David & Clement talked incessantly amongst themselves in SeSotho. To us of course it was rabble of noise punctuated by frequent loud hearty African laughs. What they were talking about was anyone’s guess.
Normally on these treks, one guide is enough for six people but as we and Olive and Petra had booked separately somehow we had ended up with a guide each. We think it was more to create employment rather than any real need for two guides.
So I guess these two guys were making use of the opportunity of having a real conversation whilst working, instead of having to continually talk to ‘dumb’ tourists.
They did stop talking when we came across a store in the middle of nowhere. Not another building or village was to be seen. But what silenced David and Clement were the big mouthfuls of beer they took from the couple of cans of Castle purchased from this place.
Our destination was the village of Ribaneng, famous for its falls and where our “five star” rondavels awaited us.
Well I guess almost anywhere can look five star after a day in the saddle.
Basically it was a mud hat with about ten mattresses on its spartan and dusty floor and a couple of gas rings with a gas bottle. Lighting was five star candles and BYO torches and our toilet was the long drop variety located down the end of a vegetable garden in a small wooden hut.
The falls itself was almost out of view and was according to Clement an easy two hour return “stroll”.
Guided by yet another David, we brushed rather uncomfortably through rough vegetation, jumped and hopped from one huge boulder to another and slipping on the many small stepping stones along and around the river.
It’s at this point that I would like to describe to you a wonder, a creation of nature so beautiful that it brought tears, a spectacular feast for our eyes but I can’t.
It’s not that it’s indescribable nor that it’s too wonderful for words, well it was just a waterfall and after the struggle to get there it was just not the spectacle that we had hoped for. It was, well, sort of nice, nice and boring.
And with that we struggled back to camp.
Maloti Mountains of Lesotho in the early afternoon light.
