ice cream is delicious: Sehlabathebe National Park, Lesotho

Beautiful, and one of the most isolated places I've ever been. Really a must do if you are in Lesotho and have the ability to go across the country, but it's quite a drive.

Kind of an insane trip in a very short time: 3 days, 4 hours on paved road, then another 4 hours on dirt road (partly b/c we went the wrong way for 30 min). Considering we didn't have reception and we were in the middle of nowhere, we were very blessed to not have gotten into car trouble!

We couldn't get a room at the hotel at the Lesotho Sehlabathebe Park headquarters, so we had to camp the first night. It rained, so it was a bit uncomfortable. But we managed with our canned tuna and bread.

The hotel

Prehistoric rock paintings

The next day, we got 2 tour guides to lead us to the cave that people usually sleep over in. I didn't realize they were leading us to the hole in the fence between Lesotho and South Africa! We climbed over, and then they pointed us in the general direction of the cave, and we parted ways.

Our guides

The Cave

We found the cave ok, and decided to leave our things there to explore. But we were afraid there were monkeys that would take our things, so we covered our bags with rocks. As we were hiking down the mountain, we noticed some guys on horses going towards the cave. We were suspicious, so we went back to the cave. We found that one of the guys had actually taken C's bag/sleeping bag! He was South African park ranger, and claimed he was taking it b/c he thought someone left it there. We weren't really supposed to be there, so when he asked what we were planning to do, we said we were just exploring and we'll be heading back soon. They believed us fortunately they left. They never found my bag b/c it was so well concealed in the rock pile. Haha!

After they left, we explored around the cave some more. And we didn't see another human being until we went back to the headquarter.

Sunset from the cave

We took the most memorable showers ever: with water dripping from the top of the cave.

In the evening, it was very windy, but we managed to make a fire and keep ourselves warm. Ate more tuna and bread. After admiring some stars, we went to sleep on the straw "beds." (People in the past had laid down stones with straw in the middle).

We woke up before sunrise, went to the edge of the earth - well, actually just cliff looking down to South Africa. And we watched the amazing sunrise.

On our way back to Lesotho, we explored the interesting rock structures.

View of the Three Bushman:

There was interesting flora:

And rock shelters where people used to live:

On the way there, it was all foggy, and we didn't realize we were driving on the side of a cliff! Also didn't realize we passed within 10 feet of the South Africa-Lesotho border control.

On the way back, we decided to try a different route: go to South Africa, and come back to Lesotho on paved road. Longer drive, but much smoother. Was it faster?...not sure. At least we didn't get lost!

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Sehlabathebe is part of the Maloti-Drakensburg World Heritage Site, within the Maloti Mountains in Qacha's Nek District, Lesotho.