Lesotho

Tighten Your Bras, Fasten Your Seatbelts

Dec 04, 2025

Almost in a flash, I realize the road trip is complete. Three days of driving alone from Joburg have brought me to this lodge in rural Lesotho. For three days, I had a mission. Now? I have nothing but time. And I also realize I’m alone. In the mountains of Lesotho. Not the I’m-staying-in-a-hostel-with-thirty-other-English-speaking-people-my-age-who-I-can-relate-to-and-I-can-walk-to-50-different-cafes-with-good-internet-and-chai-lattes-on-the-menu alone. I’m alone alone. For days, I’ve been chasing this feeling – trying to escape the common backpacker circuit, driving further into nowhere. And now that I’ve caught it, I’m not sure I know what to do with it yet.

But now that I’m here, really here, the silence is heavier than expected. I look down at my plate of food. I check my phone for connection. Nothing. I look over to the family in the middle of the room. Then back down at my phone. I see the texts from my mom asking me if I have made it. I’m suddenly overwhelmed with emotions. I’m not sure why, but my eyes swell.

This dinner, where I’m not listening to or watching anything, feels like days of blocked emotions being released. I can’t pinpoint a feeling. Sad? Relieved? Both? Everything? Everywhere, all at once.

I don’t need to be here, I think. I can go home. I can go to Europe or Southeast Asia. Or go visit any of my friends abroad. But I’ve earned this solitude. I’ve earned my discomfort. And if there’s one thing I fear, it’s wasting discomfort – not being worthy of my suffering. And being this far from home alone does make me feel uncomfortable.

Getting here was no joke. This is the fourth week of my sabbatical: The Trip, the one where I promised myself I’d go wherever far was. Which brings me to a country I didn’t know existed two months ago.

Lesotho, I now know, is one of only three countries in the world that’s completely surrounded by another, totally surrounded by South Africa. In the mid-1800s, as Dutch-descended settlers pushed into this land, a local king asked the British for protection. Basutoland then became a British protectorate in 1868, which prevented it from being absorbed into what became South Africa in 1910. Eventually, Lesotho became independent in 1966.

The geography is filled with mountains and remote villages. Known as the ‘Kingdom in the Sky,’ I learn there are more horses than cars, roads are mainly dirt, Wi-Fi is a rumor, and the air, while thin, feels fresh.

Lesotho is often called the Switzerland of Africa because of the similar scenery. And it’s once I notice the scenery that the road turns bumpy. I’m in Lesotho now after three days of driving in rural South Africa. One pothole after another. A turn every fifty yards. Cows on my left and on my right.. Humans walking on the side of the roads. And some more potholes.

And then, the rain begins to unleash. I lower the music. I keep thinking I can’t get a flat tire here. I barely have any signal. I wouldn’t even know who to call. Every pothole makes me wince, hoping the car holds up.

After two hours of driving on the highway, I see a sign for the lodge I have a reservation for. I’m relieved the GPS has taken me in the right direction. But I remember the manager explaining over text the drive is an additional 45 minutes once I see that sign. I turn in and then see in bold letters:.

WOMEN TIGHTEN YOUR BRAS,
MEN PUT ON YOUR JOCK STRAPS,
FASTEN SEAT BELTS, TAKE OUT
FALSE TEETH, BUMPY ROAD AHEAD

The road leading to the lodge is made of dirt and ten times the holes and turns from the highway I was just on. Oh, and it is on a cliff. The car thuds every few seconds. Rain on the windshield. Zero signal. One wrong turn and I’m donezo. But all I can do is crawl forward and hope the wheels stay attached.

I question my decisions as I am driving. But I know I came to Lesotho on purpose. I wanted somewhere quiet, relaxed. But now it’s everything but that – no music would be loud enough to conceal the scary sounds this metal box on wheels is making. Rain is hitting my car like pellets. My full focus is on the road making sure I don’t get stuck in mud or make a wide turn.

After an hour of driving at a snail’s pace, finally, I make it to the lodge. The gate is open for me and I park my car in the first available spot I see. It’s still raining so I jog to the sign that says reception and get to the small office where the manager looks at me and yells, “Ayeee, you made it!!”

My jaw un-clenches when he says that – like the tightness I’ve been carrying since Joburg finally has permission to breathe. This man doesn’t know me, I don’t know him, but right now, only he fully understands the journey I’ve been on to get here.

After the manager gives me a tour of the compound, I ask him who else is staying here, not seeing anybody walk around. He says that I am the only guest other than a local family. A part of me wishes there was another Westerner here – someone else from outside Lesotho so we can smile at each other, and both understand the journey we’ve been on. But this feels less like checking into a lodge and more like stumbling into someone else’s private property.

I open the door to my room and lay down on the bed. I made it. The fifteen minutes that I get to relax before I make my way to dinner give me life.

The lounge area has a TV, a bunch of seating options and games, a pool table, and a bar. But I walk to the dining room just one door over. There is a buffet of food waiting for me. I serve myself from the pans and sit down at a table for four. I see the family mentioned eating dinner on the table next to me. I say hello but they just smile, and I realize they may not speak English. Then come the emotions.

I wake up to a dark room. Not because there’s no sun, but because the blinds are thick and heavy. When I step outside, I finally see the place I arrived at last night. The lodge is bigger than I expected – spread out across the hillside, quiet, half-hidden by the morning light. I look around and see a bunch of colors. Every building and sign and plant and rock seems to be in a different shade than the ones next to it.

Different huts and small buildings but each are outdoors, forcing you to walk through nature in between or during each activity. Malealea Lodge sits alone in the mountains of Lesotho, surrounded by rolling ridges and small Basotho villages in every direction. The rooms are all separate huts – some singles, some with multiple beds, scattered around a courtyard. There’s a pony stable where guests can rent a horse for a guided ride. More than anything, it feels like a place designed to slow you down, whether you planned for that or not.

I walk around the lodge before heading to breakfast. And even though the lodge is spread out, and it feels like 100 people could be here, it feels intimate – the kind of place where if one guest was having a bad day, everyone would feel it. You notice who’s here. You notice who isn’t. It’s its own tiny city.

I smile on my way to breakfast. This is where I wanted to be. This is what I wanted to do. This is the point of The Trip. Getting away. Having the space and time and quiet to hear my thoughts.

The first thing I do is head back to the common area where I had seen an espresso machine the night before. There’s a man behind the bar smiling ear to ear.

“Hello! How are you?!” he asks, excited.

“Wassup fam?” I reply.

“Okay,” he says, his signature reply, I would find out over the next week.

I ask for a flat white with almond milk, holding my breath.

He fumbles around the fridge and then walks to a closet before returning. Just what I feared he’d say, “Sorry sir, we don’t have almond milk.”

“Do you have any non-dairy milk?”

He shuffles around before pulling out soy milk.

“Okay I will do that,” I say, relieved I will have an option this week.

He brings the drink over to one of the couches, still smiling ear to ear. I take the coffee to the dining room next door and sit before drinking the flat white as I wait for my breakfast. Tastes a bit funny. I haven’t had soy milk in ages, so I’m probably not used to the taste. I take another sip and look at the mug. Something isn’t right.

I stand back up to make sure they used soy milk instead of regular milk. “Hey. Just want to double check. Did you use soy milk?”

“Yes sir. Is everything okay?” he asks as he goes to find the carton.

“Can we just check when this expires?”

He brings out the carton and we look for the expiration date together. I find it first. 2023. Of course. Because the feeling like everything here is preserved in a different time, applies to the soy milk too.

After breakfast, I head back to the lounge. “What’s your name?” I ask the man behind the bar, who still can’t stop smiling.

“Khothatso,” he replies. “I am very embarrassed about the milk. I’m so sorry.”

I tell Khothatso I barely drank any of the coffee so there is no issue. I ask him for the Wi-Fi given that the ‘free’ one has run out for me. Khothatso tells me I need to pay for the next GB worth of data, then hands me a paper slip with a code. I am told, in this village, Wi-Fi is distributed evenly among the population and therefore I need to pay for each additional GB.

After connecting, my thumb immediately navigates to Instagram. I do a few more tasks to catch up on life and watch a Pumas video before I realize the GB I paid for has been used up. I smirk. I am reminded of 2006 when I had a crush on Maria Sanchez from elementary school and I was in Mexico for the summer where my mom would take me to internet cafes once a week. She would give me 20 pesos so I could log into Myspace and see I had a message from Maria that said, “Hey.”

There is a small menu in the lobby with options for day tours. Visiting local villages. Hikes. Pony rides. I choose the horse ride that is four hours long and visits a rock with Bushman Paintings from thousands of years ago and ends with a waterfall. I ask when I can do this tour and appreciate the simplicity here when they say “in ten minutes”

After a cold shower in my room, I catch my own reflection in the mirror. I look at my hair. It’s down to my shoulders. I think of the times I’ve wanted to grow my hair out but didn’t because I wanted to look presentable for a wedding or for work or school or an interview. And how now, in Lesotho, my hair is the longest it’s ever been. Not the best it’s ever been. But the longest. And long hair means freedom.

I think of J Cole’s lyric.

My lowest moments came from tryin’ too hard
To impress some homies that couldn’t care if I’m on
Therefore from here on out, my hair grow out
I care nothin’ ‘bout opinions

I head to the stable to set off on the tour. The guide introduces himself and after a brief explanation and how-tos we begin the journey. Just us two and the ponies. The limited English he speaks and the nonexistent Sesotho I speak means our ride is mostly in silence. At first, we pass corn farms next to the lodge. Then we pass empty farms. Then green space. I break our silence every five minutes to ask about the farms or animals. Mostly who they belong to or how people get out here.

Finally, we make it out of the green and into rocks, the beginning of the mountains. We stop by a valley with a river at the bottom. We get off the horses before a teenager seems to appear out of thin air who promises to guard our horses while we go on our hike. The guide begins to walk. He leads me through a maze of rock and valleys – twenty minutes of up, down, across, up again – until finally he stops.

“Here,” he says, pointing at the rock. I look in front of me. There are small paintings in red of stickman figures and animals.

Oh shit.

He explains to me that these drawings can be up to 25,000 years old. Drawn by the nomadic San People who were hunters and gatherers. The artists used a mixture of blood and fat from the animals they hunted as paint, and they were likely drawn with a feather. The paintings capture what society was like back then – some showing a shaman as the leader of the group with others dancing around him.

Some of the figures are standing looking up. Some are dancing. Some of the figures seem to be hunting. They are all simple drawings.

But the fact that it’s here. I’m here. Someone 25 thousand years ago drew these to tell a story. And now I am here listening to that story. I want to tell the African dude who drew this thousands of years ago that a kid from Florida is here taking pictures of his work and will use the story of seeing the paintings to pick up a chick at a bar in Europe in a few months.

I never heard of these paintings. Because there is no Lonely Planet article on them. There’s no official guide or historical plaque, just a local who points at the wall and tells you what someone told him. In the US or Europe this would be guarded off with chains and there would be a $20 entrance fee and a café upstairs with magnets that said Stick Figures Before It Was Cool. Here, it’s just here.

I ask the guide if I can touch one of them.

He laughs lightly and shakes his head. I can tell he doesn’t have the words but if he did, he would say, “No you idiot. Just take a picture.”

We see another set of paintings before hiking back up and making our way to a waterfall. Again, we stop at the top of the valley and leave our horses before hiking down. We make it down to the water and the guide explains a bit of the waterfall and the valley, but I don’t hear much. I’m both in awe and in pain from my back jumping up and down for the last four hours.

The following morning, I head back to the lounge with a very important question: Do they have almond milk yet? Khothatso tells me the deliveries are once per week so there probably won’t be any almond milk during my stay.

An Americano it is. Single shot.

Khothatso looks confused when I tell him my order. He grabs a large mug, points to the middle of it, and says, “to here?”

I grab the mug. “No. Till here,” I say, pointing toward the bottom, “Just one shot of espresso.”

Khothatso still looks confused. He is smiling and trying to be helpful but not understanding.

“Americano?” He asks.

I tell him yes but only want one shot of espresso, the rest should be water. What ensues is a ten-minute conversation with Khothatso and another employee who he calls over on how to make an Americano. There is no frustration or annoyance during the conversation. More of a brainstorming session. Like we’re whiteboarding a solution to world peace.

We’re under-resourced and underinformed, but we won’t move forward until we get this right. I drink the first Americano of my life five minutes later. Hmm. Not a bad alternative.

I hang out at the lounge the entire morning, trying to get writing done. When I get up to walk around for a break, I stop by the small gift shop. I ask Khothatso to tell me about the different things for sale. He walks over. He tells me everything here is from local artists. Earrings. Christmas ornaments. Hats and T-shirts. He moves on to the books I see on the wall. Finally, he says, “And these here, these are my books.”

“What do you mean?” I ask

“Yes,” he says smiling. “These are my books. I wrote them. They are for the children of the village. We give them a small prize each time they finish one book. Each book is in the local language and in English.”

“How much are they?” I ask, ready to buy one.

“They are for free. We only ask for a small donation. All the money is used for the local village.”

This guy can’t get any nicer. My phone begin to buzz. I pull it out and see my mom calling.

I step to the side to answer. But I decide to switch to a video call and introduce her to Khothatso. As expected, the two yappers become friends, both with their broken English. Neither asks to hand the phone back to me.

“Are you taking care of my son?” she asks.

“Yes ma’am!” he answers.

We tell her about the books before he says, “Ma’am you HAVE to come visit us!”

Eventually I am handed the phone back and when I hang up, Khothatso hands me a book and says it’s for free, for my mom.

The next afternoon, when I get back to the lodge from a hike, a small choir is singing by the campfire. I’m the only one standing here listening. A minute later, Khothatso comes to join me.

About fifteen people, singing into the cold air. It feels like they’re singing just to me. Khothatso says something to them in Sesotho, then turns back and tells me they were about to leave but will stay and sing two more songs. I do the math in my head, wondering how my donation could possibly make this worth their time.

I look over. Khothatso is smiling, fully in it. I admire that – how easily he enjoys the music he probably hears every day. How I am doing math but he is focusing on what is in front of him.

At dinner, Khothatso tells me he won’t be in the next day. We promise to stay in touch. I tell him I will send him my blog posts before we spend ten minutes trying to get him into his email account. We finally exchange numbers on WhatsApp; his profile picture is of a small girl.

“That is my daughter,” he says. “I have three children,” he says smiling as I imagine him reading the books he write to his children.

For dinner that night, I order an Appletiser with my food. I discovered Appletisers, which are sparkling apple juice, in South Africa and I’ve been drinking three per day since I first had one.

And that is my day to day in Malealea lodge. Try to have an espresso drink and do some writing in the mornings. Do a bodyweight workout and a hike or a horse trek in the afternoons. Sit outside during sunset and listen to the choir. Feast and drink Appletisers at night. And most importantly, chat with Khothatso throughout the whole day.

I don’t have much connection but I want to text my friends and organize a group trip here next year. How do I get them to come here? I think. How do I convince the people I know that they don’t need to do mushrooms at a festival to find internal peace or spend $2,500 to go sit on a boat and not get in the water. They can come to Lesotho and see the mountains of Africa and sites that aren’t in tour guides yet and breathe clean air and hangout with Khothatso and do it all for less than $50 a day.

My plan was to stay two nights, but I end up staying at the lodge for the rest of my time in Lesotho. Because I rather come to the lounge every morning and hang out with Khothatso, who can’t shake a smile off his face, who will make me an inconsistent espresso drink and talk about something new with me, than staying anywhere else, even if they have good Wi-Fi and coffee.

On my last day, somehow, I feel accomplished. But I haven’t really done much, I think.

I pack up and head to the lounge like I’ve done each morning. I am driving back into South Africa now and need to head out soon to make it to my next stop. I look around the gift shop one last time to stock up on souvenirs. I make my way to the bar for a final visit. This time, I don’t see Khothatso.

I look at the barista who says, “What can I get you?”

I smirk. “Just an espresso, please.”

Note: My final activity at the lodge before heading out was stopping by the offices of the Malealea Development Trust. I wanted to make a donation after reading about the trust throughout my stay in the lodge. The trust is run right next to the lodge and focuses on community health (supporting HIV+ members of the community), helping vulnerable and orphaned children (often because of losing an HIV+ parent), and education where they help build and refurbish classrooms to reduce classroom overcrowding and improve learning environments. See here if you’d like to learn about the trust and here to make a donation.

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