Hooray- sunshine

This time when I woke up in the Zulu hut and looked out of the window it wasn't raining. Cloudy but definitely dry. After a fry up we drove into Underburg town and picked up the 4x4's which would drive us to the independent state of Lesotho (pronounced Lesootoo). It is no 9 in the Worlds ten poorest nations, I can't remember Michael Moor exactly but something like 500 individual Americans are worth more than all ten put together- so it's well poor.
We drove along countless mile of sandy track with the back end twitching so much I wondered why we had bothered getting the off roader. A brief conversation with the local driver elicited that he had done this journey every say for the last 7 years- he was obviously bored and just messing around. Eventually we started to go up, up some more and then very up to the point where the scenery changed to sky. This was Sani Pass- a back road between the two countries and the shitiest posting imaginable for a South African customs officer.

After hanging around a bit at the Lesotho customs building- a shed of the ubiquitous wriggly tin, we headed to the highest pub in Africa for lunch- road kill chicken curry. A leisurely repost and a few beers and we mounted up and went to visit a nearby village of the besotho people. They were poor, very poor but we were invited in to one of their huts and told all about how they live. Tried some of their bread and asked a few questions of the woman. They have a pretty rough life, plucked from their own family and village when any Tom, Dick or Nkomo who can give their father 24 sheep takes a shine to her. She builds a house has his kids, makes food to sell and all that while he sits in the hills with his mates drinking and smoking weed. He nips home every now and then with his flock but that it. We took some photos, the men who were there always had their hands out for money wanting tips. I obliged- 'always apply your blusher with upward strokes' and ' never plant your begonias before the last frost'. I rather crassly pointed out that since all males are crudely circumcised at the age of 18, the guy doing the business was the one getting all the tips. Groans all round.
I wasn't long before we'ed all had enough not to mention being cold- were were at about 4000m. We began the hairy decent into SA and finally go the view we came for- the Lake District . At the bottom of the hill (2 1/2 hours later) Piet was waiting for us with the minibus so after a quick stop to allow everyone to stock up on pies we turned for Durban. Arriving tired and arse numbed again to Hippo Hide I was surprised and delighted to find my old buddies Dana and Dan booking in. After a tearful reunion they told me how they had planned to go walking on the morning of the fire but stepped out to find the locals rounding up their pets. Enquiries revealed that the town's evacuation plan had been initiated and they were sent back to the hostel. The hostel owner whose responsibility they were was slightly more concerned by the fact that the fires were 100 m away from his wooden house so eventually they were taken under the wing of the local fire chief who, not surprisingly had his hands a bit full. He therefore dragged took them around in his Jeep to survey extent of the fires and the damage so they got almost as good a view as me. After a few beers they were very keen that I should join them on their trip to the Drakensburgs but Ihad already booked a flight back to Cape Town and going off with them would have cut things fine for my flight home- ah well. It was great to see them anyway.
I have no idea why this is suddenly writing in italics but Ican't stop it.