LESOTHO 2024

Welcome to Lesotho!

Lesotho, the mountain country which is landlocked by South Africa. Although we had planned to come here as part of this trip after months of trying our ability to visit here was looking very unlikely. Lesotho has an online e-visa system however due to security issues this was taken down shortly before COVID and appears to have no ETA on it being fixed. Due to it being relatively few countries in the world that will need a visa to visit Lesotho most people may find this of little inconvenience. However we had a Romanian national in tow and the workaround process (if you can call it that) for the e-visa system being offline is one of the most difficult & dis-organised I've had to bear witness too. So much so in fact we'd simply decided not to visit Lesotho anymore.

Our plan was to instead exit South Africa and drive the infamous Sani Pass up to the Lesotho border control and then simply turn around, back down the Sani pass and head back into South Africa. While we were gutted about not being able to traverse the width of Lesotho and stay in idyllic mountain lodges we had come to accept our fate.

Upon our arrival however at the top of the Sani Pass we felt that there was no harm in us just trying to cross. We had heard a bribe often worked here, and the border guards were sitting around simply playing poker so we decided it was worth a shot to cross with the vehicle. They either weren't aware of the issue for Romanian nationals, didn't care or like others on our trip so far had in fact mistaken the passport which says "Romania" to be Italian "Romana". Either way after all the passport is an EU passport and most EU citizens are allowed in without a visa and they simply took a small fee for the passports & vehicle road tax and we were allowed to pass without issue.

Even though we were now in Lesotho we knew we'd likely face issues at a larger more modern border if we tried to exit Lesotho via our originally planned route, also we had now cancelled our accommodation in the country and made other arrangements. So instead we set about a short drive to the highest point of the Sani Pass (Sani Top) followed by lunch & a local pint of beer at the highest pub in Africa. Cheers to luck being on our side.

The Sani Pass

When we'd looked into visiting Lesotho we'd heard one of the most unique and amazing experiences was to drive one of the world's most dangerous roads into Lesotho, the Sani Pass. The 4x4 track first built in 1950 and climbs from 1300m to 2876m at its summit. While South Africa has tarmacked the first flat section to its border it continues as a 9km gravel and mud road for the majority of the climb. Technically the pass is in no man's land with you exiting South Africa at the foot and entering Lesotho at the summit. In places the pass is as steep at 1:4 and this leads to often cars going over the edge especially in anything except dry conditions.

While South Africa won't allow you to attempt the climb in anything except a four-wheel drive car, Lesotho will let you attempt the descent in pretty much whatever vehicle you fancy. Since our original plan for our trip had us in Durban, it just so happened that the Sani Pass was the logical border point for us to enter Lesotho. Despite our visa issues and plans changing we decided to still not miss out on the Sani Pass.

We had a very long day, the pass starts about 4 hours from Durban and we couldn't get any closer the day before as we had a 9 to 10 hour drive that day as well. Upon arriving at the pass we were lucky for the weather to have finally improved it was a generally sunny, dry nice day for us to attempt the summit. We passed through South African border control without issue. From here the path immediately descended into slippy gravel and potholes requiring us to switch to four-wheel drive. The pass took us about an hour to summit while stopping for pictures. We also took it quite slow for comfort as the road was very bumpy. The views were dramatic and we often had to get very close to the edge of the road near vertical drops in places. Surprisingly though we hadn't need to use the low range gear box at all on the climb, instead being fine in high range four-wheel drive.

Before we started the climb at the SA border post we saw a map. This highlighted some keep points to us such as "Suicide Bend", "Haemorrhoid Hill" & "Reverse Corner" which gave us a good laugh on the way up joking at whether this bend was this one, or whether a worse one was to come still. We were also lucky to not experience much traffic on the pass and we even met a couple of the mountain nomads of Lesotho walking down & up the pass. No mules though.

Upon us reaching the summit we entered into Lesotho and drove for a further 20km on some of the smoothest, best tarmac we'd seen in the whole trip. This took us to the official peak marked by a cairn at 3482m. We hopped out here for a celebratory photo and it was extremely windy and cold. From here we did a u-turn and came back to the highest pub in Africa for a well deserved warm meal and a pint of local Lesotho beer even though it was getting late and we had a long drive still ahead of us to the accommodation that night. Then we braved the infamous pass again as we descended back into South Africa on route to our accommodation for the night.

Despite our visit to Lesotho being briefer than hoped due to visa issues we'd still had a really fun time and rewarding experience and I'd recommend it to anyone who wishes to visit Lesotho.