garage and a guy came, took off the wheel, fixed the puncture and replaced the tyre, all in approximately 6 seconds. Chris had given us vague directions to a place called “Darnlink Hostel” he had stayed at in Maseru and, after some quite intensive driving around in circles, we were dropped off outside the old airport as Hunter and Jana wanted to get back to Jo'burg before the sun went down too far. We exchanged numbers, promised to meet up when we got back to Gauteng, and walked off smiling again at just how selfless South Africans are when it comes to helping people like us out.

A couple of kilometres' walk later, we found the place wasn't called Darnlink at all, but Durham Link. We got in anyway, set up the tent, and wandered around Maseru for the evening. It's another one of those “nice enough to walk around but with nothing in particular to do” places. It's the capital of Lesotho so by Sotho standards it's a huge place with every amenity one could possibly hope for, although if you lifted the whole city up and plonked it across the border into the Free State, it wouldn't really be very remarkable at all. We ate some enormous sandwiches and decided to head off to Leribe the next day.

Ol' George gets another workout

Leribe isn't very far but it was a bit of a hassle to get to and took about 5 hours to cover the short distance between the two. There isn't a direct minibus between the two towns, it seems, so we sat on a minibus to Maputsoe for a small eternity waiting for it to fill up. There, we were subjected to the usual coming and going of sellers of various things – some were familiar from other countries (grilled sausages, fruit, cheap sunglasses, mini-mirrors, little plastic things like hairclips that seemed destined to break as soon as you used them, etc) although one curiosity that seems exclusive to Lesotho is the guy who walks up and announces “I am selling stickers”, all of which appear to be of God and Jesus and the Virgin Mary and various other biblical characters. Neither of us really thought they would look good on the backpacks (even if divine protection may have been a useful side effect of purchasing such stickers) so we didn't get any. M decided that money would be far better spent of getting a Cheese Twister from the nearby KFC and I volunteered to go and satisfy her stomach. As soon as I'd ordered, of course, the driver came in and declared that we were ready to go. There were no twisters and only a small selection of various burgers so I took further time to get some food and eventually we got going to Maputsoe. People piled out along the route, though, and at Teyateyaneng we were pretty much the only passengers left, so the driver shunted us onto another minibus, which we again waited in for a while before we got going. The change in Maputsoe was smooth and we got to Leribe quickly. A fellow passenger with the delightful name of Phineas pointed us towards a cheap guest house and took our number, and we parted ways.

After another trudge to go and find the “Naleli Guest House”, we had one of those experiences where you realise that Phineas' interpretation of the word “cheap” probably is diametrically opposed to your own. We tried anyway and got offered a room at a mere 75€. Panic. We politely enquired as to whether there were any slightly cheaper places to stay but it seemed that the only other place that the receptionist knew in town was the local hotel. A quick phone call revealed that the prices were pretty similar. With that curious look of disbelief that Africans seem to give white kids who declare that they don't really have that much money to spend, we were offered the room without breakfast for 20€ less. With heavy hearts and very much lighter wallets, we accepted it. Phineas called to ask if the price was satisfactory. I dodged the question slightly. One of the advantages of getting a room for this price, of course, is that you have such things as satellite TV in your room. It appeared, though, that in the Naleli Guest House, each room had to watch the same programme despite the fact that every room had its own remote control. This led to us having a comical channel-surfing battle with someone from some other room – it seemed that our wish to watch the al-Jazeera news and documentaries didn't agree with their desire to watch home-makeover programmes and the SpongeBob SquarePants movie. We turned in early anyway as we had plans to escape this money trap and get off to Mokhotlong in the far east of Lesotho.

"Cheap Guest House"

Leribe High Street, early morning

Mokhotlong has all the feeling of a frontier town and, much like Semonkong, has the charming feature of two parking areas for each restaurant and bar (one for cars, one for horses). It's a dusty town which probably wouldn't rank too highly on a museum-and-architecture fan's list of places to go, but it was like many of the mountain villages we'd been through – an experience just to be there, and the feeling that you'd stepped back several centuries in time (if you can ignore the few pick-ups rumbling through the streets). We followed a sign for a B&B, headed off down the indicated road and the trail promptly dried up. Another one we found was full, and the women running it took us to a totally unmarked house where we were offered a room for 25€. The Ritz it certainly wasn't, but it was fine. We sneaked off for a dinner of microwave reheated rice and “Russians” (a type of sausage which probably doesn't contain much meat but has so much colourant that if there's a power cut, it's the only thing in the room you can still see). We hit the sack early again, knowing that we'd have to drag ourselves up the hill to the minibus station as the minibus to Sani Top would leave at 6am, pronto.

Mokhotlong sunrise...

Travelling in Lesotho - a must for those looking for the "tough guy battered by nature" look

This, of course, is why we were still sat around at the minibus station at 10am, waiting for more passengers. I do love the relaxed African concept of time, but I also despise getting up at 5.30am for nothing. Especially when it's freezing cold and my lips are falling apart from the cool, dry Lesotho air. I balanced it out and decided I'd still rather be here than getting up at 8am to go to the office in Europe (no matter how warm it would be there). My mother cheered me up immensely at this point by thoughtfully sending a text message to inform us that we should psychologically prepare ourselves because autumn was fast arriving in Europe. Great. Things felt much better.

Mokhotlong minibus station

The climb up to Sani Top, when it eventually got started, was slow but spectacular. The Sani Pass itself, the only road between Lesotho and all of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, was originally a mule track which was widened to take cars but it's still the kind of road where you feel like tapping the driver on the shoulder and asking him when his minibus was last serviced. This was on the way up, which we discovered was the gentler part. As we got to the Lesotho border post, we saw the Sani Top Chalet to our left, where we had been planning to go, stay for a couple of nights and have a mountaintop hike or two. As we got out, though, the wind was strong and cold and M didn't fancy putting the clothes she had with her to the test against the meteorological conditions up here at nearly 3000m. We looked both ways before heading off to the border post to get stamped out – we'd be continuing towards South Africa after all. With all the cool and calm for which I am renowned, I sulked a bit about missing Sani Top before realising I was being a bit of an arse, and sorted myself out. The cracked lips and an emerging lump on my face weren't really helping my mood though, and we rolled on to Underberg along the steepest slope I think I've even been driven down courtesy of a ridiculously tight series of hairpin turns.

South Africa seen from the Sani Pass

A bunch of tourists seen from the Sani Pass

A quick change of minibus in Underberg took us to Pietermaritzburg, where we'd be spending the night before heading out to the Drakensberg National Park for less windswept hiking and the chance to spend more than one night in the same place, which we hadn't done for quite a while by this point! Hurrah. “Maritzburg” was another one of those towns which I'd have liked to walk around more but neither of us really had much energy for it. Instead, we took the easier way out of having a beer and reading “Getaway” magazine, of which there were large piles at the friendly Umphiti backpacker's that we'd ended up in. “I'm sorry”, the owner said, “but I don't get much demand for camping these days. You can put your tent up there, though, while I try to chase the chickens back into their cages”. That raised a smile, but M and I decided that spirits could only truly rise by being taken around the corner for a Scooter's pizza. As always, it did the trick wonderfully well.

T celebrates his return to South Africa with another fabulous lump