Lesotho #2

Imagine if you will, a village perched high up in the mountains, accessible only by steep, rocky paths and comprising about a dozen, round mud huts. Oh, and a whole lot of animals, including donkeys, cows, roosters and pigs. That was the sight that our saddle weary bodies encountered about mid-afternoon on our first fully day in Lesotho.

We hopped down from our horses, checked out our rondavel and were introduced to our teenage guide who would take us on the walk up to see the waterfall at the end of the valley. Now, if we were thinking this would be some pleasant stroll through the hills we would have been sadly, sadly mistaken. It was like being on an army assault course! Determined to keep up so I would know where to put my feet on all the rocky terrain, it was a hard hour slog up to the waterfall and another one back, but my goodness, was it worth it. I think it could easily have been the single best thing in the whole trip – it was absolutely, incredibly beautiful. And the sense of adrenalin and endorphins from charging across the hillsides at such a pace was pretty awesome too! Our guide was loping across the rocks in gumboots, going at the same pace up and down hills as on the flat – unlike the rest of us scrambling behind! I only fell over twice which I think was pretty reasonable for me… We took some photos but I just don’t know if they would have captured it – it really was magical.

That night we hunkered down in our rondavel – which was actually really warm and cosy. Our dinner of pasta, veges and luncheon sausage was a delight (I’m allowed to say that, I was cooking it) and after sharing it with our two guides they shared with us their 'fat cakes' which were absolutely delicious… (We loved them so much that we bought a whole heap the next day, learnt to roll them in sugar, and gorged ourselves until we could eat no more…oh well, this was also after we cut them open, put chocolate inside them and cooked them in the embers of the braai…mmmmm….).

The morning dawned slowly through the mist – what a place to wake up. Surprisingly no-one was too sore and achy, so after a gourmet breakfast of tinned spaghetti, it was back in the saddle. It was all going well until Emilia’s horse went a bit mental. She was on the lead (Mujalifa was holding the reins) and decided to basically walk into a hole and throw Emilia off. Luckily she didn’t fall too awkwardly so no broken bones! She and I swapped horses at that point – my horse Mistress was so placid that it was a nice change for me to have to (literally) rein in a more uptight ride. It took until about 1pm to head back to the lodge, going on the other side of the river so we got a completely different perspective on all the mountains. Once we got back we went straight back out for a walk to see some rock art and a cave which helped you throw the best echoes out across the valley – very cool. That night was our extravagant cooked dinner at the lodge followed by (you guessed it) watching more football.

The next day we sadly had to leave the lodge, but dampened our pain by doing a bit more sightseeing in the hills and buying a blanket each! The blanket in Lesotho (also known as a Basotho blanket is really important (see here or here for the very interesting story of how they came to be so integral to daily life).

We’d seen them on nearly everybody, and while I thought it was quite ironic that the locals liked our ‘western clothes’ and we liked their blankets, that wasn’t going to stop us buying one. Adrian had wanted one for a while, having read about them in the guide book, but I think it wasn’t surprising that we were all so enamoured we had to buy one. We had thought you needed to go to a special souvenir shop or something, but no, these are sold in the supermarket along with everything else. We caused a bit of a commotion though buying four at a cost of 550 maloti each (just over NZ$100) – the manager of the supermarket was definitely in a good mood! Dan and I got ones with a corn pattern (me black and dark blue, Dan orange and light blue), while Adrian got a red and yellow crown pattern and Emilia got a black and dark blue kind of fleur de lis pattern. They’re pure wool and just fantastic.

After a slight scare where the customs official thought we had bought them to on-sell and wanted us to pay duty on the blankets, it was back into South Africa and up to Kroonstad, a mid-size Free State town where we were passing a couple of nights before heading home.

Last entry on Kroonstad coming soon!

Photos!

Here's a teaser of some photos from the trip...
At the Nelspruit fanzone watching South Africa vs Uruguay.

Outside the NZ vs Italy match at Nelspruit.

Congratulating the team.

Elephant at Kruger National Park!

Click here for the rest of the photos from the first couple of weeks of our trip (before my camera got knocked out of my hand and went bung...).

Adrian's much better ones should be up at some point - we just have to go through the 3000 shots of elephants, 2000 shots of lions and one million of various antelope species to pick out the perfect ones for the album...

Lesotho

Dumela from Lesotho!!!!

This is going to be a good, honest, absolute rave about Lesotho. I absolutely, absolutely loved it. The complete highlight of the whole trip I reckon – hopefully I’ll be able to convey all the things which made it so special.

On the way down to Lesotho we stopped for lunch in Kroonstad and partook of Debonairs Pizza – a pizza chain which we’d seen just about everywhere in SA. It was insane. We got one pizza which had two complete layers, then another one which had three – three layers in a pizza?? How everyone is not falling over dead from heart disease I do not know. They were pretty delicious – but even we conceded that they were a very, very occasional temptation…

From there it was straight to the border at Maseru. One more stamp in the passport later we eagerly tripped over the border straight into a bit of a teaming mass of market stalls. Saving the purchasing until a later date (it was getting dark) we got straight on the road to our final destination – Malealea Lodge.

We got caught up in a traffic jam just outside the capital – and were immediately the centre of attention from all the kids who were crowding around either trying to sell us things like single cigarettes or mandarins, or were just curious to see the tourists in their overloaded car. Some of them were incredibly cheeky and were asking for us to give them the entire contents of the boot, but luckily we had a few extra baseball caps and vuvuzelas we’d picked up on the way which proved to be extremely valuable bootie. Some of the others just wanted to say hello and either shake your hand or have a kiss on the cheek – it was a pretty funny way to pass the time. The stop/go man finally turned in our favour though and it was back off down the extremely, extremely terrible roads. Dan was in his long-distance zen-like driving mode, but the constant inhalations of breath and screams of ‘watch out!!’ hopefully helped avoid some of the worst pot-holes. I have never seen pot-holes like it actually; some of them seemed to cover the entire road and even though you swerved to avoid one, you nearly always managed to hit one in on the other side of the road…

Leaving the tarseal behind didn’t actually improve things… Once we’d headed through the 2000m high pass, it was down the dirt road to the lodge itself. We were doing this in pitch-black and suffering from nervous passenger syndrome clearly was not helpful. But, finally, we made it. For the first time in the whole trip it felt like the lodge actually knew we were coming and sent us straight to our rooms. The lodge operates on generator electricity so we just managed to get into the communal kitchen area and make some dinner and clean up before the lights were turned off for the night in lieu of candle power.

We were up and at em early the next day, ready at the tack room at 9am to load up our ponies and meet our guides. Our first guide, Mujalifa (phonetic spelling) (also known as Jeff) got us all sorted with our ponies – I had Mistress who according to the little kid who helped me onto her was far too soft and left me in no doubt as to his feelings on this matter! Adrian named his horse Silver (as in heigh-ho Silver) but as he was the oldest of the lot didn’t really have the pep his namesake did! Emilia had a pony variously named Buttercup or Butterscotch who had a fiery temperament and who was in her bad books pretty much immediately. I never knew what Dan called his horse – he was always up the front and leading so I just followed! Our second guide who I want to say was called Mandala, but it was probably another variation on that, was dressed in what appeared to be the ultimate in Lesotho chic: a combination of tracksuit, blanket and freezing worker gumboots. The agility of those guys in their gumboots was something to be seen to be believed!!

And then we were off. We started plodding through the fields recently harvested for maize and I have to say, I was thinking, is this it?? It didn’t seem nearly difficult enough. I was soon sharply corrected! We reached the edge of the cultivated area and woah, were we really heading straight down to the river on that path?? The majority of the up and downhill sections over the next two days comprised steep switch-backs made entirely of big chunks of rock which the ponies were quite frankly very scary! Emilia opted to walk down the first section (sensible girl) but the rest of us honed our horse whispering skills and made it in one piece. As we were concentrating there was a constant distraction – the absolutely stunning landscape. It was absolutely glorious! The river far below, lazily running over rock beds, the cliffs rising up on either side, the immense feel of the sky… I’m far too bad a writer to give it anywhere near the justice it deserves – and I doubt the pictures we took will either. You’ll just have to go for yourselves!

The rest of the day consisted of up and down sections, some through villages, others across more open, cultivated land, all in pursuit of our final village destination. We had a fun interlude playing patter-cake with some kids in one village; they were incredible mimics and it was hilarious hearing your Kiwi accent coming out of a little kid from so far away.

Finally the village was in sight…but that was nowhere near the end of the journey for that day! Stayed tuned for the next instalment…

South Africa #3

Hallo (Afrikaans for hello) from Kroonstad for an update #3:



So we were supposed to look at the CBD and all the municipal buildings in Pretoria before going to the cheetah centre - but I completely got the timing wrong (13.30 does not mean 3.30pm in case you were wondering), so we didn't see Pretoria city in the end and hoofed it out to the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre just in time for the start of the tour. It was very cool to see all the cheetah (or is the plural cheetahs??) but having already had such a wonderful time at Moholoholo, it was kind of hard not to be a bit jaded (as terrible as that sounds!). This one was quite enormous though so we went round on a big safari truck and having the African wild dogs all chasing the truck and being so close to everything was pretty cool. All the rehab centres do a wonderful job so it's fantastic to be able to support what they do. 


That night we threw caution and all our rand to the wind and went out for a quite fancy dinner at a place called Pappa's in Pretoria. I had another potjiekos while Adrian had an ostrich stew, Dan an enormous T-bone steak and Emilia had calamari - delicious. In fact, it was so delicious that we bought the potjiekos dishes that everything came in as souvenirs! They're cast iron and pretty heavy so hopefully we get them home without paying excess luggage...


The following day it was down to Joburg to meet up with my friends Fats and Andrew who I met at Oxford. Andrew's from Port Elizabeth but was up in Joburg for some of the football and Fats actually grew up in Soweto and still has a lot of friends and family in town so he was enjoying being back for the football too. They took us on a fantastic tour of the city - starting off in Newtown which is a slowly gentrifying area close to the CBD (where he pointed out the police buildings where all the dissidents 'committed suicide' while in police cells) and the original market buildings of Joburg when it was still very much a gold-rush town. Next we went to a kind of traditional medicine market which was very much not on the tourist trail at all and had all sorts of hallucinogenic plants, animals (all dead, either whole or in bits), leopard skins, and lots of different types of bark which no-one was really sure what it was for, but very interesting nonetheless. After that we went to Soweto's first mall which is actually pretty iconic because until only a couple of years ago, you couldn't work or shop in Soweto - it was only a place to come home and sleep so the fact that there's a big mall owned by a former resident of Soweto which has ATMs and everything is quite a big deal. In fact, I was quite surprised at how developed Soweto was - although Fats said that quite a lot of it has come about relatively recently (like having minor roads tarsealed, not just the big main ones). One thing which was totally crazy though was the hospital - one million people pass through its doors every day! Can you believe it?? Soweto has six million, but its such a renowned centre for trauma accidents that medical staff come from all over the world to work there. We then went for lunch in Soweto near Nelson Mandela's house which we toured after lunch. It was really interesting to see it having read his autobiography so recently. The house was quite focused on Winnie - unsurprising given she lived there much longer than Nelson I suppose. It was great being shown round by two locals - really gave such an interesting insight into the whole thing.


That night for dinner we went to this restaurant buffet which I'd randomly found on the internet - it's called Chief Boma's and was insane. We ate warthog, kudu, ostrich, impala and springbok - just to name a few! And as well as all that meat, so much other stuff - I'm a huge fan of these macaroon type things they called Hertzogs...mmm... We rolled out of there feeling so ill... But it was a bit of a deal, R155 for two people so we definitely got our money's worth!


The next day was our big game day in Joburg and from the get-go was a bit of a schmozzle. We started the day with a flat tyre which we had to change before we could get on the road, then we had to pick up our ticket for the park-n-ride which turned into an absolute nightmare with Adrian and I literally running for 30 minutes trying to find a place which was open to pick it up at, and with Emilia and Dan getting stuck in a taxi queue outside ParkStation which we gathered was not the most savoury place to be hanging out in... Then, after getting completely lost in the motorway system despite the help of our trusty GPS Suzy, we managed to have to wait for ages to get lunch before finally, finally getting into the Apartheid Museum at about 3pm (and which the booklet said closed at 5pm so we all rushed through, but actually closed at 6.30...). However, even if we had to rush a bit, it was absolutely incredible. Honestly one of the best museums I've ever been to. It was completely heartbreaking, and just made you incredulous that people could be so inhumane to other people. I honestly cannot recommend it enough. 


It was a bit strange to go from that to our final game, but I guess it was a symbol of the new South Africa to have such a crazy mix of things going on. It was Paraguay vs Spain which, thank goodness, the Spanish won! (We don't like the Paraguishans because they made us go out). We had pretty good seats and after nearly an hour's queue for some potato spirals (delicious) settled in for the game. The whole World Cup thing has been interesting, but being a complete football heretic I'm actually quite glad that we don't have to watch any more football now...



The next day we drove the big trek down to Lesotho. Now, that deserves its own post in an of itself, so stay tuned for the next installment!

South Africa #2

Hi again everyone!

It feels like it's forever that we've been here - but actually it's only just over two weeks! Just goes to show how fantastic this holiday's being.

Right, let me recap from where I left off.

The day after NZ vs Italy we went to a reptile park where we saw lots of venomous snakes (adders, mambos etc.) , some big, hairy spiders, as well as some big friendly pigs who loved having their chins scratched! It was quite interesting to learn a bit more about snakes - such as the fact that they've all got the remains of back legs from when they used to look more like iguanas etc.

But the day after that was the biggie - Kruger National Park! We got up at the most ungodly hour of 5am, then were bundled into our open top safari 4WD (complete with blankets, thank goodness, as it was FREEZING), then drove to the Numbi gate at bang on 6am. A quite dispiriting hour followed where the only thing we saw were a couple of impala and each other's cold and hungry faces! But a hot breakfast stop later, and a bit warmer so the animals were getting up, it was all on! We saw: 2 male lions complete with big scarred faces, lots of herds of giraffes and zebras, a male elephant whose musk scent was quite overpowering, 2 other herds of elephants, chacma baboons, some leopard tortoises (unfortunately no leopards though!), warthogs, gemsbok, kudu, mongeese (mongooses?) and all sorts of other antelope creatures. It was BRILLIANT! It really lived up to all expectations.

The day after that we drove up to Polokwane (which used to be called Pietersburg) to see what turned out to be the final NZ game (vs Paraguay). Again, how proud were we of our team - undefeated!! And even though we're out of the match, we still sent Italy home as well which was pretty good. We stayed in a pretty dodgy part of town, and our funny campsite had barbed wire all around it, plus a security guard, but it was actually pretty good fun because the whole place was NZers. After the game we met this Afrikaaner couple (Jeanne and Rolonde) who took us in their car to the bar where all the Kiwis were and we had a really fun night celebrating our team.

The next day we went to the Polokwane Game Reserve where we saw white rhinos from about 10m away - they were so close! - and a whole flock of ostriches. That night, we went and stayed at Jeanne and Rolonde's house and they made us a 'potjiekos' which is a traditional Afrikaaner stew - it was so delicious and they were so kind to have us random strangers to stay! Everyone we've met has been so friendly, it's been great.

From Polokwane we drove north to the Blyde River Canyon. On the way we saw the 'Sunland Baobab' - supposedly the biggest baobab in the world and which has a bar inside it! How random. We set up at the campsite in Blyde River (where we had some more fantastic braais with borewors) and then the next day went for a big hike around the canyon. It was absolutely breathtaking - it's the third largest canyon in the world and we saw lots of beautiful waterfalls and vistas. Emilia even got a photo of the elusive protea she's been looking for!

After another braai that night, the next day was a bit of a surprise - it was raining! It was the first day of rain we've had and considering every day since has been brilliantly sunny, it could even be our last. We went to the 'Echo Caves' which were a traditional hiding place during the Stone Age for the local tribe and which were rediscovered by an Afrikaaner farmer during the 1920s. It was really interesting - being the amateur geologist I am! After that we drove south to Graskop to Harrie's Pancake House - delicious! I had venison, Dan had chicken livers, Emilia had biltong and mozzarella and Adrian had peach and pork...mmmm... (By the way, we are in love with the biltong!). After that we went to the Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre which was something we'd been told about by a guy on our Kruger safari. It was excellent! It cares for lots of animals who have been captured on private farms - including some tame(ish) cheetahs which are used for educational purposes, some lions, lynx, cervils, and even a leopard! We finally saw one so now we don't have to search so high and low anymore... There was even a baby black rhino who charged everyone, too cute. The other highlight there was all the birds - especially the eagles and the vultures. Emilia and Adrian fed a vulture - eek!! But very cool, I can't wait to put the photos up.

From there we've come down to Pretoria. Yesterday afternoon we went to the Japan v Paraguay game which was a nil all draw even into extra time - which meant we got a penalty shootout! We were going for Japan which was a bit sad they didn't get through, but because of the result of another game that day, our next (and final) game is Spain v Paraguay in Joburg in a couple of days time. After the game we had some delicious chicken and rice which some ladies were cooking up on the side of the road, then went out to a local bar to watch the later game - meeting some more very friendly locals! Everyone seems to be very keen that the tourists have a great time here - and tell everyone at home to visit! I have to say it's working on me...

And so today we're going to see the capital buildings in Pretoria, then out to a cheetah rehabilitation centre north of the city. Tomorrow we're catching up with some friends from Oxford in Joburg which I'm really looking forward to, then after a few more days in the big smoke, down to Lesotho.

The travel's been really good so far (apart from when my camera got hit out of my hand and broke...gutted...but thank goodness Adrian's got such a good camera - which I have basically hijacked now), can't complain at all. We're eating our bodyweight in meat (borewors, stew, biltong...) and the luxury of being in proper beds at the moment after two weeks of winter camping is unbelievable.

I hope everything's going well at home - hopefully I'll be able to write another update soon!