At 2,874 meters the Sani Top Chalet is the highest place you can buy a pint in the whole of Africa. Perched on the Lesotho side of Sani Pass, between this mountainous kingdom and South Africa, it’s a good reason to stray off better-known, well-beaten paths and spend the day 4x4ing.

 

And the Chalet isn’t the only gem to be found at the top of this brain-rattling, stomach-shaking journey up the pass. There are stunning vistas, contrasting the lush, rolling landscape of the South African province Kwa-Zulu Natal with the harsh vistas of Lesotho, and opportunities to visit local villages in the Mountain Kingdom.

 

The 12 kilometer-long Sani Pass leaves South Africa from the aptly named town Underberg, which is nestled beneath the southern Drakensberg mountains. It’s the only road link between Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Kingdom of Lesotho, and the only road that crosses the summit of the Drakensberg.

 

The Pass had been used as a trade route between the two countries for many years: people bringing mohair and wool down the pass by donkey to exchange for millet, clothing and blankets. But it was only on 26 th October 1948 that Godfrey Edmonds, an ex-RAF pilot drove up the Pass for the first time. Reputedly the journey took him just under six hours, with the help of a Basuto labour gang and their ponies.

 

Today the route should be passable in any, reasonably conditioned, 4x4. With ‘obstacles’ such as suicide bend, hemorrhoid hill, reverse and ice corner, the drive is certainly no Sunday afternoon outing.

 

At an elevation of 1,968 meters on the pass, a sign at the South African border post sternly warns, “No vehicles except 4x4s beyond this point.” (How other vehicles get to that point, like the occasional ‘taxi’ you see rattling along, is a mystery, or perhaps the remains of a vehicle over the pass act as an unofficial deterrent?)

 

The border post is open from 8am to 4pm and you are required to show a valid passport. Having cleared the post, there are eight kilometers of ‘no man’s road’ to be navigated before, finally, arriving at 2,873 meters and the official Lesotho border.

 

Having summited the pass armed with a 4x4, a strong stomach and a camera to catch the amazing views back down to Natal and across the plains of Lesotho, it’s worth also being armed with some facts about the country.

 

This tiny enclave of South Africa (30,355 square kilometers) was renamed Kingdom of Lesotho, from Basutoland, following independence from the UK in 1966. It is estimated that just under two million people live there, but with HIV prevalence rates of about 30%, this figure is hard to gauge.

 

The World Bank recently listed Lesotho as firmly in their ‘low income’ category for gross national income per capita. Just under half the population are officially below the poverty line and are unemployed although 86% of the resident population is involved with subsistence agriculture and some 35% of the active male wage earners work in South Africa.

 

As locals are happy to explain, there is an extreme disparity in the distribution of income. Reputedly much of the wealth is centred around the capital, Maseru, and the governing powers.

 

A staggering 80% of the country is above 1,800 meters and although most of the economy is still based on subsistence agriculture, especially livestock, drought is decreasing the agricultural activity.

 

With such hardships associated with living in Lesotho, the average person can only expect to live for 36 years.

 

That’s quite a bit to chew over as you’re enjoying a bowl of delicious soup, freshly baked bread, or another simple but tasty lunch at Sani Top Chalet. A range of juices, fizzy drinks and (equally fizzy) beers are also available for you to enjoy or appease your churning, post-drive stomach with.

 

After sampling the luncheon menu, accompanied by hearty singing from the kitchens, browsing the Chalet’s little shop selling items such as carvings, local hats and blankets, and surveying the superb vistas, it is well worth taking a drive to a local village.

 

The village of Sakens lies just five kilometers beyond the Lesotho border. And, on entering the village, it’s plain to see why these people are widely known as ‘people of the blanket’. In spite of the biting, not to mention fierce, winds the children rush around without shoes or trousers, but draped in thick, warming blankets. According to local, modern, legend it was following a visit to Lesotho by a young Queen Elizabeth II, who afterwards sent a load of blankets to the inhabitants, that the name ‘people of the blanket’ become more commonplace.

 

Rest assured, Sakens isn’t a museum piece for visiting tourists, it’s a bona fide living, working village.

 

On entering Sakens, we were met by 47-year old Belina, the chief’s wife. Beaming and looking incredibly young and healthy, she happily told us that she has two sets of twins and three sets of triplets.

 

“All natural?” I enquired, disbelievingly, meaning both the births and the various conceptions. Belinda laughed. “Hospital far away. About 58 kilometers to hospital,” she replied, through my Sesotho- and English-speaking translator (oh, and Zulu-, Xhosa- and probably Afrikaans-speaking too).

 

“So what medical help do you have?” “Me,” she answered simply. There used to be traveling doctors and aid agencies visiting the area but now there is no outside medical help. And people frequently arrive at this tiny village, with a population of just 100 Basotho people, seeking medical assistance and food. Shepherds who have fallen and broken a leg must be helped; travelers who are weary and famished must be given sustenance.

 

Belinda uses a ‘flag’ system outside her hut to indicate to passers-by what produce she has available. By hoisting a green piece of cloth, she lets people know she has vegetables for sale. One white cloth indicates freshly baked bread, delicious and sweet-tasting, cooked in the heat from the central fire in her hut. A second white cloth means beer and a red cloth for meat.

 

Although the villagers collect wild spinach, it is hard to grown crops in Sakens because of the rocky soil and the winds. The staple crop, millet, is grown in family villages and then transported to Sakens. Plenty of chickens are scratching around outside the huts, and these are eaten in preference to the sheep that dot the mountainsides, because of the precious value of wool.

 

All the huts are made for warmth, and wind- and water-proofing. And most of the materials are found locally. The round stone walls offer a surface to paint with a mixture of cow dung and mud on the inside. The floor is also a layer of stone, so that the heat from the central fire diffuses across it. These stones are covered with cow dung and then topped with mud. Only the tree branches that form the roof are imported from South Africa and cleverly enable smoke to seep out, but no rain to seep in.

 

Some of the traditional initiation ceremonies are thriving. When boys reach 14 years of age in Sakens, they are taken into the mountains for four months during the bitter winter. There they are taught to look after the highly prized herds and are circumcised. After this initiation, when they have attained their manhood, they are given a special stick to decorate and to keep with them at all times as a symbol of their new status. A man may then take a wife, for the price of 23 cattle.

 

There are initiations for the girls too. But whether these are more secretive, or because my translator was male, the details of this rite of passage were less forth-coming.

 

Rattling back down the pass to the bustling, cheese-making town of Underberg, with the prospect of spending a frosty winter’s night in a converted out-house under my duvet, I wondered who would fare better against the cold: me in my synthetic, high-tech clothes or Belinda and her family huddled together in their hut, around the central fire, warming their toes on the ground, with their colourful blankets drawn close about their shoulders.