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