A Loop around Southern Africa – Day 4: The peach blossoms of Lesotho

We set off from our quaint guesthouse in Ventersburg and refuelled at the local gas station before continuing directly to the border of Lesotho. We left South Africa easily enough: we queued up to have our passports stamped and passed through the light vehicle inspection booth without anyone trying to stop us. Complications only arose when we arrived at the Lesotho border. The customs official in the drive-through booth had no idea what the Czech Republic was, much less whether it had a visa waiver agreement with Lesotho. One can usually search this information on a computer, but the official said the system was not working and asked me to come to his office while the others waited in the parked car.

There was no way coming to the office could be helpful with the system not working. The official handed me off to another staff member, who did not know what to do with me either, so she brought me from the booth to the large customs building, where I was received by a small officious lady with short pink hair. She repeated what I already knew – that the system was down – and that her colleagues would have to look for my country in the physical files. A few minutes later, she was brought a few stapled pieces of paper with a list of countries that have visa waiver arrangements with Lesotho. I helped her spell the word “Czech” a few times, but it was simply not there. This did not phase the official at all. Some countries, she said, were missing from the list.

A yell from the neighbouring room suggested “Czechoslovakia,” but I vehemently denied any connection to the country, as I doubted Czechoslovakia ever had any kind of understanding with Lesotho (besides which, of course, they would soon realise my passport was not, in fact, issued by Czechoslovakia). In the end, it took almost half an hour for my country to be found and for me to receive a stamp in my passport.

Crossing into Lesotho was a culture shock. There was far more traffic than anywhere we had encountered in South Africa as well as a lot more inexplicable honking, but we found the roads themselves of similar quality to those we had encountered in South Africa. The roadsides were just as full as the roads, with stalls offering various goods from food to SIM cards. We, however, drove directly to our hotel at the Thaba Bosiu Cultural Village, where we dropped off our bags. Our plan for the day was to drive two hours to the Maletsunyane Falls and then two hours back again, and since it was already one o’clock, we figured we ought to skip lunch if we wanted to get back to Thaba Bosiu at a sensible hour.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the drive was one of the most beautiful drives I have had in Africa. As we penetrated farther south into the country, the landscape filled with dramatic hills and mountains, some of them beige with dry grass, some of them brown with tilled fields, and some of them green with the coolness of high altitudes. On the shady, southward-facing tops of a few mountains, we even saw the glimmer of snow patches interspersed among the jagged rocks. The most remarkable and other-worldly sight, however, were the pink blossoms of peach trees dotting the hillsides like flowers in a field. At first, we mostly saw them on the edges of gardens, but they gradually took over the whole countryside, more numerous than all other deciduous trees that were either still bare or cloaked in green.

Where the hillsides were inhabited, people lived in small circular stone houses with thatched roofs, and their cattle, sheep and horses grazed on the surrounding slopes. The people themselves were wrapped in colourful blankets. Many of the men wore balaclavas and traditional tall hats to defend themselves against the harsh mountain sun, while the women carried their babies on their backs, and the children walked along the roads in the uniforms of their respective schools.

We made it to the infamous Visitor Centre across from the Maletsunyane Falls at half past three. The reviews of the place mostly point out that the centre is absurdly massive considering it is completely empty, with the bathrooms locked and the restaurant closed. The terrace, however, offers breathtaking views of the falls and the whole ravine into which they tumble, as well as the light blue sky where pigeons patrol alongside birds of prey. After taking pictures, I went to relieve myself behind the building, making sure not to do so against the wind while also keeping the waterfalls well within sight.

We had made our way to the Visitor Centre through a gate where we paid an entry fee of 160 Rand each – South African Rand is widely accepted in Lesotho and is exchanged into Loti at a one-to-one rate. A little way beyond the gate and up the very rough hill path, we had to make way for another car coming down the hill when we accidentally drove a bit too far and ended up with our left front wheel dangling above the ditch. Since our car was a front-wheel drive, this meant we were stuck. The four men we had just let pass noticed this, and they jumped out of their car to give us a hand. They tried pushing, but seeing that was to no avail, they began to gather rocks and set them carefully underneath the front wheel until the car could reverse and drive back onto the road again. I could barely believe that we had been rescued within less than twenty minutes.