Lesotho Hike

Over the long weekend (Monday was a national holiday - Heritage Day) I went on a three day hike with the Wits Explorers/ Explorers Society of South Africa (ESSA) to Ts'ehlanyane Park in Lesotho, the country in the southeastern part of South Africa.

We were a party of seven: Two Wits Students from the USA (myself included) and five ESSA members. Leaving for Lesotho from Jo-Burg late Friday afternoon and returning late Monday evening, we covered about 35 kilometers (~ 22 miles) of rugged uphills and downhills in three days.

This was my first overnight hike and I had an amazing time. We followed a really old route through the mountains, complete with stone path structures and cattle/donkey scat from who knows how long ago. On both Sunday and Monday, local Lesotho men joined us for lunch. These guys were incredible: one of them trekked up and back down the mountain every day for something (?) and the other walked up and back in a day to gather what looked like long reedy plant stalks for building materials. The trip leader guessed that we were the first Caucasian people to take our specific route: I don't know if that makes us crazy, arrogant, or ambitious- probably all three.

This is at the crest of our first summit on Saturday afternoon. It was quite warm during the day, but dipped below freezing at night.

At the crest of way point five on Sunday morning. From here, we continued up along a ridge a bit more and then made our way down into a steep valley to camp for the night.

Sunrise in the valley on Monday morning, about 6:15am. Some of the foggy stuff is actually smoke from a veld fire that started the night before.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was actually heading back through Lesotho after we finished the hike late Monday afternoon --- not because we were done scrambling down 45 degree angles (okay, maybe I was a little glad to be done with that), but because we were driving along the roads just as all the schools let out for the day. We received, returned and initiated several enthusiastic waves from schoolkids and other people near the road. My favorite response was from a group of young boys playing alongside the road. One boy was particularly excited to wave:he was wearing what looked like a belt of soda cans strung together on a piece of string and was banging on them like drums while chasing the other two kids around with a little walking stick/pole. But once he saw us wave, he dropped the pole, bent his knees in the air in what I guess what a jump, threw up his hands above his head, and gave us one heck of a smile and a loud yell as we passed. I must have been smiling for at least three minutes afterwards.

This is a shot from the road through Lesotho looking into the valley and mountains from where we just hiked.

An attempt to capture an amazing sunset heading back Monday evening on the N5.