The Mountain Kingdom – A Bike Tour through Lesotho

If you love cycling in the mountains, keep reading; a bike tour through ‘The Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho’ could be for you. Lesotho earns its nickname because the entire country is in the mountains. The lowest point is at 1,400 metres, which makes it the country with the highest low.

Predictably, it’s a tough place to cycle with climbs that feel endless and unpredictable weather, however, the adventurous cyclist is rewarded with eye-popping scenery and glimpses into the unique lifestyle of the Basotho people.

Sani Pass

Sani Pass forms the grand doorway into Lesotho. Africa’s most iconic mountain road, Sani Pass is a challenging 9km of unpaved, boulder-strewn climbing on a narrow, precipitous track from South Africa up to a crumbling shack at 2,776 metres that forms the Lesotho border post.

I pushed most of the way, but was happy doing so, wowed by the lush valley and mountains around me.

I wrote a blog about riding up Sani Pass; I'd recommend it!

Wild Lesotho - Reaching Mokhotlong

I had expected Sani Pass to be the top of the climb. Whoops! It isn’t, and I was punished for this assumption. It was another 350 metres of steep climbing to reach Black Mountain Pass, before I finally enjoyed the downhill I had earnt. The tourist jeeps return to South Africa from Sani Pass, so it was a quiet ride through untouristed villages to reach Mokhotlong.

Mokhotlong is a place every Masotho person has heard of, but few have been. Around the country it is so synonymous with being remote that it assumes an almost-mythical quality, like Atlantis or Timbuktu. Telling locals I had cycled from Mokhotlong inspired an element of mystery and commanded respect.

As isolated as Mokhotlong is, I was shocked to discover Black Friday penetrated this deeply into Africa, and the celebrations, though understated, were in progress, and an energetic crowd milled the 3 or 4 shops that formed the town’s shopping centre. I couldn’t see anyone buying anything in the sales, but a trail of rubbish and plastic bags lay scattered outside and indicated otherwise.

Few people own a car in Mokhotlong, or in fact, anywhere in Lesotho outside the capital. Those who do are either taxi drivers, who drive battered antiques with the horn endlessly blasting to find new passengers, or foreigners who drive smart, powerful cars, that cause heads to turn. Everyone else travels on foot or horseback.

As I cycled down the main strip, there was a real feel of the Wild West about. I needed wifi to contact a friend, but I couldn’t find any. Even the town’s two hotels had none. In the end, I had to borrow a phone to call her.

Dirt Road Riding

After Mokhotlong the road turned to dirt, descended to a stream, and began a long climb up the other side. A handful of minibuses crammed with passengers crawled past, struggling to navigate the deeply-rutted road. The road fell away to my side, leaving a track so narrow I had to stop cycling to let each minibus pass. I don’t know how two minibuses going opposite directions passed each other. The road was the kind of mud that becomes cloggy when wet, and I imagined the road impassable after rain. Presumably a few taxi drivers - brave, desperate or reckless - attempted it, which is what formed the deep ruts. In parts, a river had entirely washed the road away.

Most people travelled on foot or horseback. I met old women trudging enormous distances back to their village, and men on horseback claiming to be travelling 100km on horseback. No-one carried any provisions and I found myself endlessly sharing my water until I ran out.

To my left, the road dropped away, and on my right, it climbed to high mountain peaks. On both sides, I’d occasionally catch a flicker of movement in my periphery and turn to see a shepherd-boy leap from one rock to another, or artfully toss a stone to hurry a straying sheep back to the pack, before blending invisibly back into the landscape. These young boys spend the long summer days, sunrise to sunset, watching their sheep and guiding them across the harsh, rocky landscape to fresh food. It appeared thankless, boring work. For the whole time I was in Lesotho, I always felt I was being watched. Whenever I stopped to pee, I would always scan the mountains for a minute beforehand, but I’m certain I was still spotted by a dozen shepherd-boys every time.

Staying (and Dancing) with Shepherds

I only made 23km from Mokhotlong that first day. Dusk arrived, but the sun had dropped behind the mountain several hours earlier. At this altitude the air quickly became chill, and I began looking for somewhere to camp. At the top of the mountain, I saw a collection of rondavels (typical stone Basotho houses) and a sheep pen.

I had a ‘magic letter’ written in local Sesotho language, which explained I was English (they love the English because Prince Harry visits every year), travelling around Lesotho, thought it was a beautiful country, needed somewhere to set my tent for one night, and that I had everything I needed and didn’t need any food.

Magic letters are one strategy in my ultimate guide to finding a free place to sleep anywhere in the world. Check it out.

I passed this letter to the men, who took the piece of paper and passed it around like a scroll of hieroglyphics. They looked at it with intrigue for several minutes, until I realised they couldn’t read. I showed it to a women, who mouthed the words as she read. After a moment, she extended a hand to shake mine, ‘Hi, I’m Agnes White.’ she said. ‘You need a place to stay? You have a tent? One moment, please.’ My mouth dropped that she spoke English, and then I chuckled that her name was Agnes White, which made her sound like an 80 year old from a game of Cluedo.

Agnes White was the English name she had chosen, her real name being too difficult for English-speakers to pronounce. In Lesotho, women are more educated than men, because the boys drop out to herd sheep. This is unlike the rest of the world, where girls normally stay at home to cook and clean, and it appeared to have repercussions across the whole of Lesotho’s society, with women seemingly taking a more central role in decision-making. I found this refreshing, and repeatedly throughout Lesotho my contact was with women rather than men.

Agnes led me to a hut and said I could sleep there instead of my tent. An old lady was already bent-double sweeping the hut with a bundle of twigs.

Using the bracken that grew in the mountains, Agnes lit a fire to heat a cauldron of water so I could have a warm shower. The next morning, I saw how far they had to walk with a donkey to collect that water, and I felt guilty and indulgent.

A man produced an antique radio blasting crackly Basotho rap. It was the first thing I’d seen in several hours that reminded me it was the 21^st century, and not 10,000 years ago. They began to dance, and I quickly joined in resulting in much laughter. They tried to teach me some dance moves, and I taught them to floss (the dance move), and we laughed some more. Around the world, dance and laughter are truly two universal and uniting languages. I have used dance and laughter to connect intimately with people who speak no English.

I perched on a rock to write my diary. Shepherd-boys scampered down the mountain behind their sheep to the din of clanging sheep bells. A man was butchering a sheep carcass and tossing scraps of meat into a pot.

Agnes approached and sat beside me, picking at her teeth with a stem of grass. She asked why I was cycling? What was I looking for? I asked about her life.  Both lifestyles seemed alien to the other, and it was one of those beautiful moments in travel where for a fleeting moment two worlds collide and you get a glimpse of how varied and limitless life is.

I was first to bed, falling asleep to the excited chatter of conversation in the huts around me. I knew they would rise early the next morning, but I sensed this was the highlight of their day, and they would sit around the fire until it sunk to embers allowing the cold mountain air to creep in and force them to bed.

I was woken at 4:30 by the clanging of sheep bells, and the shouts of boys guiding their flocks back out to the mountains. Another day in Lesotho was just beginning.

Agnes waved from the huts as I headed back to the road. Two worlds had met, merged together, and now drifted apart, probably never to meet again.