Sani Pass

...or, The Road to Sani Pass.

It took us eight hours to travel 303 km.

We traveled across Lesotho's eastern quadrant, from Caledonspoort in the north on the A1, a confident grey line on the map, to the Sani Pass, south, which affords the only road from Lesotho into the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. We drove up and down mountains too numerous to remember individually, heading for the notorious, dirt, hair-pinned pass that is destined soon for tarring-over. I wanted to see it before this happened, and Sani had been a must do on our list for our roadtrip.

In the day that it took us to traverse the mountain kingdom, I gathered sensory information and memories that still trouble me in ways that I find impossible to describe because I don't understand them well myself.

Lesotho left me bewildered. Left me wanting to explain myself. Left me knocking on a door in the middle of the night, asking to be let in, while the occupants in the rondavel, in the glow of a lantern, attended not to me, but to whatever it was inside, leaving me in the dark.

Nothing I write, and none of my photographs can come close to describing the penetration of this strange trip. It was compelling. And of course, I want to go back.

So.

Early in the morning, at half past six, we ate the potbrood I'd baked on the fire the night before, at green, serene Glen Reenen Rest Camp in the Eastern Free State. We drank coffee. We packed, and we left. We would spend that night at Himeville, in Kwazulu-Natal. With no accommodation booked we hoped to find something at the end of our day.

It was the longest day.

Just into Lesotho, stone fence posts. They were seen quite often on the other side of the Caledon River, too, in the Free State. I wondered how old they were. It was bucolicly pretty and I imagined that in autumn the poplars would drip yellow. It was 8.53 in the morning.

We did not have far to go. We had covered twice the distance before. But that was without the mountains.

Soon, we hit a dirt road that hugged a small river's course as it tumbled from higher ground.

It was green. Falling water everywhere.

As we rose and fell again the vegetation changed abruptly from low shrub to flat alpine.

After some hours we realized just how long it was taking us to cover ground. Low gears up, low gears carefully down, animals and horsemen on the way.

Sheep were being herded on the high slopes, and some had bells, bringing Switzerland to mind in a setting where altitude dictates the way of life.

The hunting dogs we saw following three boys were lean and hungry. The boys regarded us with
a look I can't forget - something between hauteur and disdain, before going down on one knee in the road and slapping the upturned palm of the lower hand with the palm of the other, held high above the head and brought with a smack onto the lower. It was a request for...anything, I guess. We did not stop. I had a horror of being the visiting, sheller-out of gifts.

What should I have done with my horror.

We had two soccer balls. My great idea in Cape Town. It's the World Cup, let's give some kids soccer balls! They'll love them!

We passed a playground outside a school: a rocky field where the tiny uniformed children played, and we slowed down - good soccer ball territory. I bent down to pick up one of the balls at my feet. The kids caught the motion and started to rush. I straightened and said to Vince, I can't do it. And didn't. Feeling a wave of confusion come over me.

We drove on. The kids, who had not seen the ball, yelled derisively. I was almost in tears. Of course I should just have given them the ball and bugger big issues. My conflict of conscience was of a luxury that in itself was messing with my head. What happens if every car that passes through gives gifts to children.

Does it matter?

What Vince told me only days later, was that several of the tiniest boys had dropped their pants and mooned us as we pulled away. It seems so funny now.

So we pulled over on a quiet stretch of road where a stream gurgled in the rocks, and I took out the balls. I placed them carefully beside the road amongst the flowers. A mute offering to whomever might pass. Black and white in the mountains.

Soon after we met a convoy of donkeys ferrying fuel down from the high reaches.

Three old men and two teenage boys on horseback, the donkeys carrying bundles of Helichrysum trilineatum used for fires in a landscape where trees and electricity are rare.

I longed to take real pictures but was too shy, and did not know how to bridge the gulf between us. The Landcruiser seemed so rich and heavy, our journey in summer clothes so frivolous, compared with the business of daily survival, clad in blankets and boots, carrying kieries.

The soccer balls lay about 400m ahead of them. I wonder.

We saw the Letseng Diamond mine.

We saw endless views.

We saw stone kraals. We saw four mounted soldiers carrying bedrolls and rifles which were so old that the wooden stocks had begun to wear away. They looked down at us impassively. My camera lay paralysed.

And always the water, in every cleft.

And then we saw what all travel stories tell you will see on a narrow road. A stalled truck blocking any progress.

It was just after 1pm and a light drizzle had begun to fall. We sat and waited. I nagged Vince to go and see what was the matter. I would have gone, but being a woman didn't seem a selling point in this landscape. Off he trudged, past a crew of roadworkers sheltering from the rain under blankets. A minibus taxi came roaring up from behind, and I leaned on the horn to slow it and it pulled up sharply like a stamping horse.

The truck's clutch was gone, really bad news. We waited for an hour while various people tinkered, and at last it was reversed down enough to allow what passed for traffic to move.

We passed a ski resort in a gravel valley, with abandoned summer lifts.

We had been told that it could snow up here summer or winter. And I think we were in something of a trance, on top of the world. Not a single tree, after the winding valleys. Mats of plants.

And I photographed another poppy, Papaver aculeatum. A rat scurried away as I walked over - I hope he was an endangered ice rat.

We passed stone dwellings in a land of stone and thin soil.

The air was very cool.

We saw no one.

We passed tinkling sheep.

We wondered whether we were in fact on the Sani Pass. The map was vague.

We saw shepherds and their herds in the distance with pack mules in tow, on vast flat meadows and obviously up here for the duration of an entire season, before the earth and its meagre green were buried under snow. We saw 4 x 4 bakkies driven fast by men in overalls and sunglasses carrying wild herd boys in balaklavas and Basotho blankets to grazing stations. Later my father told us that chiefs control the grazing, and that the herders work for them. On an ascent with rock walls on either side of the road I saw four boys lying in the sun on the highest rock, flat in their brown blankets. I lifted my hand in greeting. They stared.

And then the world was flat. We were high, at above 3,000 metres, and in the cloud. It was silent, cold, muffled. It was 3.06 in the afternoon. It was a tundra, a place separate, not part of anything we knew. We could have been anywhere.

We pulled over in the mist to the border post, a hut inside which three young guys in uniform were keeping warm near a glowing coal stove. It was midsummer and it was very cold. I put on my fleece. They were friendly, and listening to music on an incongruous laptop. Sani Top, famous pub, was some hundred metres away, but though we were dying for one we were in no mood for a drink. The endless series of passes had not been Sani. It lay ahead, just behind the checkpoint somewhere in the impenetrable mist.

And then I realized. The pass was not up. It was Down. We were up.

We got back in the car, with me at the wheel, and moved cautiously ahead. Down.

I managed the first hairpin, back wheels sliding, in lowest gear, the differential lock on, all wheels working in full 4 x 4 mode. Then I opened the window. The air in the cabin was blue with my swearing and I thought to clear it out.

In wafted the smell of death. It overwhelmed us.

My olfactory sense overpowered, my eyes felt blind. I could not see the road. Even though our fog lights were on I was very worried that another vehicle would not see us. That did not stop me from handing over the driving to the man. I am very afraid of heights, and my nerve had evaporated.

I got out and walked. I made Vince undo his seatbelt so he could bail if necessary. It seems so silly now. None of the pictures comes close to describing it.

And I found the smell. A very dead horse.

I don't remember those next hairpins, now. The truck seemed to be pointing down at 45' angle. And it slid.

We cleared the mist. And could see right into KwaZulu-Natal.

It felt so good to walk while Vince did the driving.

I got back in. I loved that car. It behaved so well.

And while I write about my own wussiness, bear this in mind: my parents did this same drive from the other side, Up - so ascending, in WINTER. With snow, and ice. And boulders in the road. It beggars belief. And they did have a drink at Sani Top. My mother said she asked for quadruple whiskey.

As it was we slipped and slid, never far, but enough to make holes in the stomach.


So to meet a minibus taxi coming the other way, loaded with people and baggage, on this the only way into Lesotho from KZN, springing up the track, was incredibly humiliating.

From lower down we could look up to see the mountains behind us. They were stupendous, enormous, harsh - a black rampart above the green, and we felt very small.

We started to see fynbos again, proteas, and ericas; and clematis trailed over everything in white froth.

Around here I stopped taking pictures.

We drove down a widening green valley to pastoral Himeville, a colonial little town in the highlands, and stopped at a few places looking for a bed for the night. We settled on the Himeville Arms, a dilapidated, sprawling little hotel on the main road where the carpet in our room had seen better days about two decades before. At R400 per person it seemed steep but we were very tired. Squashed mosquito carcasses decorated the walls of the bedroom and that night Vince sat guard over me as I slept and as fresh squadrons bombed us through the night.

But dinner was good in the 70's era dining room. Hot lamb curry. Vin very ordinaire. We were pooped. We were in love. We were alive. The picture's about as blurry as I felt.

We filled the thirsty diesel tank with gas the next morning. The Zulu pump attendant leaned companionably towards me in the cab of the truck so we could both watch the fuel gauge make its slow climb. His body language was a very small thing, but after the austerity of the people in the Lesotho mountains we had come down to an easy, friendly confidence that was in stark contrast, and made of the small movement a grand gesture.

At the shop nearby the pretty Zulu cashier picked up my firewood bundle and carried it to the car for me as my arms were full of water bottles, and she helped me with a smile. We were even Stevens. Suddenly, on this side of the mountains, we found an unforced familiarity.

What it all means, I cannot say.

We pointed west, towards the tiny village of Rhodes in the Eastern Cape. We anticipated an easy, scenic drive.

I left my beloved Anthropology fleece behind in the wardrobe in the Himeville Arms. I hope someone is enjoying it as much as I did.

Maliba Lodge, Ts'ehlanyane National Park

On our roadtrip in South Africa in late February we only had a few fixed destinations. Maliba Lodge was one of them and we planned our trip around that arrival date. When looking for places to stay in Lesotho, Maliba had caught my attention by advertising the "highest botanical garden in the world". 'Nuff said. We're going, I announced and booked the most expensive* night of our trip, within the borders of one of the poorest countries in the world.

* (It cost R1,360 - approx. $190 - for a self catering lodge. By comparison, the lovely Doornberg was R400. The Chalets are R1,370 per person per night).

We packed up camp and left the Golden Gate National Park in the nearby Eastern Free State, separated from Lesotho by the brown Caledon River. Border officials at Caledonspoort waved us through for a small R40 (approx $6) fee, and no one asked us about wine. The advice not to take wine into the country (based correctly on the fact that alcohol is not permitted across the border, to protect the interests of local merchants) had come from two lawyers (one my father) who travel to Lesotho frequently on legal business. I have a theory about lawyers, though: they talk too much when questioned, and are conditioned to be on the defense, so they look and sound suspicious. As a result, they are searched. That's my theory, anyway.

Above: the Hlotse River

Within metres we were in a different world. This is extraordinary because Lesotho is tiny and entirely landlocked by South Africa, so you'd think it would be familiar territory.

Differences: people on the road. Many walking, with sunshades or hats, the occasional passenger on a little donkey. Most of the people were school children, in droves, and all of them seemed very, very small, and all of them in uniform. Lesotho has a very high literacy rate.

No fences. Animals roam free, herded by boys and men, who watched over the grazing, standing alone in a field or on a hillside, carrying a kierie.

The speed limit was a snailish 50km an hour, and we stuck to it. Being pulled over on foreign ground didn't seem a good idea, and we'd been warned (by books, not lawyers) that speed limits were enforced. The locals, of course, screeched past us in their bakkies and taxis. There were lots of sedan taxis on the country roads, as opposed to the mini buses of South Africa, many people taking them to and from the border in a country where owning a car is rare.

At first I would smile and give a brief wave to people on the road. Pretty soon I realized with discomfort that no one, with the exception of a few of the youngest children, was smiling or waving back. So I stopped, reluctantly. It's a country thing to do in South Africa, but it didn't wash here. I wanted to know why. The car started to feel very big, I started to feel very conspicuous.

Driving through bustling Butha Buthe we took the road out and headed for the mountains, not hard to do in a mountain kingdom. Soon rushing mountain water was visible in a broad, shallow river in the valley. Women did washing, stock drank. Mealie fields spread left and right, each tended, it seemed, by a different family. Houses were all over, randomly, on this or that side of a hill or river, in a way that made their relative poverty seem dangerously picturesque. Each had some fruit trees, some animals, all had space surrounding them.

Is it better to be poor here or in a shanty town? Is the question itself obscene?

My inner troubles were beginning.

The road, pretty good tar, led to the Ts'ehlanyane National Park, part, I believe, of the Maloti Drakensberg Transfrontier Project, a massive conservation initiative. Much of the information available is on the Maliba Lodge site and is pretty much reproduced with many typos from several other sites. One can stay in the park without paying dues to Maliba Lodge, as there seems to be a basic camping facility and accommodation at the park's visitor's centre. See below.

After being admitted beyond a guarded boom, and paying a park entrance fee, we drove up a dirt road to the Lodge's reception area (below), a massive riff on the theme of rondavel, with pitched thatched roof, poised high above forested, intersecting valleys and looking across a breathtakingly beautiful vista of mountains. The South African manager who greeted us could not tell us anything about hikes in the park, also one of the reasons we'd come, and advertised on the website. He said he was 'new to the area.' Not my kind of answer.

I wandered down to the much-anticipated botanical garden, below, and found a couple of silent ladies defining the planted areas, which had been overgrown with grass.

The idea of the garden is laudable, and exciting in this sub alpine montane area, and many species were identified with labels showing Latin and seSotho names. I was able to identify the Hesperantha coccinea here for the first time as it was in full crimson bloom.

In an email I had received the following information from Bongani Ntloko:

It's a reasonably young aged garden based at an altitude of above 1800 m.a.s.l.

We are managing a special collection of high altitude (2900 -3200 m.a.s.l) plant species from the mountains of Lesotho.

Some of interesting species would be dwarf helichrysum species such as Helichrysum adenocarpum, Helichrysum ecklonis, Helichrysum witbergense etc

We are developing a showcase collection of the following indigenous plants:

• National flower of Lesotho (Endangered/red listed Aloe polyphylla)
• Useful (medicinal plants species) plants
• Irridaceae section
• Aquatic species
• Fuel wood species and etc.
• Water wise display
• Sensory garden
• Alien species
• Lesotho grasses

We have a database of all plants with pictures from both in the wild habitats and in the garden which we can happily share with you. We have also initiated a collection of seed material and propagation of some species for conservation purposes.

So it's a wonderful idea, and I had hoped to gather more information on site about why it was started and whose idea it was - whether it was a condition of the Lodge's existence in the national park, and so on. But the managers seemed vague. I had questions, but no one there could answer them.

Leaving the massive space of the main building, its lonely customer-less barman (we should have had a drink), the empty dining room and the eyrie-like views, we drove back down to our self catering lodge, one of six lining the rushing mountain river, and less expensive than the rondavel 'chalet' accommodation higher up. Just behind these river lodges was a series of rather claustrophobically wooded camp stands, very narrow, and possibly never used as they were quite overgrown.

The location was stunning and the lodges were enormous but McMansion-like in terms of their proximity to each other. Unlike McMansions they were built of stone and mortar, not drywall and plastic. We were the only guests and were shown each and every room by a sweet and very unsophisticated young woman. Clash of worlds.

Interior Decoration had happened. Red and black. Velveteen. A black dining table with dinner service for six on it.

The next day we saw a very good looking, early 20's, bejewelled guy negotiating the 4 x 4-worthy driveway in a low-slung, hot-off-the-presses Audi; the decor may have been for him.

It was a curious mixture. Great linen on the beds, then a kind of cookie-cutter closet and surface treatment, with vinyl finishes, as if from a generic motel in America.

The deck outside was right above the roaring mountain water, so much so that we had to speak loudly to hear each other. We ate lunch - the first snackwich I have ever made, created on the brand new, never-used snackwich maker in the huge kitchen. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. It was a good snackwich.

Below us, native berg bamboo grew in a drooping stand. It is Thamnocalamus tessellatus, and is called tsehlanyane in seSotho.

After lunch I explored the pristine river bed below where I had seen these stunning plants, at least five feet high: Phygelius capensis.

It is used as a charm against lightning.

The lodge from the water...

Also a native diascia, but I am not sure which one.

And a miniature Pelargonium capituliforme.

Then we walked up the damp dirt road along the river, following a map we'd found in a folder in our palace with lots of detailed information about plants. It pointed to a short hike on the other side of the narrow valley, following the water.

When we reached the end of the road, with a deep pool beyond it, I saw these: orchids.

My objections to black suede sofas began to melt away, fast. Probably Neobolusia tysonii, in seSotho - mametsana-a-manyenyane, according to Elsa Pooley's Mountain Flowers (2003, The Flora Publications Trust).

Stunning.

Our path lay on the other side of the stream and we waded across the top of the little fall, through icy water.

Then the Canadian got into the water. He said it was warmer than Lynn Canyon in Vancouver...the next day I found that out for myself. But he did approve of the colour, a clear dark green, as opposed to the transparent tannic brown of some South African waters.

And so our walk began, in the middle of the afternoon. And it is for this brief, 3 or so km ramble that I will remember Maliba Lodge, and consider its place on a map for flower hunters.

The path was grassy and not much used.

In the shade on the slope grew Plectranthus, probably grallatus.

And here for the first time, I saw the only poppy indigenous to southern Africa, the diminutive and delicate Papaver aculeatum, sehlolo in seSotho. Elsa Pooley says the young plants are used as pot herbs.

Clematis brachiata was entwined with the low trees on the slopes.

Crassula natalensis grew in damp spots.

A geranium...multisectum?

Another orchid!

Light was fading, a breeze picking up and the pictures are not good, but hopefully someone can see enough to help me ID. Disperis somethingis?

A beautiful grass...

Wahlenbergia, but not sure which one, again.

A terrible picture of a third orchid, about 18 inches tall.

And here was something amazing, We actually saw this oenothorea (can't find which it is) open before our eyes. In about 10 seconds flat from closed capsule to sprung-open moon. It was magical. There we were, all alone, the water below, the mountains above and the silent unfurling of the white petals. All along the path they opened, solitary, propelled by DNA and the time of day, like satellite dishes tracking something beyond our reach and understanding.

Zaluzianskya microsiphon. Pass wodka, Vladimir...what a name. The beautiful wine red blush to the backs of the petals.

Glumicalyx nutans, a striking flower rising leafless on long stalk from bare earth.

It was late afternoon and we saw and heard no animals. My father says there are few animals in Lesotho because they have all been eaten.

And a closed gate and a high fence. No way over. Our hike had come to an end. Instead of having another few hundred metres to walk to the lodge, we had to backtrack all the way to cross where we had started. Later we found literature in The Folder saying we should call reception to have this gate unlocked. It was all a bit mysterious and, hopefully, as more visitors stay here, these kinks will be ironed out.

We braaied that night, in the brand new Weber grill situated carefully beside a brand new fire extinguisher.

We fell asleep to the roar of the water.

In the morning, after espresso on the deck and a splash in the freezing water, we packed up, and headed out. Some Basotho ponies were saddled up in the parking lot.

It was a strange and beautiful experience, though I felt as though we were test driving the new place. As such, more information needs to be on hand for visitors who want to do more than look at the view passively. Perhaps if we'd gone on a pony ride we would have had a better feel for it...

And perhaps we are not the target market.

For comparison's sake, here is Vincent's post about Maliba and the drive there.

Lesotho cannot be dealt with in few words. I hope you forgive me.

Next stop will be Sani Pass.

For info about the Ts'ehlanyane National Park, overnight hikes and basic accommodation, click here, or contact:

The Booking Officer
LHDA Nature Reserves
PO Box 333, Butha-Buthe
400
Lesotho

nature@lhda.org.ls

+266 229-13206

For luxury accommodation at Maliba in the park, click here for their form.