South Africa Sojourn meet Lesotho

Lesotho is sometimes described as a fourth world country and in some respects it has some fairly grim statistics weighing against it. It is 160 from 187 in the UN Human development index, nearly half of the population scrape by on little over a dollar a day, nearly half of the people are HIV/AIDS positive, life expectancy is 48. The country is both enclaved and landlocked and is ruled by a Unitary constitutional parliamentary monarchy and styles itself as the Kingdom of the Sky. In Afriski it has one of the only two ski resorts on the continent of Africa.
The majority of the population are subsistence farmers who tend cattle, sheep and goats on the hillsides and grow maize, millet and some vegetables on the flatter grounds. Village affairs are controlled by the chief who listens to the fortnightly meeting of the villagers and then makes decisions. There is an appeal system if there is any dissension.
Lesotho has the distinction of being the highest country in the world. It's lowest point is 1400ms and 80% is above 1800ms.
It is also the only country to have an official twinning with another country. It is about the same size, has about the same population, both are largely mountainous and bilingual. The partner is, wait for it,............ Wales! The scheme is called Dolen Cymru.
Malealea Lodge started life as a trading post in the very early 20th century. The ownership changed a few times until the present owners bought it and changed it into a tourist lodge with a particular emphasis on the culture and wellbeing of the local people. This place represents a superb example of ecotourism and hence attracts interesting visitors from around the world. Apart from the owners and their family the place is entirely run by the local villagers.
Have a look at some pictures around the place in general and the route in. Tomorrow I will give you some details of the activities that we did.

This could look like the Grand Canyon if I messed with the scale, but it shows the amount of soil erosion caused by the frequency of the thunderstorms. Several people get killed every year by being struck by lighting.

Warning about the road up and into the upper plateau.

The gates of paradise. This is the top of the pass into our Shangri-la.

And now you can see down to it.

Our house........ there could be a song there somewhere.

Pretty self explanatory really.