South Africa (2020)
Inhalt/Content
On to Lesotho
Our trip to Lesotho started in Underberg, a sleepy little town. The taxi driver let us out at the minibus station. From there we had to continue by the so-called Lesotho taxi, a minibus which claims to be a 4×4, as only 4×4 vehicles were allowed to cross the Sani Pass, into the mountain kingdom. Our destination was Mokhotlong, a medium-sized town by Lesotho standards and also the final stop of the Lesotho taxi. When the taxi driver let us out in Underberg, he told us that today was Sunday and that the Lesotho taxi was not there yet, but it would come very soon. When we asked how exactly the Lesotho taxi looked like, because there were several buses at the bus station and there seemed to be no signs, the taxi driver called something over to a group of men. In the middle an older man sat on a plastic chair and counted money. He seemed to be something like the attendant of this minibus station. The taxi driver turned back to us and said that the gentleman on the plastic chair would let us know when the Lesotho taxi arrived. So we unloaded our backpacks and stood under a tree to escape the blazing sun. From then on we waited. When after half an hour nothing came, we still made jokes about the clichés concerning African punctuality. After an hour the jokes slowly got a bitter taste. After two hours despair set in. After three hours I decided to go and ask the man on the plastic chair. He seemed as if he didn’t know anything, but it was not clear to me whether he even understood my English. At least there were sounds coming out of his mouth that didn’t have the slightest resemblance to the English language, which could also be due to the fact that the old man had hardly any teeth left, which didn’t exactly make his pronunciation appear clear. He pointed to Kevin, who was still standing under the tree to take care of our backpacks, and made me understand that he should come here, too. When I came back with Kevin and the backpacks, he had already called a lady to his place. First she collected money for tickets, which we handed over to her with a very queasy feeling in the pit of our stomaches, before she held a clipboard with a passenger list out to us and made us understand that we should sign in. The fact that there was nobody on this list except us strengthened our displeasure. Meanwhile, we were at a shaded waiting area at the other side of the minibus station, where already numerous people were waiting. Of course we were the only white people far and wide. A man approached us as he noticed how we tried to talk to the lady with the clipboard. He seemed to be the only one at the station who could speak a bit English and with his help we tried to squeeze out of the lady what was going on with the Lesotho taxi. After all, over three hours had passed since our arrival in Underberg. Unfortunately we did not get any helpful information except that the Lesotho taxi would be here soon and that it was on its way from Lesotho. We had no choice but to wait.
Another hour passed until finally a rickety little minibus with a Lesotho license plate number rolled into the station. Kevin and I packed our backpacks and stormed along with the other waiting people. The lady who had collected the money was already standing by the car. “Lesotho taxi?”, I asked her quickly and she nodded and pointed to the minibus. So after 4 hours it was finally there. We squeezed ourselves into the terribly narrow bus. Besides us there was a buddy of the gentleman who had helped us with the translation, a mother with a little boy and a baby and an extremely chuby couple. We waited anxiously for the bus to finally head for Lesotho. But there was one thing we had not thought of: This was the Lesotho taxi. So we all sat closely together in the minibus, which heated up more and more while the driver took a longer break. In the meantime the couple in the bus probably got a little bored and the man got out and went to the nearby KFC to get something to eat. Unfortunately, just as he was gone, the driver got back in and drove off. The lady called him directly to tell him that her boyfriend was still at KFC after all, so the Lesotho taxi was diverted there to pick him up, only to drive to the nearest supermarket parking lot. Here the driver parked the minibus again in the blazing sun and decided to go shopping first. After the shopping was done, he waved himself back to the wheel. “Now it really starts”, we said to ourselves. But unfortunately we were wrong again. The driver first steered the car over the main road, then drove between some bushes onto a field path and came to a halt there. We noticed how the corpulent lady in the bus got a bit nervous and joined in directly. The lady with the ominous passenger list, the old man who did not understand me at all, the rickety minibus. All this gave us a bad foreboding. The door opened and the driver told everyone to get out. He and the lady exchanged a few words and apparently she had noticed our nervousness and calmed us down with the words that our vehicle was broken and that we should change into another one that had already arrived. As soon as we were sitting in the other car we finally started with a delay of about 5 hours.
We passed the Sani Lodge and drove up to the Sani Pass. The driver turned on the radio and there was some kind of sports commentary in a language we didn’t understand, probably Sesotho. Even though the atmosphere was quite different from our Sani Pass trip the day before, the view was still breathtaking. While I looked out the window and tried to soak up the view again, Kevin looked desperately forward and held on to the front seat, because the ride was even bumpier in the minibus than in the SUV. This did not stop the mother in the front seat from falling asleep thanks to the mother’s efforts. The full-bodied couple ate the contents of their KFC bags with relish until the lady choked so much that I wanted to give first aid, but fortunately she caught up on her own. When we arrived at the border the other guests explained to us that we had to get out and take our bags with us. In contrast to the day before, we now had to go to the border control ourselves and take care of the immigration. The border officials seemed to be extremely amused about the fact that there were also two white people in the group from the Lesotho taxi and only indicated us laughingly that we should just put our backpacks back into the car without any control. The cheerful border official from the day before was there again today and gave me a map of Lesotho, of course not without showing me her German skills again. From there the journey continued quite carefree until we finally reached Mokhotlong. I followed our journey with the help of the Smartphone GPS via an offline map. Because of the 5 hours we lost in Underberg, it would soon start to get dark. Anywhere else it would probably be half as bad, but in Africa as a tourist you are really afraid of being outside in the dark. The bus station was at the opposite end of the city compared to our accommodation, but we drove quite close to our accommodation. If our driver would let us out, we would make it before nightfall. “Stop!”, we both shouted in chorus, but the driver drove on at a remarkable speed. The stout lady turned to us and explained that she and her boyfriend had to get another connection, but that the driver would bring us back here. From a distance we saw another minibus. Our driver accelerated and the next thing we saw was a Hollywood-style chase until we finally caught up with the other minibus in a side street. The couple thanked us, said goodbye and quickly jumped into the other car. In fact, they were right, because our driver turned the car around and took us back to the vicinity of our accommodation, where we arrived before nightfall.
