Lesotho Tour

Once the rain slowed a bit, we drove into Roma, the home of Lesotho University. There was one option for dinner, a basic bar/ fast food hut where most of the menu was unavailable. We did manage to get some deliciously spicy chicken with some fries and a couple of cold Besotho beer... For about $10.

The next day we met our guide for the day, Tsili (pronounced "seedee"). He is about 45 with the energy of a 6 year old on sugar smacks. One of those people who runs next door instead of walking. He was waiting for us on all the hikes.

We had a full breakfast to prepare for a long day. Coffee report: our options were tea (strength 3, flavour -3), or instant coffee (strength 5, flavor 0). I took a little of both. Then discovered the instant was decaf, so a rescore the strength to 0.

Tsili took us to several sites today. The first a quick hike from our rondavel to the top of a nearby ridge, where the Triassic sandstones and shales feature mudcracks, ripple marks, and trace fossils including condrites, thalassinoides, and several hand-sized three-toed "dinosaur" tracks.

Following this brisk hike, we drove on roads from freshly paved to virtually nonexistent , to an area called Kome Ha, where people live in hand-made adobe "caves", stuck to the side of large overhanging cliffs of volcanic rock (amigdaloidal basalts, numerous pillow-type structures, and even some preserved pahoehoe surfaces!). The 5 families who built these cave dwellings a couple of hundred years ago still live there, existing by shepherding sheep, cows, and donkeys in the surrounding hills.

Finally, we visited Thaba Bosiu, the birthplace of the Basotho nation. It is a large mesa upon which King Monshoeshoe the Great set up his fortress to defend the Basotho people from a seemingly endless chain of potential conquerors. Most famously, he defended his land from the African Boers. The history is complex and blended with legend, so I cannot do it justice here. On the top of the Mesa is a graveyard that includes the graves of Monshoeshoe, and many of the Royal family since, along with the graves of may of the thousands who lived on the mesa with Monshoeshoe in the early 19th century.

There are remains of the original rock houses: traditional round ones (rondavel), and square ones built after Dutch missionaries arrived and convinced the Basotho that if they were going to make anything of themselves, they were going to have to start building houses with corners. Like the Jerks they are.

Saw a great spot where pillow basalts were overlain by cross-bedded quartz-rich sandstones. The unconformity marked with a metre of scarlet-red paleosol. Geology is cool..

All day we were surrounded with the spectacular Lesotho countryside. The best I can think of by means of comparison is the Canyonlands of Utah, except here it is green and lush, full of farms and farmers, shephards and their animals (you are never out of sight of a farmer or shepherd). It only serves to throw the sandstone and basalt cliffs into sharp relief. It is too big to photograph, too rich to describe.

And the roads are the shits. And it rains. And we are smiling!