Sani Pass - 12/14/2012

Welcome to Lesotho

GABBY - Ben, Claire, and I were able to weasel our way onto the most popular tourist attraction in the Southern Drakensberg Mountain area: a trip up the Sani Pass.  Ben and I had been trying to get on a tour for the past month, but today it had finally worked out!  Khotso partners with a company called Sani Pass Tours, so we were able to get on the ride for free.  The tour was supposedly going to help us sell their tour to backpacker guests and ultimately increase their business from Khotso.  We ate a quick breakfast and got ready to leave around 8:30 am.  Around that time, a 4x4 pulled up and our guide, Crispin jumped out to greet us.  Sani Pass was only informed that 2 of us would be going (Ben and me), but since Claire decided to stay a couple extra days, we were able to force Crispin’s hand and get her on the tour too!  When we got into the vehicle, we introduced ourselves to 2 other older ladies, both of which were from Johannesburg.  They seemed friendly to start, but as the trip progressed, they became quite know-it-all-ish, which is never fun.  We actually had to go back to their office in Underberg to get a bigger vehicle since we got Claire on the tour.  We picked up a mother and daughter at the Sani Pass Hotel and were on our way up the pass.  It was a bit of a grey day, which was super unfortunate for the pictures that we were anticipating we were going to be taking.  It had been raining over the past couple days, which produced loads of waterfalls in the valleys and some sludge on the road.  It is impossible to drive a vehicle up the pass that is not a 4x4 because of the potholes.  We came to the Sani Pass border post, which is strange because you are not entering a different country.  We were essentially in no man’s land until we reached the Lesotho border at the top of the pass.  After we got our passports stamped, we began the trek up the Sani Pass with Crispin as our driver.  He did his best to avoid the potholes, but even with his expertise and experience, we were banged around a lot.  There were times when he warned us to stay away from the windows, so that we would not whack our heads.  As we climbed higher and higher, our visibility of the surrounding landscapes became less and less.  Eventually we reached the top, but at this point, it was hard to see the hand in front of you through the dense fog.  We got our passports stamped into Lesotho and checked out a small shack shop, with a cardboard sign out front that read “Welcome to Lesotho”.  We hopped back in the 4x4 again and drove to a small village where we were able to get out and go into one of the village huts.  The woman there was some Basutho bread (thick, spongy, almost cake-like bread) in an iron pot.  Crispin gave us a mini history lesson on the Basutho people and Lesotho as country.  The woman who lived in that hut had some small trinkets for sale.  I bought a small hand crafted doll, which had a baby on its back.  Ben and I both really liked it because we had never seen anything like that in any of the touristy shops in South Africa, and I always comment on the way that the women in Southern Africa hold their babies.  The women use a long cloth to hold keep their babies close to their bodies.  They have their babies on their backs with their tiny arms and legs wrapped, constantly hugging their mommas.  When we came out of the hut, a small crowd of women and children had gathered.  They danced and sang for us, which was a nice surprise.  Ben and I also observed some small kids playing the drums.  We moved through the village a little more and came to a fenced in sheep pen.  We happened to stumble upon some of the Basotho men shearing sheep of their wool.  They were extremely rough with the sheep.  I’m not sure if that’s just the way sheep shearers have to be, or if that is the nature of a Basotho sheep shearer.  It was a fascinating process to watch, you just couldn’t seem to look away despite how brutal it seemed to be.  

Claire and Me at the Highest Pub in Africa

We drove away from the village and headed to Sani Mountain Lodge, which is home to the highest pub in Africa (2874 meters above sea level).  We were all a bit famished, so we enjoyed some chicken curry.  I was given a heaping glass of red wine that almost spilled over the brim.  Ben was drinking Maluti, which is the favorite beer in Lesotho.  We drank some Maluti on our 3 day horse trek, as well.  Once our bellies were full and heads a bit dizzy, we walked outside to find that it had started to rain.  It wasn’t the most ideal day to be on the Sani Pass and actually made Ben, Claire and I less inclined to sell the tour.  It made our Lesotho trip on horseback look even more amazing to us.  The entire day we were crammed into a car, enduring a bumpy ride, with an extreme lack of visibility.  I’m sure it would have been a totally different trip if it had been a perfect day, but those can be hard to come by in the Southern Drakensberg Mountains because it is almost a given that clouds will roll in around 2:00 in the afternoon.  I’m sure perfect days of good visibility are very hard to come by on the Sani Pass.  We made our way back down, passing through both borders again.  Once we were on the paved road, I fell into a deep sleep and napped for the rest of the way back to Khotso.  Each of us were really tired and remarked on how we were glad we did the tour, but wouldn’t need to do it again.  That is quite a different response than we get from our returning Lesotho trippers on Khotso horses.  I would go on another Lesotho horse ride in a heartbeat and plan to if I ever come back to this part of South Africa again.  Back at the backpackers, we found out that one of Steve’s friends, Leon was going to be staying for an indefinite period of time.  He was a bit of an abrasive dude and definitely interested in Claire. He is a very animated storyteller, but we were all too tired to engage him in conversation.