Drive to Leshoto was a pleasure today. We drove past the Pongola dam which provides water for Johannesburg some 400km away, it's mahhisive! Also passed some housing estates (for want of a better word) with hundreds of identical brick houses which the government have built and given to the people for free, sounds like a good initiative and looked like a nice community. Just after this we crossed into the Golden gate national park, which is now a free province, but used to belong to Zululand. Once again, the landscape took my breath away. Where the mountains are a combination of hard and soft rock, they have created some amazing shapes and the colours of the layers make them even more striking. This combined with the colours of the trees (greens, reds, oranges and yellows) and the shadows created by the clouds, made for some great pictures (or would have, if I'd been quick enough! Do have some though)
Out of pretty much nowhere we arrived at a quant little row of shops opposite the "Clarens golf and trout fishing estate" and the "Clarens retirement village" - assuming most of the old trout are in the latter! Looked extremely posh and exclusive. The shops would have not looked out of place in the 1950's, with the coffee shop selling the most amazing range of cookies and cakes. Had a coffee and Sue bought choc chip cookies for everyone (wonder how long it will take to lose 4 stone??). As we left, I noticed the houses opposite the Clarens estate, which were made of clay and tin and were about 10ft square each at a push. Their security (against whom I'm not sure), was an old barbed wire fence, which was mostly being used as a washing line. Once again a stark contrast between rich and poor not 10metres apart.
As a note (for memory more than anything) some of the good pics I missed were - a single zebra stood at the top of a mountain staring out into the distance, a heart shaped lake (ahhhh), sheep (for the novelty factor, haven't seen any for a while) and as mentioned some amazing scenic shots. We also passed fields and fields of dead sunflowers (actually dried not really dead, they wait until this stage to harvest them for seeds and oil) just looked so sad. Mrs Gravely, you would have been devastated!!!
We eventually got to Lesotho, and my heart sank. The capital city is very poor, dirty, lots of people on the streets, and animals feeding on rubbish. The countries only real income is tourism and as not many people know about Lesotho they don't get much money coming in. There are about 2 million people in the country with the only work being in tourism (limited as mentioned above) or in the government (again limited), therefore many people try to get work across the border in South Africa, but as you need a passport to do so, they end up working illegally and risk arrest. The King here is fairly young, 50ish and from people we spoke to, is well liked and does try to provide for the country, which makes a refreshing change from other places we have been to. Unfortunately HIV is a big problem here as well. As we drove through the city we saw stalls selling anything and everything - tyres, fruit, belts, take away food......we also passed the Blessed hair salon which I considered visiting - perhaps they could bless what's currently growing on my head, it's certainly not a hairstyle.
Our actual destination Malealea, was another 40km from the main city. It was interesting to see the change of dress, most locals wear think blankets all of the time as it is a much colder climate, and transport is more commonly ponies as its easier to get around the mountains. On arriving at the village we passed through some wooden gates into Malealea lodge. The lodge is like an oasis in a vast, dry, desert - you don't quite believe what you are seeing. The buildings are built from clay with thatched roofs, all are beautifully hand painted inside and out with images depicting the local community. They have a bar (with Satellite TV, which is random as everything else is so earthy and Eco friendly, didn't seem to fit it), coffee shop, which boils the kettle on a huge metal satellite dish, using the sun to heat the water, tables are made from old beer cans, candle holders from tin cans (quite ingenious, as they bend them to look quite ornate) and beautiful little gardens dotted about. The lodge provides work for the locals who are friendly and knowledgable.
After a warming hot chocolate, looking at the views, we took a village tour with a local guide called Mohow, who was 17, but looked more like he was 14! He took us past the local taxi rank, to the fruit and veg shop, which sells clothes as well, and the supermarket, which is the same as the veg shop but bigger and also sells tins and tons of washing powder (which explains why everyone's whites here were so white!!). Mohow explained that houses here have a flag on their roof to depict what they sell, white is beer, red for meat, green for veg.... we went to a white flagged house next, the local brewery, which was basically a woman mixing grapes (weird for beer), yeast and sugar in a bowl. The resulting beverage did not look appetising! As we continued, the sky's opened and a thunder storm started, at which point Mohow informed us that people get killed from lightening in the village, so we hotfooted it to a local craft shop which sold handmade bowls and jewellery (I did get some nice earrings). All very nice, however I must say, I was pre occupied by the tiny kitten who was sat on a bag of maize in the corner. On the way back to the lodge we heard lots of shouting, and realised we had walked up to the local racetrack, where a race was happening!! Amazing, the horses were having a trotting race, not like trotting in the UK, with carts, but like a gymkhana race over a much longer distance! Some of the horses looked quite decent as well. The crowning glory was at the end, once the winner had been decided, the crowd (I say crowd, about 15 people) all shouted 'Hip, Hip, Hooray', brilliant!! Before getting back we also passed a man trying to pull a huge ram down the road on a piece of rope. In the end he resorted to picking up one of its front legs to drag it forward, again not overly effective but quite funny to watch!
Had the best evening so far, went to the bar where they had a Liverpool v West Brom match playing (no that's not the reason, I haven't gone mad!) Then went into the games room to watch the local choir and band. Now, if I'm honest didn't hold out much hope for either and to make it worse there were only the 3 of us watching. Well, what can I say, I was blown away. The choir were out of this world and had this little guy with dreads, both singing and conducting. The range of his voice is as good, if not better, than the likes of Prince (I mean the artist, not William or Harry, although not having heard either sing, I may be doing them a disservice). Prince Harry has been to see them though. The choir was followed by Sotho sounds, the local band, whose instruments are all made of junk, you really wouldn't know listening to them, they sound fantastic. The band have toured the UK and Oz, and also have dancers (their very own Bez equivalents) who have this amazing local dance which involves hands in pockets and a lot of shimmying of one shoulder. The best way to describe both band and choir is to show you on the Malealea lodge website- www.malealea .co.Is or look them up on YouTube, really worth a look and listen!! We spent the rest of the evening talking about ghosts and black magic, Mesh told us about being woken up one night by scratching, followed by his burning roof falling in and hitting him. He escaped, only to look back to nothing happening. Bizarrely, although no apparent fire, he still has the burn marks from where he was hit, thinks it was done by people jealous that he had a good job, mwhahahaha.....
Next day we met Luckie and Mafa our new guides and their Basotho ponies. Two ponies, one to carry our day packs (she had a bloody easy job as between us we only had about 5kgs) and another to carry anyone who got tired or injured, although as it turned out, Luckie rode her back as she had "run away". Partly true, partly because he was too lazy to walk!!! The tack for the pack pony was quite interesting, they have a piece of rope in their mouth rather than a bit. At first I was quite concerned, as you would imagine that rope would rip the skin. Mafa showed me how it works and basically as soon as the pony feels the rope they know it's time to work, and move/stop via voice commands, you don't pull them using the rope (unless they are being particularly stubborn) and the main aim is not to cause any pain, works a treat (well, mostly) We took a walk past a few houses, one with the cutest puppies playing outside, and a c*** in the window (don't let your mind wander, a bird, I mean a bird), and a graveyard. Funerals take 3-4 days starting on a Friday, and involve praying, celebrating, and the slaughter of a sheep (Sat) and a cow (Sun). We stopped for a quick snack as Luckie had bought us some Magwinya cakes, roughly translated as fat cakes. They are basically doughnuts covered in batter (Scots hadn't thought of that one yet, aye). Taste really nice, we had plain ones but you can get them stuffed with savoury or sweet fillings. We then took a walk down towards the Mahalay river, stopping at Echo cave, where the clarity of the sound was amazing. We climbed a bit further to our destination which was some original cave paintings. The first settlers in this area came 27 thousand years ago and these paintings give an understanding of how they lived. They used berries and blood to create the artwork which is pretty amazing! I also personally believe it backs up the argument that aliens have visited, many of the "people" in the pictures are really tall, with long legs, arms and necks (think Encounters of the third kind) whereas the bushman themselves were very very short.......de,de,de,de,deeeeeee......
After a few pics, we hiked back to the ponies, who proceeded to run away and not listen to any of the voice commands Mafa was giving them. Hence, once caught, Luckie road one home, and eventually, the other walked on in front continuing to ignore him every time he tried to stop her. They make a really bizarre noise to stop the ponies, like water dripping into a pot, I'm sure it normally works but Iced Tea wasn't having any of it (What a brilliant name, is obviously after the drink, but the first thing I thought of was Ice T, which I think is a great name for a mountain pony in the middle of the mountains of Lesotho, very funny). Had a good chat to Luckie on the way home about growing up in Lesotho, and his plans to go to South Africa in May (he can do this legally as he has family there) and hopefully work for the company who are running our trip. Really lovely guy, very knowledgeable, bright, and easy to talk to. I hope he is able to get a job, really deserves it.
After lunch we went for another trek to the Chiefs house. Each village has a Chief, with the title being handed down through family members, a bit like our Royal family. When a Chief dies, the job passes to his wife, when she dies it goes to her son or daughter. The only issue comes when there is an only unmarried daughter, as on marrying, she had to take her husbands name, which would mean the family lose the title. In these circumstances the village get together to agree a solution (which is usually giving the role to another family member).....simple eh??!!!!
The current Chief is Makhauta Malealea (the village is named after her family), a tiny lady of about 80. On meeting her, the first thing she picked up on was the bin liner I had brought as a raincoat, which she found quite amusing! We were then invited into her house, where (via Luckie) she told us she has had the title for many years, followings her husbands death. Her job is basically to ensure the smooth running of the village, signing ID cards, giving land to people, resolving disputes etc etc. She does this all herself with little help, real Girl Power!! A lovely lovely lady, who had a real affinity with the villagers (you could see this when she spoke to Luckie, and the school children who were passing as we left). What a privilege to have met her. On the way back to the village we took an opportunity to stop, and sit, and just look at the scenery. It was lovely, no one spoke, and in the distance you could hear children singing on their way home from school, just magical. If I come back to Africa, my first destination will be Malealea, an inspiring place to be.......