First we focused to Sani Pass road second we want to discover Lesotho. Turkish passport needs to apply visa for Lesotho. But we didn’t want to go all the way to Durban; apply, wait and turn back. So, we said go to the Lesotho border and see what happens, they let me in or ask for visa. 🙂
Sani Pass south africa and lesotho
We turned to the Sani Pass road and came to the South Africa border. After exit, the beautiful landscape from the Sani Pass started. The road is 15 km and you are really climbing. Also, very narrow and has sharp corners. Need to be careful. I fell down the motorcycle one time because I didn’t give enough gas and couldn’t go up. So, I stopped and put the motorcycle ground. 😉 Anyway, it is amazing road you need to go and see.
After finished the road we came to the Lesotho border. We gave our passport and started to talk about our Africa journey and motorcycle. When we were talking they asked how many days we want to stay. We said 2 days and they said 5 days. Great! We took our stamps and entered Lesotho. Directly, the tar road starts from the border.
On the road, I don’t remember how many times we stopped to take photo or had a break to see view. When we were riding we saw signs, which writes to high between 2.500 m. and 3.800 m.
We arrived to St James afternoon and decided to stay there. They have a small hotel and camping area. We choose a little local room to stay (300R/2 person, camping 60 pp). They gave us oil light and gas heather. It is a lovely place between the mountains. People are also nice. We used their kitchen to cook and had a good night.
Next day, we said bye everybody there after breakfast and hit the road again. We felt that the landscape was more beautiful then yesterday. We saw a lot of villages, ski places, also diamond mines. Yes, Lesotho has diamond, of course we don’t know about quality. We couldn’t see a lot of markets to buy vegetable or cooking stuff. We were happy we bought everything in South Africa, enough 2-3 days for us. Therefore we really didn’t look so much to find something. You can drink water from the tap there because coming from mountains, which is very fresh and clean.
We wanted to stay one day more but we didn’t like that much where we looked. They wanted to give high price without anything. For example, 100R pnpp for camping without anything, which means no shower, no toilet also no water. Forget about electricity because Lesotho has already problem for that.
We had 32 km the border. We stopped for little break and look to map and decide what we would do. Two women came next to us and started very basic conversation between us because they can’t speak English.
-They asked, “Where we are going?”
-We said “No plan. Maybe go to South Africa or stay here”
-She said “Can I give a plan”
-Ferry and I looked each other and smiled. We asked her ” What is the plan”
-She said ‘We have a small nice place to stay in the village. Only, 4 km far ‘’
We were looking a place already. So, we listened to her and turned to the village. Found to Mamohase B&B. We follow some very funny signs like ‘don’t give up, you are nearly there’ to find the place.
We saw that the area is lovely. So, before asked the price we already decided to stay there. 😉 He said 350R pppn include dinner. We said we don’t need dinner and that we stayed in St James and paid 300R total without dinner. He said directly ok. The room was bigger than the one before but still traditional house. He also gave us an electric stove as well to cook. Normally, no electricity but he has mini solar 😉
We walked around and tried to talk people. It’s such a peaceful place. They are so friendly and view is so nice. Sunset time, we turned back to the room. Made a dinner and told the owner to have shower. He said that could be ready in 30 minutes. It is great but we didn’t see any shower around so we were curious where we would go. Finally, he called us we went to another room to shower in a bucket 😉
Next day, we left there late to enjoy with the view a bit more. The border was 32 km far and we were planning to stay next to the South Africa border.
We didn’t read anything about Lesotho; also we didn’t check photos on Internet to see how it is look like. This way is nicer because we can discover with our eyes. We like the country so much. The landscape is gorgeous; the roads are wonderful for motorcycles. People were so friendly and nice with us. It is one of our favorite countries in Africa, so far.
