Semongkong

If you ask anyone in Lesotho, "Where should I visit on my day off?" they would say, "Semongkong."  Semongkong definitely lives up to its reputation, although in reality, you're actually seeing the waterfall called Maletsunyane Falls - but who can pronounce that? You see this calm river going through rolling hills, and then "BAM!" the earth majestically parts and a beautiful waterfall appears.

Semongkong has a couple of things you can do, which I got really confused about prior to going there, so to clarify:

The Donkey and the Duck Restaurant at the Semongkong Lodge

*Semongkong Lodge is generally where people stay if they plan on doing an overnight trip. However, it's actually quite a distance to the actual waterfall, depending on what you want to do:

1) Drive to the view point: 

The view point is beautiful, but you can't actually get down to the waterfall or stand on top of it. On the way to Semongkong lodge, there's an obvious bridge right before you get to the town of Semongkong, but instead of crossing it, you make a right onto a dirt road and drive about 20 minutes to the view point. It's not that obvious that it's the view point, but there is a dirt path to the left where 4wd cars can take.

View from the viewpoint

2) Hike down to the bottom of Maletsunyane Falls (4hrs including a lunch and snack break):

This is a hike that we took a guide with us because we made a day trip and didn't want to get stuck somewhere. R110, so pretty decent. But in reality, it was pretty straight forward. You go in the direction the road leads you out of the Semongkong Lodge, into a village, past the village (this part is flat), and continue following the road that cows/donkeys/horses take, and then you'll see a huge valley on your left. I suppose if you've never seen it before, it'd be hard to tell that's the place you go down. And when I say down, I mean really, really down. Some places were so steep, the guide had to hold AV's hand and support her down to prevent her from slipping (granted, she had running shoes on).  Still, it was quite steep. 

Guide and I at the point where you make a left into the canyon

Heading down! Quite steep!

It's quite an amazing view initially, but then you'll make a turn, and "BAM!" the Maletsunyane Falls appears. So you actually just see a beautiful canyon for the first part of the hike down. When we actually got down there, we just sat there and ate our PB&J sandwiches and listened to the fall roar. Kind of felt bad our guide didn't have food, so I gave him an orange. o_O  

First time AV and I got to see Maletsunyane Falls!

Maletsunyane Falls

I felt like the way up was way easier, despite the heavy grade, it was still much easier going up than essentially sliding down.  

Apparently the alternative is you can take a pony or a car to the point where you actually start hiking down, which probably would've cut down on the time.

3) Hike to the top of the falls/abseiling (aka repelling):

This is essentially the same initial route as hiking to the bottom of the falls, but you make a left turn earlier prior to the sheep barn. Oh yeah, it's weird when you hike to the bottom of the Maletsunaye Fall, feel victorious because it was so difficult, and then see little sheep on the other side of the river just chomping along on the grass and walking without giving a hoot about how steep it is. Anyhow, the sheep barn houses those master hiker sheep at night. 

This is generally the route to go abseiling. I don't know why people don't just say repelling. But this is supposed to be the Guinness World Record highest abseiling place in the world at ~230m!

This is actually at the bottom of the falls, but the abseiling is from the upper left.

4) Overnight pony trekking:

This entails taking horses and riding them to some distant town and staying in one of the traditional houses. I don't know the details because haven't done it yet - but hopefully someday!

5) Somehow getting to this other fall:

Yeah, really don't know details on this one. Don't even know the name of the falls...

*Pictures courtesy of AV

Mokhotlong

View point on drive to Mokhotlong

This week, I'll be in the outreach clinic in Mokhotlong (pronounced Mohhhotlong, where the hhh sounds like someone about to spit), an eastern district of Lesotho.

The trip here today was pretty crazy...crazy as in a good demonstration of what schedule means in Africa. So the week before, a driver found me and told me he was gonna be my driver to Mokhotlong, so we set up a time for him to pick me up at 8am. Long and behold it was 8:30 AM and still nobody so I called him, and he tells me he's no longer the driver, and it's someone else. So I called driver 2 who tells me he'll come pick me up at 10 ish.  I should have known that meant 10 30, which was when finally showed up. But there were 2 other ppl in the car! Apparently we had to go back to the coe to drop someone off. ..then on our way at 1045 right? Wrong! We were going to pick up pizza.  And while waiting for pizza, they wanted to do some shopping. Finally we were on our way....but wait, had to pick up a pharmacist. So in the end, leaving at 8am actually meant leaving at 1130 or 12. Oh...and on the way we stopped at 2 clinics and transferred yeast to some other car. Yeah. No idea why yeast.

Otherwise, the drive here was beautiful! Rolling hills of multiple different colors of green, brown, yellow, orange, gray.  Some of the hills were brutal with hairpin turns requiring us to slow to 20 kph.

We also stopped by the Leribe and Botha Bothe clinics. All the clinics have a similar layout and beautiful building. 

Botha Bothe Baylor Outreach Clinic, which looks exactly like Mokhotlong's (without the beautiful flowers).

I was a little worried about going out to the country, not sure what the hotel will be like, but it's actually quite nice.   Has everything, just no wifi (Yay for data and reception). Even get the added benefit of TV which I usually don't have. So here goes a week of watching random TV shows and news and game shows where half of the time they speak in English and half of the time it's sesotho  (I think). Also it appears the channels alternate English and sesotho shows.

My hotel room: Senque

Inside hotel room - it was nice, even had an extra bed where I can throw my clothing onto, and a TV of which I can't understand half of what they are saying.

Restaurant at the hotel - it's quite nice!

View from my hotel of the endless mountains. Also note traditional Lesotho house on left.

Given no day light savings and early sunrise and early sunset, I'm hoping I can get in a habit of rising early to get some exercise. But somehow I don't think it's gonna work out....not a morning person.

When I asked people how they liked Mokhotlong, people kept on saying it is peaceful.  I'm pretty sure now that it's an euphemism for boring, which is what the pharmacist I came with outright said. I suppose this will be a good opportunity to reflect on God's creation and how amazing it all is.  

View on my way to the hidden lake (see below)

Random lake I ran into on my run/hike/exploration of Mokhotlong.