LESOTHO

This past weekend, Ben, Eli, Andy, and I decided to road-trip to Lesotho, a country completely enclaved by South Africa. Lesotho--on average--is the highest nation in the world. It completely stunned us with its beautiful, hilly landscapes.

We left Thursday evening from Cape Town. Next, a fourteen hour bus ride brought us to the South African city of Bluefontain. From here, the fun began. We rented a lil, navy VW Citisport. As a result of my ability to drive stick, I was the driver for the trip. It was my first time ever driving on the left side of the road, and was slightly confusing at first. But before a while, I felt like a master of the road. Throughout the trip, we blasted out to the Beach Boys, Fela, Sublime, Tribe Called Quest, along with some Lesotho radio. The air was fresh and the horizon was constantly lush green and hilly.

I'd say the highlight of the trip was going deep into rural Lesotho to a remote town, called Semenkong. It was here that we camped Friday and Saturday night. The roads to Semenkong were the craziest roads on which I've ever driven. They were narrow, winding and constantly going up and down with the mountains. The guys had to get out and push me up one of the steeper hills. The worst part was that they were mostly composed of rocks. These rocks only had to be five or six inches from the ground to scrape the sole of our VW. Also, there were deep, sharp potholes everywhere. I slammed these potholes on countless occasions. I largely had to keep the car in first gear, and definitely wasn't able to get out of second. 'It's like you're always stuck in second gear....' And to top things off, donkeys, sheep, horses, and goats were scattered everywhere.

...Anyways, the highly-elevated Lesotho kept us pretty cold at night, especially with the limited camping gear we had. We survived though. We went on a pony trek Saturday morning. It was about three hours round-trip. They took us over the rocky hills to this beautiful waterfall that jetted off a cliff into a deep gorge. We soaked in the view for quite some time.

The remainder of the weekend was mostly spent hiking and exploring. We walked through the town. We seemed to be quite the spectacles to most of the locals here. The biggest thing that stood out to me was their simple way of living. Everything just seemed so peaceful. There were many herders who trailed their animals through the hills during the day. Most families had very cool huts of stone. I just got a happy and relaxed vibe from Semenkong. Huge change of pace from Cape Town.

Atop a tall hill, we watched the sun go down with a bottle of Vat 69. It was a good ending to our last night. On the Sunday drive home, we stopped in Roma to see some underwhelming dinosaur footprints. Then we went to the Mohale Dam, which is a huge project that's funded by the government of South Africa with the intention of getting clean water to South Africans, to stimulate the Lesotho economy, and to generate electricity. It's been quite successful supposedly, and was quite the spectacle, too. I drove about 700 km in total, and now feel totally prepared for our spring break road trip, which begins tomorrow. We left Bluefontain Sunday night, and fourteen hours later we were back in our home away from home...Cape Town.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to everyone. I'm of course wearing my green, Scottish jacket, which I wore for last year's Patty's day. Just bought some Guinness. Headin' to an Irish place on Long Street later tonight.