lesotho

Lesotho is known as the kingdom in the sky, and for good reason, as the mountainous nation's lowest point is higher than the lowest point in any other country in the world.

The best part of our trip was miraculously connecting with a friend of mine who was serving in the Peace Corps in Lesotho. Neither of us had had regular internet access, but we knew that we'd be in Maseru, the capital, around the same time. When we arrived in Maseru, we went to the American embassy to see where the Peace Corps office was, and we were given hazy directions to more or less follow the road.

We continued on and met a kind Basotho/Canadian woman who said she wasn't sure, but she thought it might be up this little street-- and possibly this building, since the other one was a UN building. So, up the little street to the gate we went, and when we asked the guard if our friend might be there, the gate opened, and there she was. She screamed when she saw us, we ran over and hugged her, and it seemed like we were stars in our own cheesy, happy-ending afterschool special.

Our favorite part of Lesotho was Malealea, one of the few parts of the country with a bit of tourist infrastructure. (This meant there was a small lodge in which we could stay-- in the capital, our only budget accommodation option had been to stay in a church training center.)

Here are some shots from our bus ride to Malealea:

We stayed in traditional round stone huts called rondavels.

They aren't very large, but we loved ours. The ceiling was lined with straw mats, and there were small drawings of people on the walls.

We went on a pony trek to see some of the spectacular scenery. Each turn brought us to a different vista.

And each panoramic view was better than the last.

I loved the colors:

One interesting and sad thing we learned about Lesotho is that much of its domestic income comes from its most precious natural resource: water. Its "white gold" goes into its wealthier neighbor, South Africa, and unfortunately, its own water needs are not often met:

On the morning we left Malealea, there was a peacock on the roof of our rondavel, which just made it seem all that much more magical.

And then we headed out on another share taxi minivan into the rain. We had been so lucky with our pony trek weather the day before, and the overcast skies matched our sadness in having to leave what many appropriately call heaven.

We didn't have terrific visibility through the windshield, but we made it safely back to Maseru.

the now-defunct african z train adventure

We camped for a week in the Serengeti, on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater and next to Lake Manyara and Tarangire National Parks. It was amazing, and we now have about a zillion photos of animals to go through.

So, the good news is we are now done with all of our work and can travel for pure fun. The bad news (for the blog) is that we’re leaving our computer behind and will be returning to our tech-free hobo backpacking ways.

We were going to embark on what I called the African Z Train adventure, which would have been really awesome. We would start our journey in Zanzibar and then take trains wherever they were available to Zambia, where we’d visit Victoria Falls and cross into Zimbabwe, go through Botswana (not a Z but still cool) and finish in South Africa (ZA). The only problem was that the train across Tanzania was booked until December 25^th, the train that ran down Botswana is no longer running, and the very cool historic ferry, the MV Liemba, that we were going to take down into Zambia runs sometimes and sometimes not (and you can only buy tickets at the shore). So, with about a month left, we didn’t want to get stranded somewhere and scrapped that idea and hope to resurrect it in the future.

Our new plan involves traveling down the Mozambican coast through Swaziland and into South Africa. We were going to add in a Malawi detour, but it would add a week, and we decided we wanted to spend more time exploring Mozambique rather than scurrying to catch the next bus/train/ferry/bicycle taxi (seriously). In almost comic fashion, the process for crossing into Mozambique from Malawi is something like this: take a bus to a small town one kilometer from the border; walk one kilometer to the border; catch a minibus to this passport check station; and then you can either walk or pray someone will give you a ride about 25 more kilometers to the nearest town. Crossing into Mozambique from Tanzania requires a canoe because there is no bridge across the river along the border. (We’ve decided to take a tiny plane across the border because that 1+ hour on a plane saves us about ten days of travel.)

So! We’re off to Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa (and maybe Lesotho, but we’ll see how time goes) and will return with lots of stories and photos from all of our travels in December. Happy Thanksgiving!