Day 343 / 108

Date: 21 March 2023
Sleeping location: St James Lodge, Molumong, Lesotho
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 75 / 21246 / 6409
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 2200 / 194900 / 76900
Beer: earned

Day in three words: Sani and cheer

It was a very windy morning, with thunderstorms still raging up in the mountains and the power still off. I got myself ready slowly as there was no point rushing out into this weather, which was tortuous as I just wanted to stop thinking about the challenges ahead and start doing them. As if to offer support, the hostel cat rubbed itself against me as I stretched out my still-slightly-stiff legs. I couldn't wait around forever and after the storms passed by I set off into light rain at 9 towards the first main challenge of the next week, the huge, steep, epic Sani Pass connecting SA with Lesotho. 

The first section moved up a deep river valley of more cliffs, escarpments and steep grassy slopes. It felt like Wales but somehow bigger.* The road was unexpectedly tarred but even this “easy” bit up the river valley had some nasty kickers. The sky cleared pretty quickly but a headwind pushed me back down the valley, saying no, don't do it, go back. After 10km I got my first sight of that famous V shaped valley with its single, improbable escape route. Shortly afterwards came the SA border post, the end of the tarmac and the start of the pass proper. The passport control displayed a relief map of the climb, showing such points as Haemorrhoid Hill, Suicide Bend and Big Wind Corner. Why couldn’t they have named them nice things like Reasonable Rise, Carnival Corner, Beautiful View Bend? 

The first section of dirt track had a mixture of rideable and unrideable bits, and was steep and loose enough that if I lost it I couldn't get going again. Some of the unrideable bits were so steep that it was like rock climbing - push forward, pause, move feet, re-establish position, push again. As I climbed the road began to ramp and soon the 10% bits felt almost flat. The wind was now howling and it pushed me back, making bike control even more difficult. When I stopped for breath I took in the increasingly amazing views, huge clifftops and a sort of ridged grassland that looked a bit like Tellytubby Land on a bad acid trip. There were also eagles being buffeted by the wind, and hyrax and baboons hopping around below me. It was a wild, mad, beautiful world up here. 

Two thirds of the way up I hit the hairpins, steep and rocky, pushing Maggie most of the time, counting up from the first turn to the twelfth to mark my progress, literally shaking my head in disbelief at the road, the views, the whole ridiculous experience. At the final hairpin I stopped to take it in and then tried to ride the last steep section, but it got the better of me and I had to push in full view of the people on the deck of the "highest pub in Africa"**. Once it levelled out a bit I could ride again, and so I pedalled my way over the top to the border post and into Lesotho. Five hours, 20km, 1300m. One of the most amazing and memorable experiences of my life. 

This is quite a big spot for tourists on 4x4 tours and a few of them filmed/photographed me (which was a bit weird) but I also got a lot of encouragement and congratulations. Obviously I had a beer and some food at the “highest” pub and whilst in there I got a whirlwind of well wishers, including a group from Darlington, an overlander from Belgium and a journalist from Bloemfontein. I may have been interviewed by her, I'm not really sure, but she took my details and said she’d be in touch.

Up here at almost 3000m Lesotho was a wide treeless plain backed with mountains, empty apart from sheep, horses, slow moving rivers, round stone houses and the occasional faraway person wearing a blanket and holding a stick. This is a desolate land. The road was good new tarmac and I'd hoped to make good progress, but the wind from earlier was now a full and fierce headwind and it literally halfed my speed whether I was climbing, descending or riding on the flat. Happily I got a respite from the wind in the shape of a climb that claimed to be 16.7% for 3km - it wasn't actually quite that bad but it was still absolutely awful, long straight sections over 20% which I was completely unable to hit straight on and had to tack like crazy. The high altitude left me breathless and I had to stop several times to recover my legs lungs and spirit.

At the top was a view over a completely empty landscape of row after row of dark, foreboding peaks. A sign welcomed me to "Highest Point" (of what?) at 3240m. It was 5pm and I'd travelled 40km, climbed 2000m and was 1700m higher than at the start of the day. I got my cycling reward, finally, with 25km and 1000m of descent down an absolutely spectacular valley. First the road clung to the side of the huge steep grassy slope, then it hit the river itself, a crystal clear torrent in a deep valley, surrounded by small cliffs and yellow flowering bushes. It was incredibly beautiful. Before long I arrived in the first village and after that the land was more managed, but still very beautiful, peaks and valleys and loads of pink and white flowers everywhere amongst the crops. 

I didn't fancy wild camping as I didn't have a feel for the people or the land yet, so I looked on ioverlander and saw a couple of places, one close and one a little further on. Sunset wasn't far off but the further on place sounded nicer and didn't look that far so I decided to crack on. This plan did not take into account a) a quite long climb on the first, tarmac road b) that things in Lesotho might not "look far" but when you actually examine the map the road is squiggly as hell and is actually 5km instead of the 1.5km you thought, and c) that 5km goes down 200m and back up 250m on a dirt road. I arrived in almost full darkness, but fortune favours the brave and it was a really cute place with a kitchen and lounge all to myself, plus I'd already nibbled 5km and 250m out of the insanely hilly dirt road section of Lesotho that I'm most worried about. 

What a day. 

*Blue Wales?

**I highly suspect this is a lie as people live higher than this in Ethiopia, but I can't prove it