To begin with, a short addendum to 20.09.2021, on which not much happened. From Port Alfred, we made the 800km journey to Underberg. The last hour, in particular, was a tough one with darkness, fog and a visibility of 10m. So we arrived at our destination only around 19:30.

The next morning we left for Lesotho. We had booked a tour with Roof of Africa Tours. This made it easier for us to cross the border, get the necessary covidtest and with our rental car we would never have been able to cross the Sani Pass.

Sandile was our guide that day. A funny guy who had a lot to tell. On board were 3 other ladies: a mother of five with her eldest daughter and a lawyer. The ladies were well equipped in terms of food and shared everything with everyone. Throughout the tour, we had lively and interesting conversations about all sorts of things.

  • The Dream Team

Already on the way to Sani Pass we made several stops for photos and Sandile’s stories. So the time to the South African border post flew by. Arrived there we went directly to the quick test – the result was there already after 2min … it was paid in cash.

Immediately after the border post, the landscape became rougher and rougher. We drove a little over 8km through no man’s land and climbed higher and higher. The roads became narrower, stonier, steeper and slowly we noticed the upcoming cold. Arrived at the border post of Lesotho, Sandile took care of the papers, the ladies of the souvenir store and Andreas made friends with the local dogs.

In Lesotho we visited a village, or rather a hut complex of the local Basotho people. The hut we were invited to by a nice lady was circular – kitchen, bedroom and living area were one big room. The Basotho live with their whole family in such huts, sometimes they also serve as a stable. The huts are lined inside with a mixture of mud and cow dung, the floor as well and rather soft. Cleverly, the Basotho build their huts over stone slabs, so that the open fire in the center of the hut heats these stones and serves as floor heating.

While Sandile told us about the culture, the nice lady handed us homemade bread from the day before. The bread was a little harder than we are used to, but tasted great. When asked if anyone would like to try the local homemade beer, Andreas immediately raised his arms in the air, much to the amusement of everyone present. The beer was prepared in a huge plastic barrel – for Andres there was only one cup. We couldn’t quite figure out what exactly was being fermented in this barrel. The beer was milky white, had hardly any carbonic acid and was a mixture of a tiny hint of beer flavor, as we know it, and sour milk. Andreas bravely emptied the cup without making a face – Mel tasted only a tiny sip.

The time had flown by and so we soon had to start our way back. However, before we drove down the Sani Pass again, we made a stop at the highest pub in Africa – because now we were really thirsty and hungry. We had imagined the pub a little differently. Everything was as from the egg peeled and looked strongly “commercialized” – inside danced an obviously very well-heeled African woman to European chart music and enjoyed thereby her bottle of champagne. At least Mel could still exchange a few rands in Maloti.

Around 4 p.m. we reached the starting point of our tour again, with beautiful impressions and memories in our luggage and 5 new stamps in our passports.

Actually, we wanted to go to Pietermaritzburg on this day, but today we had to adjust our plan slightly again. To avoid unnecessary ways we drove only to Howick, where we ended the evening with pizza and slightly buzzed, due to the large beers.