Travel

South Africa (2020)

From Mokhotlong to Maseru – A real horror trip

From Mokhotlong we wanted to go to the capital of Lesotho, Maseru. Of course Lesotho does not have the best infrastructure, but the employee in our accommodation told us about a bus that goes from Mokhotlong to Maseru once a day, always at 08:00 am. So we asked for breakfast at 07:00 a.m. and the man called us a taxi for 07:20 a.m. that should bring us to the bus station which was actually not very far away, but fully loaded with our bags we were happy about the ride. Of course, the next day at 07:00 o’clock nobody was there yet. Finally after some searching, we found the lady who took care of the food and it was a somewhat strange experience. The lady asked if it was enough to eat cereals and we agreed. We had just finished eating on the spur of the moment, it was already 07:15, when the lady suddenly came to us with freshly prepared burgers and placed them on the plates in front of us. This was a somewhat strange situation. I thanked her and asked if we could take the burgers with us as food for the journey instead, whereupon she luckily handed us lunch boxes.

Thus, more or less strengthened, we went to the bus station where the bus was actually already ready. Apparently, it was a discarded South African bus, at the sides there were still some inscriptions in Afrikaans, and those who know the buses from South Africa can imagine in what kind of condition this bus was. A man took care of loading the luggage of the fellow travelers, while between the seats traders walked back and forth selling snacks and drinks. Of course we were once again the only white people far and wide. There was a small positive surprise at the beginning of the trip. The bus actually left Mokhotlong on time. We were told that it was supposed to arrive in Maseru between 3 and 4 pm, which for almost 300 km and the surprisingly well developed roads of Lesotho was a very long trip, but the condition of the bus did not cause any surprise. We were already quite used to what public transport in different countries can be. For example, I think back to the minibuses in Peru, which rushed through the Andes at such a speed that you made three crosses when you arrived at your destination unharmed. This bus was the exact opposite. It was slow. Very slow. So it went at walking speed over the Lesotho plateau. At this point I would like to talk about the atmosphere in this bus. Through the boxes, which were suitably fastened over the seats, the same song droned on full volume for hours in an endless loop. We sat down on seats above which the box was broken in order to escape the noise a little. Unfortunately, this did not prevent the lady behind us from singing along diligently for several hours. In the meantime a live sheep was loaded into the trunk (wait a minute, we had something like that in Peru 😉 ). On the day in question it was incredibly warm and the bus was well filled and very badly ventilated, which led to the fact that very quickly an unpleasant sweat smell paired with the smell of the snacks vegetating in the heat spread in the bus. To make matters worse, Kevin became more and more pale and mumbled that he was not feeling well, which resulted in him throwing up in the bus (luckily we quickly had a bag at hand!). In short: The ride was hell. Suspiciously, I looked at the speed of the bus, which was still going at walking speed. Something is wrong, I thought to myself. Unfortunately I was dead right. If we were supposed to arrive between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m., we hadn’t even reached half of the distance by 2:00 p.m. Slowly the typical arriving-before-dawn-panic spread again inside of me, which brought me to the brink of a nervous breakdown thanks to the time and constant walking speed of the bus paired with Kevin’s worrying state of health.

Shortly before 3:00 p.m. the bus suddenly pulled over and stopped. For a while nothing happened. Then the man who collected the tickets came forward and started to announce something on Sesotho. The people around us started shouting at him and arguing while we were sitting in the middle of it understanding absolutely nothing: The strange white tourists who don’t speak even a little bit Sesotho and were just done with this world. It took some time until the argument between the man and the passengers was over. Finally, he came to us and explained with poor English that the bus was broken. I looked at my smartphone, only to see that we were in the middle of nowhere and there was no mobile connection here. And even if there was, who could we have called? We tried to ask the man what would happen next, but unfortunately his English was too bad for him to understand us or for us to understand him. I watched out of the window as some men tried to change the right front wheel but failed. Finally one of them entered the bus again and came to us to explain that the bus cannot be repaired and a replacement bus will come. Together with the other passengers we got off the bus. The men had already started to unload the luggage from the trunk. Desperately we stood at the roadside for some time. Of course there was no replacement bus far and wide and mobile connection was still just a dream. We also could not communicate with anyone. Only the man who had explained to us that a replacement bus would come seemed to speak English, but he had his hands full with unloading the luggage, making hectic phone calls and calming the angry crowd of passengers. In our desperation we packed our backpacks and waved at one of the taxis, which of course sensed profit and immediately started to drive up and down the road, hoping for passengers to enter. We offered the drivers a nice sum of money for driving us to Maseru, but none of them was willing to do so, because Maseru was much too far away. So we were still stuck in the middle of Lesotho with a broken bus, an angry Sesotho speaking crowd and no mobile connection. I made three crosses when several minibuses arrived, which were organized as a replacement for the broken bus and which should finally bring us to our destination. So we squeezed ourselves into one of the minibuses. But we would not be in Africa if we would just drive off now. The problem was that also the luggage of the travelers had to be stowed away. Fortunately, our backpacks were still quite handy. With a group of ladies it looked different. They carried a huge pile of 5 kg buckets filled with yogurt and of course the yogurt had to travel with them to Maseru. While we were all now sitting half happy half desperate close together in the bus, the drivers tried desperately to stow away the yogurt. In the end, everyone had a yogurt bucket above his head and under his seat. At the same time, several passengers had yogurt buckets on their knees and the entire center aisle was filled with yogurt buckets. In the middle, right next to Kevin, the drivers placed a large gas tank and pointed Kevin to hold it. When we finally started, our situation could be summarized as follows: I was at the end of my nerves, Kevin was sick, there was yogurt everywhere and Kevin held a gas tank in his hands. In contrast to the big coach, the minibus accelerated accordingly, so that the rest of the trip went surprisingly smoothly. As on our trip to Mokhotlong, I watched our route via GPS on my smartphone and shouted “Stop!” loudly when we were near our next accommodation, which we reached just in time as dusk set in.

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