Lesotho is an independent state wholly enclosed by South Africa… The official languages are English and Sotho, and it is known as the “Roof of Southern Africa” because it offers visitors the experience of a purely black African state and a fascinating mountain world.
This weekend, I traveled to Lesotho with friends Cliff and Refiloe to visit Refiloe’s parents. Lesotho is located about 4 hours drive away from Johannesburg and it situated on a particularly high altitude. The car sped down a two-lane highway and was largely unaccompanied or quickly overtook the other cars and trucks on the road. Once again just like the journey to Durban, I saw lots of cattle, brown, black, black and white just standing around and eating grass… As the landscape became more interesting and mountainous, I figured that we were getting close to Lesotho.
Although Lesotho is a country within a country, there is an official boarder where we had to get out of the car and get our passports stamped once in South Africa and then 50 feet away once again in Lesotho.
Although it is the same land, it is indeed a different country with its’ own king and queen and prime minister.
Everywhere you look, there are mountain formations, mountain ridges, and more mountains. It’s beautiful. Some of the mountains even look like natural pyramids. At this time of year the land is a very bright green and there are many shepard boys tending to flocks of cattle and sheep. They start this seemingly lonesome job as early as the age of 8 and wear gumb or rubber boots, wool blankets, and straw or wool hats. Cliff once said that you know that you’re in Lesotho when everywhere you look people are walking around in blankets (this is what they use as coats and to keep warm at night). Due to the high altitude, it actually gets very cold in the winter and snows. This temperature was a bit cooler than it was in Jo’burg.
The night is pitch black and has a very still quality about it. It fools you into thinking that it is much later than it really is. The crickets chirp, and the sky hovers sometimes showing stars, sometimes not. After doing a bit of bbqing on saturday up on arrival, we only ate a little bit and all actually went to bed at 9:30pm because we were so tired. It may seem early but it made so much sense. The country moves slowly and so did we.
