South Africa (2020)
Inhalt/Content
Mokhotlong – What are the tourists doing here?
Our hostel consisted of a main building, where there was a small office, some toilets and a dining room, which was exaggeratedly kitschy decorated, as if a wedding party would take place here in the next 5 minutes. In front of it there was a residential house where apparently the family of the owners lived and behind it there were several smaller round huts which were the accommodation for the guests. In between there were even quite nice green areas and gardens and all this was surrounded by a fence, but it seemed to be not quite finished yet. We had booked the hostel online the day before and therefore we knew already from the reviews that it was badly signposted. Badly signposted was not exaggerated in this case. The actual sign with the name of the accommodation was turned upside down so that somebody could scribble on the back with a marker “Office” with an arrow pointing to the main building. We followed the arrow and entered the main building, but the office was empty. Our shouts “Hello, is anyone there?” also went unheeded. Finally I decided to go to the apartment building and knock. Inside, an elderly couple was sitting and watching TV. The lady looked a bit extravagantly dressed with a long dress and a hat that even the Queen would have been jealous of. Although we actually had a reservation, people seemed to be very surprised to see us here. The lady got up and went back with us to the main building, where she handed me a flyer from the accommodation and made us clear that we should wait here. One of the things we noticed was that on the front page of the flyer above was Lesotho with an elephant head on it. It is easy to think of elephants when you hear Africa, but Lesotho is a mountain kingdom and there are no elephants around here. After a short time the old lady came back with a slightly younger lady in tow and indicated that she would now lead us to our room. So far we have not seen any other guests. We realized how special the situation must be for those present when she led us to the largest hut of all. She explained that there were no double beds, but that we would get this hut as compensation. The next moment we were standing in a big room with 4 beds. In the middle was a small table with two chairs. There was also a TV on the wall and a door led into the adjoining bathroom, where there was even hot water, as the elderly lady proudly told us. After she asked several times if this hut was really ok, she asked us about our meal plans. This was indeed a good point, because meanwhile it was already getting dark. Not completely unselfishly she offered us to eat in the accommodation. Shortly she turned to the younger lady who reluctantly answered that she could at least prepare fish and chips in the short time. We accepted the offer and asked directly how it would look like with breakfast. According to our online booking, breakfast was included, but we had to point this out to the lady first. What was also included in the online booking was free WiFi, but when we asked for it, both ladies looked at us only confused, as if they didn’t know what it is and at that moment we even believed them. When we later searched for WiFi networks with our smartphones, we did not find any network far and wide.
After we rested a little, we already went to dinner. Admittedly I have never eaten such bad fish and chips. Both the fries and the fish were soggy, dry and lukewarm, as if it had been warmed up for the third time. At least there were carrots in addition, but they were so salty that I only managed to eat them with difficulty. Finally we asked in the kitchen for something to drink. “We have juice,” was the answer. That didn’t sound so bad in itself, so we agreed. But what she brought us in a carafe of juice had nothing to do with juice. The texture and color made me reluctant to even try it. Kevin was braver then me, or rather the thirst tormented it into him. He described the taste as “dishwater in which a vitamin effervescent tablet has been dissolved”. Admittedly, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what it was in the end.
The next day, in contrast to yesterday evening, there was even a quite tasty breakfast. This was also the only time we saw another guest. An African was already sitting in the dining room, dressed up in a suit and was looking curiously over to us. I can’t get rid of the thought that he probably just wanted to treat himself to something very fine by staying in the accommodation and, as he proudly reports on his return to his family, he was in such a chic shop that even white people stayed there. Afterwards we walked to the only real supermarket in Mokhotlong, which made a pretty decent impression. It was located in a small complex with some chain stores, where we also bought a new SIM card to finally be able to use our smartphones again. The juice from yesterday was also there, stored in huge canisters on even bigger shelves in the supermarket. Kevin stomache twisted at the mere sight of this juice. Back at our accommodation we rested a little. I looked at the flyer from yesterday again and found a list of attractions that should be nearby. So I decided to go to the office, where a man was sitting, and asked which of these attractions could be visited today. The answer was rather disapointing: None at all. Most of them were much too far away and could only be reached by car. The only place where you can rent a car in Lesotho is the capital Maseru, which is about 300km away. A little bit disappointed I asked what else one could do in Mokhotlong today. The gentleman was visibly confused. Apparently not only guests as such were rather unusual in the accommodation. It was even more unusual that these guests asked such complex questions. A little bit perplexed and resigned he suggested that we should walk along the main street to the other end of the city where there should be a quite nice view.
So we walked through Mokhotlong and although it was of course no metropolis, we could observe many little things.
At first we were a small sensation in Mokhotlong as white people. Only once we saw other white people driving through in a car. How special it was for the locals, that now all of a sudden two white people were walking through their city, became clear by the fact that every person we passed was greeted friendly, which seemed to be very warm and pleasant. The whole thing escalated a little when we passed a school. The children ran to the fence and wanted to test their English skills by shouting “Hello” and “How are you?” Some even started dancing, others waved and were happy when we waved back. But we also had a direct negative experience when we walked past a boy and said hello. He was the only one who didn’t greet us back, but only replied with a grin: “Give me your money!”. That sounds more threatening than it actually was, because it seemed to be an action with the motto “you-can-try”. When we answered “No” and went away, he immediately let go. Admittedly, the boy probably only said what most people thought without denying the local people their hospitality.
The next realization, although it is an obvious one, is that Mokhotlong, like the country of Lesotho as such, is incredibly poor. There were poor little houses and in between small corrugated iron huts with advertisements of the local providers of mobile phone tariffs. These huts were mainly used as small shops. In fact the “most beautiful” buildings were the two schools and a hospital. This was because they were financed and built by various NGOs and projrects from abroad. Now there were big signs with the sponsors in front of the actual buildings. In fact, it was good to see with my own eyes that development aid really gets to where it is supposed to go.
Based on the numerous small corrugated iron huts, another realization was that there is an incredible amount of trade. There were barbecues set up on which meat skewers were roasted and there was even a lady who sold discarded Tupperware products from the boot of her car. There were also ladies who sold fresh fruit. However, our appetite was quickly curbed when we saw that the ladies washed the fruit in advance in a water channel that ran through the whole town and which originated at the local hospital.
In the meantime we had reached the end of the city. Actually the mountain panorama was very beautiful, but nevertheless we had a thick lump in our throat from the collected impressions and especially from the poverty we had just seen. This may sound silly now, if you travel to Africa and then wonder about poverty. Poverty itself was nothing new for us, we had seen enough of it in countries like Peru and also in Germany there are people living far below the poverty line. But what we saw there in Mokhotlong was a completely different form of poverty, which really hits you in the face. One becomes more than aware of the injustice in this world. At this point I would also like to mention that Lesotho has numerous diamond mines. What is true of many African countries is also true of Lesotho: it is rich in natural resources, but its population remains poor.
On the way back I discovered an interesting activity after all. At a crossing there was a corrugated iron sign with the inscription “Pony Trekking” and a telephone number. Since really do like horses, I wanted to try this out directly, of course. We turned off and followed the road, but there was no trace of horses or the aforementioned Pony Trekking. So we went back to our accommodation where the man was still sitting in the office. I had photographed the sign in advance and showed it to him with the question if he knew more about it. Immediately he tried to call the number in question, but the number did not seem to be assigned. Next he called some friends and asked them if they knew more details, but finally he had to admit defeat and the pony trekking in Mokhotlong remained a mystery.
Towards evening it became adventurous again. We wanted to explore the area of our accommodation a little, so we walked behind the huts with our eyes directed to the horizon where a fantastic panorama of the mountains and the sunset stretched. A little further back there was a small stable with a cow. It was not clear if this still belonged to the area of our accommodation or not, because the fence, as already described, was not yet finished. We wanted to approach the fence to take a picture of the cow, but did not notice a dog nearby, which immediately started barking loudly. We retreated, but it was already too late and suddenly a group of wild dogs barking and snarling teeth turned the corner and rushed towards us. Neither of us had any sturdy shoes on and the terrain was anything but level and yet we started running. Kevin is still a bit resentful today because he likes to talk about how fast I ran away while he still hesitated 😉
[Addendum from Kevin: “resentful” is good. While I was still in shock, Nathalie had already disappeared behind the huts. Meanwhile the dogs were perhaps only 5m away from me. She had left so fast without me, really in the sense of “The dogs bite the last one!”]
Totally out of breath we arrived at our cabin and decided not to do any more exploring tours on the premises.
Later there was even a really good dinner, namely pap with meat and green leafy vegetables. As we learned, this was one of the most popular dishes in Lesotho and especially the leafy vegetables I personally found very tasty. After dinner we went to sleep with mixed feelings. At that time we had no idea what awaited us the next day.
