Day 347 / 112

Date: 25 March 2023
Sleeping location: Cell in Ha Mosi Courthouse/Jail 30.0515S 28.2790E, Lesotho
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 101 / 21546 / 6709
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 2300 / 202300 / 84300
Respite: nope
Day in three words: Smooth and steep

It was another beautiful calm, clear and cool morning and I had a little kid audience again, watching me pack up, but they just talked quietly amongst themselves about all of my fascinating gadgets, didn’t ask for anything and said goodbye when I left, so they were fine really. The kids are strange in that they are mostly respectful and never ask for sweets when you stop in a village, but out on the road they become ravenous sweet zombies and will follow you to the ends of the earth to get (or, in my case, not get) their sugar hit.

Throughout the morning the tarmac randomly appeared then disappeared, which is quite alarming when you're descending at 60kph and there are no warning signs. The road was still following the dramatic Tsoelike river, and it hugged the hillside and twisted around ravines like a big piece of dropped spaghetti or the wanderings of a drunken ant, dropping then climbing steeply over and over again. The road had been made by paving over old 4x4 tracks so the gradients were occasionally punchy, but the views more than made up for it. There were distant mountains coloured blue in the hazy air, more huge fields of pink and white flowers and distant views of the Orange River canyon. It was very quiet and the sweet zombies were mainly adults, rare cases of infection in those over the age of 16. 

Late morning I stopped for snacks and drinks in Qachas Nek. Here I realised that my snack bag had taken on water when falling into the river, and because my biltong had been stored in a paper bag the whole thing was now full of wet beef. I shared my slightly soggy ginger biscuits with a few locals and realised that no, I had not been imagining this, people here really were saying "hola" to me as a greeting.* From here the road was now full tarmac and began to follow the Orange River again, and this canyon with mountains behind it provided yet more spectacular views. The road was Chinese made and a few years old and was therefore broken up in quite a few places,** keeping those fast descents spicy. There was a stiff headwind most of the time, which was tolerable because it was all up and down, but the extra pushback on the steep climbs was unwelcome and for one short flat section along the river it brought my speed down to 12kph. You really need to work for the views here. After the flat section came a ramp of utter insanity even in a day of wild gradients - komoot claimed it peaked at “just” 16% but this is nonsense; on my well calibrated Fuck Me This Hurts What Are These Noises I’m Making scale it was closer to 30% (yes, 30%, no I am not exaggerating). 

I’d forgotten to buy bread so lunch was crisps and a pack of peanuts that I’d accidentally carried all the way from Malawi because I kept forgetting about them. Unfortunately they had been in the snack bag and were now all wet like the biltong, and slightly fermented. The advice on the packet to "store in a cool dry place" had been recklessly ignored, since they had experienced temperatures between 5 and 35 degrees, torrential rain and a river. 

Late in the day I hit a perfectly timed supermarket for overnight provisions, then tackled a brutal 250m climb up to huge view, 270 degrees of mountains and canyon and big puffy clouds lit by the low sun. This country just keeps throwing up jaw dropping moments. I was able to see the next 10km of road like a 1:1 scale relief map, and it said: big fast descent down the side of these mountains, then you’re climbing boy, and how.  

I zoomed down the big fast descent, took a little chunk out of the climb and then as usual announced myself to the first person I saw in a village and asked if I could camp. She was a drunk lady, which was not helpful, but she took me to a shop run by a nice woman called Mafusi who spoke excellent English. We talked for a bit and she introduced me to her nice family group, including an intense man who kept saying a word that I didn’t understand, until I realised that I did understand it: he was saying “chapeau”, the French word for hat, which in a cycling context means “well done”. How he knew this but spoke no English whatsoever baffles me. Mafusi then introduced me to two funny and slightly tipsy guys, Joseph and Edward, who appeared to administer the old courthouse/jail, and they put me up in an old jail cell where (I think) Edward now sleeps whilst acting as guard, but obviously his services weren’t required tonight as I was guarding the place. They said goodbye and halfheartedly asked for some beer money; I am usually against this but he had given up his room (I think), I found it hilarious that I was going to be sleeping in a jail cell, their vibe was so nice and the request so cheeky that my principles melted and I gave them the equivalent of a few quid. It was Saturday after all. 

*I cannot find any proof of this on the internet, but they were I swear

**I have ridden on thousands of kms of Chinese built roads in Africa, and they are always fine for a bit then break. See also: anything I’ve bought off Amazon with a weird-sounding brand name, both the Bluetooth keyboards I used on this trip, etc etc