A Glimpse at Life in Land-locked Lesotho

The Kingdom of Lesotho is a small, mountainous country that is land-locked by South Africa; it is still one of the world’s poorest countries with only 33% of the country having access to electricity in a world where flying taxis and virtual assistants exist. Crazy, right? One of the most humbling things about adventure travel is its ability to keep you grounded through the discovery of how our global neighbours go about their daily lives. For me, Lesotho served as this reminder on a 8,849km road trip (clocked the kilometres on our rental car) that we were fortunate enough to take through four African countries.

We crossed the border into Lesotho through Monantsa Pass. At the time, we were in a mini van, but parked up soon after the border to explore the mountainous terrain and make our way to a rural village on the country’s outskirts. Lesotho is distinctive in its landscape with local villagers living in rondavels (stone-walled huts with thatched roofs). While in Lesotho, we visited the home of a Sangoma medicine woman, a school and a village shebeen where we sipped on home-brewed liqour out of a bucket with the locals.