Lesotho in the cold

Recently a friend of mine phoned and invited me to join him and his 2 kids for a long weekend into Lesotho. His two kids were on their school holiday and were bored. So he decided to take the Friday of work and entertain his kids with some snow. That was his strongest selling point to me: there is lots of snow in Lesotho and about minus 14°C. Apparently that is something really exciting for South Africans, snow and freezing weather. For me, that and the fact of 2 critters involved makesit hard to believe that I actually came along. But he wanted some adult company and since I had nothing else to do.....I went...
We left Pietermaritzburg on Friday morning and drove in an old Land Rover (about 30 years old) slowly towards the Drakensberg. The landi doesn't really go any faster. That was when the first trouble started. The girl was rather bored; apparently this was the most boring day of her life. Since the drive took us a few hours there was no relieve to her mood. Finally we made it to the bottom of Sani-Pass where we had to stamp our passports. From there it is about 7.5 km to the top of the pass but certainly not an easy one. You need a 4x4 driven car and actually some experience in off-road driving won't be too bad either. Slowly driving we made our way up. Being in a Land Rover (this particular one is called Harriet) you expect trouble as soon as you hit the road. They are really good off-road cars but sadly not very reliable. Always something is happening. We had to stop 2 because Harriet just didn't want to go any further. We had to cool her down and wait at the side of the road. Very much to the excitement of some other 4x4 drivers with something else to drive in. 2 drivers stopped to take pictures of a troubled Land Rover and the passengers on the side of the road. But after all we made it up to the top. Once we passed the first ice and snow the most boring day of the kids was forgotten and they were happy again. The Lesotho border post was rather busy. Another car arrived just before us and the guys were busy stamping the passports. Apparently those were all day visitors, and to make things easier the officer stamped arrival and departure at once. When he took my passport he just did the same. But then he looked up and asked if I leave today again. I denied and said that I am going to stay till Sunday. He looked rather puzzled first, followed by a smile when he just wrote "cancelled" across the departure stamp. I wasn't happy with it since my arrival stamp quoted that I am allowed 1 day in Lesotho. And having a fair experience with African border posts, I told him to change this. This returned the puzzled expression onto his face. "I give you 12 days" he said and put a 2 behind the 1. Rather pleased with himself. That at least left everyone happy and smiling. When we left the border post, my friend was contemplating the rules of how they issue visas. My opinion....there ain't rules. Right on top of Sani pass sits one of the Berg's famous landmarks. Sani Top Chalet. At an altitude of 2874m it is also the highest pub in Africa (more to that fabulous pub later on...). There we had some lunch and admired another broken down Land Rover. Somebody came up here with a new and expensive diesel Land Rover which didn't survive the -14°C the nights before. The diesel was frozen and the piping burst. So he called the Land Rover Assistance to fix the car up again. Again, great entertainment for non Land Rover drivers.
After a short while we were off again, deeper into Lesotho. Following the road past small villages, up Black Mountain pass and down into the valley on the other side. There was lots of snow and ice at the pass (compared to the rest of the area), so we stopped and let the kids play in the snow and throw pieces of ice at us.

to be continued shortly

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