We left the hotel very early so as to venture into the Sani Mountains and cross over to Lesotho, which we were told could be an adventure in itself.
The landscape of the treeless plateau of the Sani Pass was quite peaceful giving us no idea of what would follow.
Starting at 1544 metres and climbing to an altitude of 2876 metres almost vertically, the road was a very steep gravel said to have claimed several lives, which was understandable given the difficulty to drive on. Being the only road between Kwazulu Natal in South Africa and Mokhotlong in Lesotho it had a huge number of sharp bends.
Apart from the odd villager walking down the mountain and a shepperd we saw nobody on the way up to the frontier post. It was sudenly very windy and cold and the whole ambiance seemed surreal with a few men wearing woolen blankets on as they were pulling or riding on horses. We were driven to the closest village so as to see the way the local inhabitants live. The traditional circular huts with thatched roofs and colour door frames looked smaller from the outside. We were received by a lady who had baked some special bread and whom we bought some souvenirs to, knowing they barely have anything.
As we were leaving a group of villagers awaited us outside the hut as the men sang and made quite a joyful type of performance. Again the way they were dressed caused us some shrill fear-like type of feeling, hadn't it been for their happy looking faces. I guess we shouldn't have felt that way, taking into account the fact that they were dressed up for the cold mountainous air, though I can say the hoods that covered their faces leaving just the eyes visible reminded us vaguely of the robbers who in other continents use this type of outfit so as not to be easily identifiable during the perpetrated acts of robbery.
(To be continued)
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