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This trip takes us to the small mountain country of
Lesotho. It is a country bounded by South Africa that doesn't have
many industries and is having financial difficulty. We
always wanted to visit there, but never had a good reason. Nicole read brochures
and articles which highly praised the pony rides into their
mountains. She decided that we were going to visit Lesotho and were going
to take a full day pony trek; I agreed and began doing leg- stretching
exercises.
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Lesotho is south of Pretoria by about 5-6 hours.
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The lodge was another 1-2 hours from the
border.
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Lesotho is known as a very mountainous country
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... but it wasn't nearly as rugged as we had
expected.
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It turns out the Eastern side is much more
flat than the west.
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The flatter areas contained fields of corn
(maize) and
grains.
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Even the sides of the mountains were terraced
for farming.
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Some of the mountains had very interesting
shapes :)
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Most roads are made of dirt and we saw few
vehicles.
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Walking seemed to be the most common way to
get around.
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But the use of ponies was what attracted us to
Lesotho.
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The Malealea Lodge had main buildings
colorfully painted ...
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... and guest lodging that was in cute little
thatched huts.
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Even the dog had a thatched house (with a
peacock on top).
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There was a nice common area for families and
night bonfires.
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The view was very nice, but it was dry from a
drought.
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A group of peacocks came to show off their
colors.
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The St. Bernard didn't make much effort to say
hi...
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... but he took to Nicole after she found he
was quite gentle.
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But they had an arguement over who was to eat
Nicole's meal.
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Then Nicole discovered the littlest dog, named,
Mala ... who she named "poodie", since it looked like a ragged poodle.
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Mala moved in and Nicole was surprised by his
loyalty.
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He should have been named "shadow", as
he followed Nicole everywhere; not surprising when she gave him dinner scraps, belly
rubs and a warm blanket!
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We decided to take a hike around the lodge
area; with Mala too!
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The views were stunning and the terrain became
quite rugged.
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In this direction the land wasn't useful for
growing crops.
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The roads were quiet, but every now and then a
pony and rider would come trotting by. The animals are very valuable and looked
well-treated.
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We saw quite a few herds of cows and a few
wagons like this being led by interestingly dressed fellows. The blankets
and hats are unique to this area!
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We saw a gathering of people and thought there
was trouble; it turned out to be "race day"!
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The local men & children (we saw no women)
came to watch the races, each involved 4 riders.
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This fellow and his pony looked grand; he was
a chief and traveled 4 hours to get here.
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The next morning we had a hearty breakfast and
then got prepared for our pony trek. We
had a wide range of choices for our trek, as seen on the map to the right, which
was painted on the side of a large building!
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We selected an itinerary that took us south
(down) from the lodge to some bushman paintings.
We would then return up to the waterfall at the top; that way if Jay was
uncomfortable, he could skip the waterfall and return to camp.
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Our trek started after we were assigned a
guide and ponies (which were horses to me)
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We headed out of the village towards a dip in
the ground which made a wide valley.
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I expected the valley to be empty, but it
contained quite a few homes and little farms.
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A little further down the road we came to
other villages.
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Each village was more "rustic" than the previous.
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After an hour or so we came to a large cliff;
time for a hike.
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A gal came down the hill to guide us to the
bushman aintings.
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After a steep decline we saw our cave-like
destination.
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We passed a place where our yells echo'ed off
the far cliffs.
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We had to cross the river at the bottom to get
to the paintings.
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We finally got to the caves, but the hike felt
good to our legs.
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This is a painting of 4 Eland.
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Here a hunter is killing an Eland.
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I don't remember the story here.
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Dancing warriors.
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A woman with a big butt.
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Another woman; early porno?
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After our hike we found our guide sleeping
& ponies grazing.
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We headed down a steep decline to the valley
below.
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The ponies were very sure- footed and did well
on rocks.
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We saw herds of cows ....
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... furry goats (angora?) ...
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.. and even a few shy donkeys.
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We traveled through villages ...
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... that had nice yards & views; ...
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... built with kinds of materials.
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At this point my pony wanted to go back home;
opposite of where the guide was pointing.
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Finally I got the stubborn animal to go the
way it should. I guess I was not meant to be a cowboy.
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At this point I realized we had passed the
point of returning to the lodge; luckily I still felt good.
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After a total of about 4 hours on the ponies,
we came to the furthest point of the trip.
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We got off the ponies again and hiked down to
the waterfall. The hike and hearty lunch felt great!
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We then started the trip back...
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... past more villages and ...
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... very interesting homes.
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This was an interesting coral; obviously what
was kept here could not jump very high.
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It was now getting to be later in the
afternoon and we could see fires being lit for cooking dinner.
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After 6-7 hours we got back to the flat-land
and our lodge. I enjoyed the trip but was stiff.
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We rested a bit, shared a
bottle of wine to congratulate ourselves on the trip (mainly Jay), and then ate
heartily at dinner. We also slept very good that night and didn't feel too
bad the next day.
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The next day we had to leave, since Nicole had
limited time to take away from work.
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We came back through South Africa via a
different route and were very happy with the views.
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The steep cliffs north of Lesotho reminded us
of the southwest part of the United States.
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This area reminded us of a ...
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... park called Monument valley.
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We got to Pretoria OK, but tired.
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We thoroughly enjoyed Lesotho, the people and
our pony-trek experience at Malealea.
We do not consider ourselves
horse or dog lovers, but after this trip we can understand how people can get
attached to their animals, as a main mode of transportation or just as pets.
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