Category: Lesotho

This post covers my five-day tour of Lesotho. Unfortunately, I don’t have an easy means of drawing on the image above to show my route, but basically, I entered via Sani Pass, a rugged 4×4 route up the escarpment in the Drakensberg, which you can find on the map above on the east-central edge of the country. I then made my way to the village of Thaba-Tseka west of Sani, almost to the middle of the country. Then, I turned south and eventually made my way to Maletsunyane Falls, which is shown the map. Then I headed southwest to near Quthing, which you will also see on the map. Finally, I exited out of the country south of Quthing at a small border post called Telle Bridge, which is not shown on the map.

For this post, I decided to do a video slideshow of the countryside as I toured in the Green Dragon, but here are a few comments about the country to go with the video, without repeating what I already said about the country in my previous “Welcome to Lesotho” post. Even though the country is elevated high up on a geological plateau of sorts, there is nothing flat about this country. Indeed, everything is mountainous, with never-ending steep up and down slopes. I am not exaggerating when I say that I drove in second gear probably 75% of the time, either struggling to go up steep grades that were easily 20% at times – the damn Chinese and their road engineers – or trying not to use my brakes going down those same grades. I even had to go down to first gear at times. Rarely did I get into third gear, and I believe I got to forth gear maybe twice towards the end of the tour. The video just doesn’t do justice to the steepness of the country. And the roads don’t contour along the major drainages; rather, they go up and over the mountains at all times. Up-down, up-down, over and over. I must have driven over a dozen high passes along my route, and numorous minor ones. Fortunately, there were very few other vehicle on the roads, so I had the roads mostly to myself most of the time.

Next, there is hardly a tree to be found in the entire country. Well, that’s not quite true, but it felt like it. Most of the high elevation country, which is most of the country, has no trees at all; rather, it is all montain grassland and heathland as far as the eye can see covering all the mountain slopes, ridgetops and valley bottoms. Grass, grass, and more grass. You have never seen so much grass in mountain country, as opposed to grasslands on the flat prairies. The main occupation and land use is sheep and goat herding, with a few cattle thrown in occasionally. Also, keep in mind that it is winter and the dry season in these photos, so the vegetation is dry and brown mostly – but note the cherry blossoms on the few scattered planted trees.

Nest, geologically, most of the country is comprised of that igneous rock cap, mostly basalt, that I discussed previously in my Drakensberg video. If you pay attention in the video, you will notice the striking difference between the higher elevation igneous country with darker soils and rugged mountains covered with grass and heath, and without strong horizontal banding of the rocks. When I descend into a few of the lower elevation valleys, note the difference in the rock formations and soils. The rock formations are strongly bedded horizontally and the soils are reddish. These are obviously places where erosion has removed the basalt cap and eroded canyons out of the sedimentary rocks. This lower country looks a lot like places in northern Arizona and Utah.

If you want to take a drive through Lesotho, at least the part that I drove through, check out the following video slideshow. Note, the slideshow is in chronological order as I entered up through Sani Pass into Lesotho and the subsequent four days of driving cross country, sometimes on gravel (occasionally 4×4) and sometimes on nice paved roads – thanks to the Chinese I am told:

Lesotho video slideshow (11 minutes)

For the birders that might be following – you know who you are – there’s a not-so-great photo of a bird in flight. See if you can guess what this bird is. Hint, it is endemic to the Drakensberg and Endangered, and with the angle of the photo you can’t make out the tail, but it’s there. Don’t let the lack of a visible tail mislead you. Gold star if you guess the species.

New Species:

1. Bearded vulture
2. Cape rock thrush
3. Southern bald ibis

I am entering the country of Lesotho for the first time on my African overland journey, so it is worth sharing a few factoids about this country to put things in better context and to educate myself (and you, if needed) a little about this corner of the world. Here is what I learned from my research.

• As you can see in the map above, Lesotho is a land-locked country embedded entirely within South Africa, located between the latitudes 28-29 degrees south, which in terms of distance from the equator is the southern hemisphere equivalent to the U.S.-Mexican border in the northern hemisphere.
• It is the largest enclaved (i.e., something embedded within another) country in the world. There are only 3 enclaved countries in the world, can you guess the others?
• At almost 12,000 square miles, it is a little bit smaller than the state of Maryland.
• Roughly 2 million people, compared to ~332 million in the U.S..
• Sesotho and English are the official languages, the former being spoken by most Basotho (the people of Lesotho) but the latter is used for government business.
• Government is described as a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy, The Prime Minister is the head of government and has executive authority. There is a King, but he is largely ceremonial and has no real political power. The parliament has a lower house of elected representatives and an upper house, or Senate, composed of principal tribal chiefs whose membership is hereditary and appointees of the king. There is an independent judicial system, but there is no trial by jury – yikes; rather, judges make rulings alone or, in the case of criminal trials, with two other judges as observers.
• Currency is both the Lesotho Loti and the South African Rand.
• Major exports include diamonds and water, along with manufactured goods (garments, electronics, and footwear) and other crude materials (wool and mohair – the hair from goats).
• Like most of the region, it was occupied by humans for probably 10,000 years, perhaps even much longer by the San people,who were the original indigenous people of the region, until it was “colonized” by the Bantu people in the 5th century from west Africa. The San were largely exterminated, displaced or assimilated in the region of Lesotho. The Besotho people comprised various tribes of Bantu and occupied a much larger region of South Africa than Lesotho. However, they were largely displaced from areas outside of Lesotho by the Dutch Boer settlers and the Zulu people. In part due to its geographic isolation from the lower-lying surrounding country and in part due to the efforts of the first King to consolodate the existing Basotho triies, Lesotho was eventually formed as a nation in 1824 by King Moshoeshoe I. However, continuous encroachments by Dutch settlers (Boers) made the King enter into an agreement with the British Empire to become a protectorate in 1868 and, in 1884, a crown colony. It achieved independence in 1966 around the same time most other Africa countries achieved independence, and was subsequently ruled by the Basotho National Party (BNP) for two decades. Its constitutional government was restored in 1993 after seven years of military rule. King Moshoeshoe II was exiled in 1990 but 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. It is unclear how much the slave trade impacted the Besotho people, but I suspect they suffered from the Portuguese slavers until the British colonized the area, like most of the rest of east and south Africa.
• Lesotho has one of the highest rates of literacy in Africa, estimated to be >80%.
• The country’s HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is the second-highest in the world at roughly 25% – yikes!
• Lesotho has the highest pub in Africa at 9,429 ft, the Sani Mountain Lodge in the Sani Pass.
• Lesotho has the highest lowest elevation (~4,600 ft) of any country in the world; hence, its nickname “Kingdom of the Sky”. Indeed, it is the only country lying entirely above 3,280 ft (1,000 m).
• Lesotho is one of only a few places in Africa where you can ski, at a place called Afriski located in the Maluti Moutnains with a peak elevation of 10,571 ft).
• Has <~1% of its total land area devoted to national parks, reserves and wildlife management areas. This is a tragedy given the spectacular landscape, but not terribly surprising given the undeveloped and poor state of the country. Nevertheless, other equally poor African countries have done a much better job of protecting their natural heritage.