The longest but most beautiful 8km ever!

This past weekend saw now the bus from Mthatha to Kokstad on Friday afternoon and back on the bus from Kokstad to Mthatha on Sunday morning...

Why all the travelling???

Well my sistet - Hamida and her friend decided they want to take a trip up Sani Pass on Saturday - 9 October 2010.

The trip started off Saturday morning having to wake up at 6am to drive up to Underberg where we switched cars and started our journey with our tour guide. Our trip was in the comfort of a Land Rover Discovery 4... by far the most comfortable car I've been in. We were a small group, just the 3 of us, a elderly couple and Luyanda (our tour guide).

There are honestly no words to describe how beautiful the scenery was. There were endless mountains (before the Lesotho boarder, baboons, green grass and not forgetting clouds! There was a point where we got to an out look point where the wind was so strong you could see how the clouds were being pushing against the mountains then disperse once they meet with the breeze from the top of the mountain.

Sani Pass boasts one of a kind animals which include a ice rat, mohair sheep and a tiny little bird which I've included a picture of below.

Here's a little geography and history: It is the gateway to the ‘Roof of Africa’ scenic route that links the spectacular scenery of the Drakensberg with the mountains of northern Lesotho. The Sani Pass is the only border post between Kwazulu-Natal and Lesotho. As you cross the boarder of Lesotho you standing at the height of 2,873m above sea level, for those of you who don't know Table Mountain is 1,084.6m above sea level which means Sani Pass is almost 2 times higher than Table Mountain. Problem is when you get to the top your lungs almost feel like they going to collapse because of the high altitude. So you have to take a moment to literally catch your breath!

In Lesotho we met with a family where we were introduced to the Basotho culture and got to eat home made bread prepared by a friendly lady who opens her home to tourist and welcomes you with a smile. One of the coolest things I learnt from this experience was how people live without electricity, water, cellphone coverage and how they have to travel many hours just to get to towns... We were 5 hours away from Maseru and 2 hours from Underberg... which is their closet town for food supplies.

Lunch was served at the Highest Pub in Africa followed by our descend back to South Africa. As you can imagine I took hundreds of pictures to capture every moment of our trip. Oh and the reason of the name of this blog-post is because it took us over an hour to drive 8km up the pass, the road was crazy which only a 4x4 can climb. Two words sum up the experience... breath-taking!







P.S - More pictures will be uploaded to my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ayesha-van-Staaden-Photography/138756376153287?ref=ts