Travel in Lesotho: a country entered through South Africa

How visitors get into Lesotho

Lesotho has one neighbour, so every trip in begins in South Africa. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's advice states that all visitors must travel through South Africa, by air or by land, and must therefore meet South Africa's entry requirements as well as Lesotho's; both border controls stamp the passport on the way in and on the way out, and the advice asks travellers to carry at least four blank pages. The Lesotho High Commission is the body the advice refers travellers to on Lesotho's own rules.

By air, Moshoeshoe I International Airport lies about 18 kilometres from Maseru, and Wikivoyage's guide lists daily flights to Johannesburg. There are no passenger railways inside Lesotho; a South African freight line runs along the north-western border. Most visitors come by road. Wikivoyage lists twelve border posts, among them Maseru Bridge, Ficksburg Bridge, Caledonspoort, Van Rooyen's Gate, Qacha's Nek, Ramatseliso's Gate and Sani Pass, and notes that some of them can be reached only by four-wheel-drive vehicle. Wikipedia's article on tourism names the airport and the land crossings at Maseru and Maputsoe as the entry points most used.

Hired cars need written permission from the rental company to be taken across the border, which the border control asks to see. Traffic drives on the left.

When to go and what the seasons do

The year divides into a wet summer and a dry winter. Rain falls mostly between October and April, as summer thunderstorms, and hail is a frequent hazard in those months; winter, from May to September, is dry and cold, with frost widespread and the mountains usually under snow. Temperatures in the lowlands reach about 32 degrees Celsius in summer and fall to about minus 7 in winter, and in the highlands readings below minus 18 are not unusual. Britannica records that it snows in the mountains in every month of the year.

The seasons set the calendar of the one resort built around them. Afriski, in the Maloti near the Mahlasela Pass, runs skiing in winter, from June to September in Wikivoyage's dates, and mountain sports such as biking and hiking in summer, from October to April. Wikipedia's article on tourism lists hiking, pony trekking, skiing and four-wheel-drive trails as the activities that bring most leisure visitors. The geography article gives the climate in full.

The altitude matters at any time of year. The FCDO advice lists altitude sickness as a risk in parts of the country. Wikivoyage notes that the thin air burns skin quickly, that malaria, yellow fever and bilharzia are absent, and that untreated water should not be drunk. Nights fall below freezing in winter and houses are rarely centrally heated.

Which roads cross the highlands

From the lowlands two main roads climb into the mountains: the A1, called Main North, which Wikivoyage describes as tarred from Maseru to Mokhotlong, and the A2, Main South, tarred from Maseru to Qacha's Nek. The roads to Roma, Mohale Dam, Semonkong and Katse Dam are also tarred, and Wikivoyage notes that a four-wheel-drive vehicle is needed for some of the remaining unsealed stretches, such as the road to the Kao diamond mine.

The Sani Pass is the best known of the mountain roads, and the most demanding. It climbs from the South African border post at 1,544 metres to 2,876 metres in about nine kilometres, on gradients of up to 1 in 3, and South Africa generally allows only four-wheel-drive vehicles onto it. The Lesotho border post is at the top. The pass was a pack-animal track built by the Basutoland government in 1922 and became a jeep route from 1949; it is often closed by snow and ice in winter.

Public transport is mostly by minibus taxi, which runs between towns from Maseru's central rank, and by the shared four-passenger saloon taxis known as 4+1s within towns. The FCDO advice cautions that minibus taxis are often poorly maintained and uninsured and recommends transport arranged through accommodation or a tour operator; it describes road conditions and driving standards as poor.

What the main destinations are

The places that draw visitors are spread across the three belts.

Morija lies south of Maseru, Thaba Bosiu and Teyateyaneng just outside it, Sehlabathebe in the south-eastern highlands near Qacha's Nek, and Sani Top on the eastern escarpment.

Sehlabathebe National Park, in the south-eastern highlands near Qacha's Nek, has been protected since 1970 and was added to the Maloti-Drakensberg World Heritage property in 2013. Wikivoyage describes its 6,500 hectares as a remote reserve of waterfalls, rock paintings and stone shelters, and UNESCO lists the bearded vulture, the Cape vulture and the Maloti minnow among its species. Ts'ehlanyane National Park, at the foot of the Holomo Pass, protects one of the few remaining woodlands of cheche, a bush used for fuel, and has hiking trails and river pools.

Where the country's history can be seen

Thaba Bosiu is the place most visitors with an interest in the past go first. Britannica calls it the country's most important historic site: the hill outside Maseru where Moshoeshoe I settled in 1824 and from which he built the kingdom, and where he was buried in 1870. Each 11 March, Moshoeshoe's Day, wreaths are laid on his grave there. The Thaba Bosiu Cultural Village museum showed photographs of his belongings held in the British Museum in 2018.

Morija, south of Maseru, is where the French missionaries settled in 1833 and where Sesotho was first written down; it has a museum, the Morija Arts and Cultural Festival each year and, according to Wikivoyage, some of the most accessible dinosaur footprints in the country. The remains of old trading posts, which dealt in fuel, grain, maize meal and animals, stand in villages such as Roma, Ramabantana, Ha Matala, Malealea and Semonkong.

The oldest history is on rock. The San paintings at Ha Baroana, east of Maseru, are the source of motifs for many of Lesotho's present-day artists, and Wikivoyage names Liphofung Cave as holding the most impressive examples it lists. In the south-east, Sehlabathebe National Park belongs to the Maloti-Drakensberg Park World Heritage property, which UNESCO lists for an estimated 35,000 images in about 690 rock art sites painted by the San over some 4,000 years. The Kome cave dwellings, mud-built houses in rock shelters from the early nineteenth century, have been restored.

How the mountains are explored

Pony trekking is the form of travel most associated with Lesotho. The Basotho pony, historically ridden into battle and still used for transport and farm work, is sure-footed on the mountain tracks, and treks run from Malealea, Semonkong, Katse and the Basotho Pony Trekking Centre, taking riders to far-off villages; the World Travel Guide notes that much of the kingdom can be reached only on foot, on horseback or by light aircraft. The Lesotho Highlands Development Authority offers ponies at Katse by arrangement, and describes treks as a way to see the traditional life of Basotho villages.

Hiking needs preparation. Wikivoyage suggests that visitors hire a guide through the tourism department or buy topographical maps at a scale of 1:25,000 from the government's survey office in Maseru, and Thabana Ntlenyana, at 3,482 metres, is usually climbed from Sani Top or from the Vergelegen Nature Reserve. Sehlabathebe and Ts'ehlanyane offer marked trails. The dams are a separate circuit: at Katse the Development Authority runs daily presentations and tours of the 185-metre dam wall, and at Mohale it offers guided tours of the dam, while the Lesotho Tourism Development Corporation operates a small cruise boat on the Mohale reservoir to Thaba-Chitja island.

Fishing is another reason to go up. Trout were introduced into the rivers, and the Encyclopedia of the Nations singles out the Maletsunyane as a natural trout river.

What the water project shows visitors

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project built roads, villages and visitor centres along with its dams, and the Development Authority now presents them as destinations. Katse village, developed in the early 1990s beside the reservoir, sits at about 2,000 metres in an area the authority describes as malaria free, and is named after a man called Katse who kept large herds and supplied produce to the surrounding communities. From there the self-drive routes run on towards Afriski and the Sani Pass. The dam wall is 185 metres high, and the reservoir behind it fills a valley between basalt mountains.

Further north, the 'Muela visitors centre stands below the operations building of the hydropower station, about 30 kilometres from Butha-Buthe and 35 kilometres from the Caledonspoort border post, and 6 kilometres off the main road to Oxbow and Afriski. Its tour covers the control room, where a mimic board displays the generation of power and the delivery of water to South Africa, the underground power house and the tail pond. At Mohale, visitors drive across the top of the dam wall and down to the downstream side to see the compensation water released into the Senqunyane valley; the road there from Maseru crosses Bushmen's Pass, God-Help-Me Pass and Blue Mountain Pass.

What visitors should know on the ground

Money is simple and cash matters. The loti is pegged one to one to the South African rand and both are accepted throughout Lesotho, though change is usually given in maloti. The FCDO advice notes that cards are widely accepted in Maseru but that visitors travelling outside the capital should carry cash; Wikivoyage adds that cash machines are found mainly in towns. Fuel stations are spaced far apart in the mountains, and drivers to Mokhotlong or Thaba-Tseka fill up in the lowland towns first.

Medical care is basic outside the capital. The main hospitals are in the Maseru area, district hospitals serve most districts, and the FCDO advice records that most foreign visitors use facilities in Bloemfontein in South Africa, about 90 minutes' drive from Maseru. The emergency number is 112.

Wikivoyage's notes on etiquette are specific. A greeting, dumela, is expected and returned; elders are addressed as ntate or 'me; things are given and received with both hands; and open anger is avoided. Sesotho is the language of the villages, and English is spoken in the towns and at tourist sites.

How tourism is organised and who gains

Tourism is overseen by the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture in Maseru, and the Lesotho Tourism Development Corporation runs some facilities. Cultural villages in several parts of the country, which the World Travel Guide describes, show visitors the traditional life of the Basotho, and Britannica notes urban villages in Maseru that do the same. Wikipedia's article on tourism gives travel and tourism's contribution as about 5.5% of GDP in 2013, with 25,000 people employed, 4.6% of national employment, and notes that many trips by South African residents are visits to friends and family. The water project has become an attraction of its own, and the Development Authority's tourism pages list lodges at Katse and Mohale; the Katse Botanical Garden, created to rescue plants from the flooded valley, covers 17 hectares.