Sani Top

After a great meal in the Highest Pub in Africa, we settled in early in our spartan backpackers room. The first local crack of lightning woke us at 4 am. Not one of those lazy flashes followed by a dull roar a half minute later, but flash!-crack!-bang! all within a second, with the skies opening up. This provided entertainment for the next hour or so, as we wondered if there was a tire on the roof, or if we were doomed...

Mostly, we hoped it would clear up so we could do a morning hike, but despite early flashes of blue sky, the Sani Pass had other plans, and we hunkered down next to the wood fire, drank real coffee (strength 6, flavour 6, but my recent drought may be biasing my scoring), and watched the lightning through the mist.

And thought about the short hike we got yesterday:

Meanwhile, I can talk about another Lesotho tradition. At many villages, we saw the barest of flagpoles out front of a rondavel, with a (usually) white flag. Tsili told us this was a to announce a pending wedding. A blue flag announces there will be beer, a yellow flag that there will be "hops" (best I can tell, a strong, young sorghum brew made the day before it is drank, and a guaranteed headache), green indicates grape wine, and red advertises meat will be served. Judging by the number of flags we saw, December is wedding season.