Lesotho hideaway

There are three things that I think we are going to particularly enjoy about Lesotho, the clean air, the absolute quiet and the rugged beauty of the mountains. The next morning I wanted to go back up to the top of the ski slope to take a photograph of the resort but unbeknownst to us, there was another, heavier, snowfall. On the way up we stopped to take a photo of the stream shown below and the two herdsmen walked about a kilometer back towards us to say hi. In typical tourist fashion I thought that they want to beg for sweets which is a very common occurrence but not these two. They wanted to know what 'that' was, pointing to my camera. They had never seen a camera before so they insisted on me taking a photo of them.



The gumboots and the blanket are very typical local dress, you see everyone wearing it.



From the top of the ski slope looking back to the chalets, ours is the one in the middle. There are a few more to the left but they look quite lonely in relationship to the mountains. The resort is 3 years into a 15 year development plan so hopefully, by the time it is finished, it won't look quite so lonely.



I am particularly pleased with the following photograph because my camera managed to capture it without blowing out the highlights nor losing detail in the dark areas.



The road was particularly slippery here, in fact so much so that we weren't able to pull off from here and I had to reverse down onto the tracks before I could go forward. Seeing the snow and ice at this time of year and the chains that the trucks use in order to get up the roads leaves me in no doubt as to exactly why the road on this particular section is in such poor repair. Below is caron waiting patiently for me to stop buggering around taking photographs. Very chilly out, not only because of the snow but the wind was howling as well.



The return trip was uneventful and we had another late night sitting through the two remaining quarter finals. South Africa vs Fiji was very tense and at one stage it looked like Fiji might run away with it but the Springboks really pulled it together in the last 20 minutes and the final score looked way more comfortable that the game actually was. We got to half time in the Argentina vs Scotland semi before my eyelids couldn't stay open anymore.

Lesotho hideaway

Ever since we went skiing at Afri-Ski in June this year we have been thinking about whether it might be a good idea to buy the rights to two weeks a year at the resort, one of which would be a ski week. After much deliberation and thought we decided to give it a go so we paid the deposit but since we haven't even looked at the chalets we felt like we're buying something completely blind and although it isn't exactly expensive, it's not a trivial amount. Early saturday morning we left and made a brief stop at the vaal dam to make an inventory of the yacht in preparation for selling my 50% share. The drive down to Afri-Ski takes about 5 hours including stops for coffee in Bethlehem and the border. Afer filling in all the border paperwork with a red pen because it was the only one we had, we had the uncomfortable experience of having our paperwork torn up and an admonishment that it had to be in black. The official went and stamped our passport in any case so I don't know what the point is of the paperwork. The drive is quite beautiful and the Moteng pass is just fantastic, I keep on thinking that it would be a great cycle up but having done it a couple of times now, it would entail a serious amount of effort and definitely too steep for my road bike. As we came around the bend towards Oxbow lodge we were greeted with this sight which, to put it in perspective, is normally a placid stream that one can simply step across. The black dot on the road is my car which gives some sort of scale to the width of the river.



Apparently they had 105mm of rain the previous evening which from the size of the river and the number of rock and mudslides we saw at various parts of the pass, I can quite believe. When I say rocks I am talking about boulders about 1/2 the size of a car lying in the road after plummeting down the mountain side. We reached the resort without any further incidents although we did see a car in the ditch having skidded off the road because of ice. Below is the view from the verandah of the chalet we are keen on and we have a view directly up the ski-slope, not a bad view at all. Even though we are now officially well into summer it was -0.5 deg. C. Pretty chilly for africa. We had a good look around the chalet which is really quite nice before heading back to Oxbow lodge for the evening.



The 'Shack'



On the way back we were stuck temporarily behind a truck with some indeterminate white load under a cargo net - it was only when the white stuff started to move that we realised that they were sheep pinned down under the cargo net to prevent them falling off the back. Pretty undignified from the sheep's point of view. Talking about sheep, back at the lodge we watched the two semifinals Australia vs England and New Zealand vs France and in both cases the favourite lost. England played really well and deserved their win as far as I could see, very clever game plan and forced Australia to play to England's strengths. Not very upset to see Australia go out but felt very sorry for New Zealand to lose due to refereeing decisions which were either debatable or clearly wrong. I'm getting a little tired of the debate where poor refereeing decisions are covered over by the attitude that it all comes out in the wash. It doesn't - some poor refereeing decisions have little or no bearing on the end result of the game but others definitely do and with three match officials on the ground you would really think that they would pick up pretty much all infringements and definitely the major ones. Referees, like players, are professionals and should come in for criticism in exactly the same way that players do.

Skiing African Style

Woke up to a brilliant cloudless day which just happened to be -5 deg. C. Frigging cold, especially being an African I am used to the heat not the cold. Nobody had slept well last night thanks to the other tenants who managed to disturb everyones' sleep at various times of the night so everyone was feeling a little green around the gills. Breakfast was very plain fare but quite edible and we hurried through the breakfast to make sure that we arrived at the ski slope before one of the other parties which had at least 40 people in it.

Driving down to the the Afri-Ski resort we were greeted with the following view which was very encouraging, at least there was definitely snow to ski on.


We kitted up in the ski shop without too much of a problem although I heard some people who came in after us complaining vociferously. They had paid about 20k for ski passes, hire etc, etc and Afri-Ski didn't have them on their list so they weren't going to give them their gear. I can hardly blame the customers irritation but the Afri-Ski staff really need a serious wake up call. One just can't run a ski resort like they do - in mitigation, the resort only really opened in 2004 but by now they really should be getting their customer service right. They clearly aren't.

So finally we were ready and after a couple of tries on the baby slope I worked up to the full run quite quickly. I think that this slope has to be the best slope I have seen or can imagine for beginner to intemediate skiers. The half of the full slope which was open could be divided into thirds. The first third was between a green and a blue, the second third more or less a blue and the final third between a blue and a red slope so as people got used to the easy slope they could progress to slightly steeper slopes easily.

By the end of the day, I as well as Kirsten and Carl had more or less remembered how to ski albeit a bit like a robot. All stiff and not smooth and flowing. Caron was doing fine on the lower slopes snow ploughing here way down and complaining bitterly about the stress being put on her knees. I keep on telling her that as soon as she starts to parallel ski, all that stress just goes away and the whole experience becomes a million times more pleasant.

We actually stopped mid afternoon because we were all getting tired and that is the time when one has accidents so we retired back to the lodge where we could sit in front of coal fire and drink wine and whisky and relax.

Carl had to get a report finished and sent to one of his colleagues - a simple task or so he thought as the following days were to show. We asked about internet connection at the lodge but they only have a satellite phone for emergencies. There wasn't even a cell phone signal at the lodge. There was a cell signal at the ski slope but only caron who has MTN was able to actually make phone calls. Carl and myself are Vodacom subscribers so we had absolutely nothing.

The kids struggled to get to grips with the snow, this being their very first experience of snow. Not exactly happy campers at the end of day one.

Skiing African Style

Contrary to popular belief, there is in fact skiing available in Africa south of the equator although I might be stretching the definition of skiing a little. This is not the miles and miles of ski runs with quaint coffee, gluhwein or vin chaud shops perched precariously on the mountain side, this is African style. There is one ski run and the one and only coffee shop is at the bottom of the run a mere 500m walk (not ski) away. Be this as it may, it is still snow and you do get to use real ski's and if you aren't careful, make an idiot of one's self.
Having been to Tiffendell a couple of times and experienced their exemplary service orientated culture (not!) I was expecting pretty much the same thing at Afri-Ski and I was not disappointed.

We left on the friday morning at 11:00 and arrived at about 16:00 which included a border crossing and the usual stops for calls of nature - like food. Once in Lesotho the speed at which one drives decreases to about 80km/hr because at anything much more than that you wouldn't be able to stay on the road let alone avoid oxen, sheep and children. There are no fences beside the road so one's speed has to take these into consideration - a typically african experience. We overtook several ox carts plodding along the tarred road. I thought that we might see donkey carts but I was surprised at the ox carts. The moteng pass (2820m) which climbs about 1000m up the escarpment is absolutely fantastic. Good road all the way with loads of ice and snow next to the road from the cold front a couple of weeks ago. I would not like to do this pass with snow actually on the road, I think it would be extremely dangerous. The Oxbow lodge where we were staying is a short drive from the top of the pass and wedged between the road and the stream and driving into it reminded me of some of the Nepali villages where the road winds between the houses. The Oxbow Lodge cannot be described as luxury accomodation by any stretch of the imagination but it was warm and reasonably comfortable thanks to the winter sheets, four thick blankets and a thick duvet not to mention the gas heater which we left on the whole night.

In the lounge after supper we met an eccentric englishman, they (the english) really do have a knack of producing them. I wonder if it is a sign of in-breeding? He is busy cycling around Lesotho and according to him, and he has done almost 100 000km of cycling in various parts of the world, this is by far the most strenuous terrain he has ever encountered. I must say, that as a cyclist, the mountains are pretty daunting. He has spent the last 10 years travelling by bicycle or public transport all over the world and intends doing another 5 years before going home to the UK. I don't think anyone who has done that amount of travelling will ever again settle down in one place.