The Top of Southern Africa

I am just going to stop rating coffee until I find something that rates higher than zero.

Quote of the day: "Like the Fraser River, only pink" - Tig describing her mysterious juice at breakfast.

We pulled out of Oxbow for one of the World's great drives: The Sani Pass. If anyone reading this is an employee or shareholder in the Europcar car rental company, please stop reading now and skip ahead

to the bits about Durban.

We drove on two-lane fresh pavement, asphalt road that had been regraded (two 4-foot-wide strips of chunked-up asphalt with an 8-foot wide potholed and washboard gravel road), dirt road, rock road, mud road, and various things that really shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence as the word "road". To call it a goat path would be disrespectable to the sheep that outnumber the goats by about 3 to 1. The Daihatsu did fine. If anyone calls you from Europcar rentals: the car is fine. That is our story. We are sticking with it.

Just outside of Oxbow is Afriski, Southern Africa's only ski hill. About 200m vertical, a single lift, a few little lodges about, and at least 100km of really shitty roads from the nearest population centre. Not Nancy Geene's next venture, but the potential terrain is huge, although tree skiing is not on the menu.

As the roads degraded, the mountains got larger, and the passes got higher. Mahlasela Pass is 3220m (10,650ft), Pass of the Guns is 3240m (10,700ft), and Tlaeeng Pass is 3260m (10,800ft), making it the highest road pass in Southern Africa ("road" here being used in the loosest sense).

From here we dropped down into Mokhotlong (2200m, 7200ft or so), the last frontier town before the Sani Pass. We stopped at a Chinese grocery where they were selling gasoline out of a washtub at the entrance to buy some provisions, and got out of Dodge just as a 6-year-old tried to jump into the back seat (oh, the customs hassles that would cause).

The next 65km was slow and rough, but the rewards were verdant valleys, endless peaks, waterfalls over columnar basalts, it got so you were tired of the majesty.

Note our road on the above picture, included for scale. The majority of traffic we passed were sheep, with goats and donkeys running a distant second and third. Over Kotisephola pass (3420m), and into Sani Top.

Sani Top is the border crossing back into South Africa, and is home to the Highest Pub in Africa, which is where I am currently ending a sentence with a preposition from.

Beer is best at 10,000 feet.

Into the Mountains

Today was a road day. Oh, the roads we saw. It was a warm, clear day, one where you could see forever.

We drove through Maseru, and clockwise through the Lesotho lowlands, and ended up in a place that is anything but lowland. If Lesotho were a clock face, we drove from 9:00 to about 1:00 (it took us from about 9:00 to 3:00).

We stopped in Teyateyaneng (say it five times fast) and visited a... Hmm...What do you call a place where they weave? A weavery? Anyway, we stopped to see some hand-woven tapestries made. The women worked completely by hand: brushing, spinning, as dying the raw mohair, then weaving by hand.

Soon after that, we drove out of the "sandstone" part of Lesotho and entered the "volcanics" part. We dropped by Liphofung Cave, where several-thousand year old cave paintings by the San people are preserved in basalt overhangs.

We continued into the mountains, up over Moteng Pass, at 2840m (9300 ft.), it was not the highest altitude we have ever driven, but it was one of the most scenic routes I have ever seen. Flat-lying volcanic stratigraphy, terraced farming passing into green brush and grasslands, waterfalls, and endless switchbacks, it was more Alps than Africa.

Appropriate then, that we ended up in Oxbow, an Alpine lodge in the Maloti Range, featuring Southern Africa's only Ski Hill. Fortunately for our driving, it is not ski season here, but we did get a nice hike in, to view the Lodge and the actual "oxbow" that gave the lodge its name, from several hundred feet above.

Currently, I am drinking a "milk stout", sitting in a lounge next to a rushing mountain stream. Life is good. Tomorrow, we brave the Sani Pass, Go Dihatsu, Go!

Going on about Spectacularity

O.k. The rain can stop now. At least it is warmer than Vancouver.

There was some serious threat of sun today. Blue sky poked through occasionally, and I put on my sunglasses. It wasn't until noon that the torrent began. We were just pulling out of the wild, ramshakle central business district of Maseru, along the crowded and chaotic Kingsway. Kind of like Kingsway around Joyce or Nanaimo, only safer. With more poultry about.

1:00pm on the 16th of December. We are in a museum in Morija (dinosaur bones! Dinosaur trackways!), and as I go to fill out the register, I have made it a habit to look if any Canadians have passed this way recently. Usually it is pretty thin pickings, with only one or two Canuck entries in the last few months, if any. This time, however, we missed the last Canadians by about 10 minutes. They were even from Vancouver. Actually, I have a strong suspicion this is the Chris Blay I went to University with. According to the museum curator, he is adopting a Basotho child. Amazing what you can learn at a museum.

After this we drove across the "Gates of Paradise" pass, around 7000ft, but a narrow gap that separates two broad valleys, both rich with farms and surrounded by spectacular mountains. Ugh. I know. The superlatives are starting to get to me too, folks.

As of the evening of the 16th: the clouds have parted. The sky is blue.

Note several things about this Café. The setting is spectacular (there is that word again). The rocks on the roof are holding the corrugated steel down. The tire on the roof is ubiquitous for steel-roofed shacks in Lesotho. The idea is that it protects the occupants from lightning. Tsili explained it had something to do with the steel belts making the electricity go around in circles.

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!

 

Welcome to Lesotho - now more picturey

We are holed up in our thatched-roof rondavel, as the summer skies completely open up on us. Welcome to Lesotho.

The drive from Jo'burg was eerily similar to a drive through eastern Alberta or western Saskatchewan. We don't think of South Africa as a farming nation, but the fields and rangeland south of Jo'burg appear as endless as they do in Iowa, with a foothills-like geography.

As we approached Lesotho, the terrain started to become more interesting, with ridges and mesas in the distance. Soon we were driving through those mesas, and watching the storm clouds build on the horizon: the horizon we were driving towards. Occasional lightning. Yikes.

 

Entering Lesotho was quick and relatively painless at the major border crossing at Maseru (the Capital city). So quick and painless we are pretty sure we skipped a few steps, like officially leaving South Africa, or Customs, or something. Crossing the border you are dropped right into Maseru. We arrived just after 5:00, and apparently the Chinese-owned textile factories that finance the town had just completed a shift change for the day, meaning it was rush hour. Fortunately for us, everyone else in Maseru was walking, so although the mass of humanity commuting by foot was spectacular, it wasn't a traffic concern.

 

The same can't be said for navigating a roundabout when you are sitting on the wrong side of the car, with the shifter on your left, the cars entering from the right, and you having to stay left...who has right of way again?

The landscape of Lesotho appeared spectacular, from what we could see between the closing clouds. Then began the unholy shitstorm: torrential downpour, thunder, lightning, the whole works began just as we pulled into our lodging. So far the thatched roof appears to be keeping the driving rain out, but we have not even braved going back out to the car to unpack our bags. And our lone light flickers with every thunderclap.

More Jo'burg

One thing Chris didn't tell us was who Johannes was. But I didn't think to ask, and I suppose Wikipedia may know...

One of the quirks of the Apartheid era was the roof dwellers of downtown. Many of the highrises in Jo'burg required full-time caretakers. Although this was an appropriate job for a Black person with a few mechanical skills, they were forbidden to live in a "White" building, and thee were endless police and transportation hassles for a Black person trying to get to work in a White neighborhood. The solution? Build a Blacks-only house on the roof of a Whites-only building. Today you can still see small caretakers shacks built atop a 40-story residential highrise. It is amazing what hassles people wll go through for a little ideology.

Of course, South Africa hosted the World Cup in 2010, and much like Vancouver's Olympic legacy, there is both a physical and cultural legacy here from the event. It was clear from when our driver from the Airport asked us how South Africa looked on TV - did Canada think that South Africa did a good job? I had to explain to him that Canada's soccer team is ranked 130th in the world, and as such, the World Cup is enjoyed rather vicariously in Canada, but did not hear anything but good things.

Chris said that the event was spectacular, pertly because of the event itself, and partly because of the was South Africans came together to host the event. Even the regular thugs realized they could make money off the tourists, with even having to mug them.

The physical legacies are all about, from soccer ball motif coke bottles used as vases in our restaurant, to the soccer-ball adornment on the huge telecom tower in Jo'berg, to the main stadium. The stadium is a spectacular sight, meant to resemble a woven basket full of foaming beer (me likes!). The effect is stunning.













 (like all the pictures, click to make big)

We also got to enjoy the main bus terminal, as Tig needed to negotiate terms with our Car rental agency. It was a madhouse. This weekend was the start of Summer Holidays, and with schools, offices, and factories closed for a few weeks, everyone in Jo'burg is heading home to the rural areas to spend time with family. By the look of the Bus Terminal, that means everyone in Jo'burg.

Short Message

In Lesotho. Landscape incredible. Computer access sketchy. Will report more soon!