Lesotho is a tiny independant country inside of South Africa. It is much poorer than its neighboor but the atmosphere is much more relax. I do not feel in danger there and nobody warns us for our safety like in the previous days.

 

Lesotho is the highest country in the world with an minimum altitude of 1000 meters ! The arid mountains and the horses strangely remind me the landscapes of Central Asia. Here too the houses are round but they are not yurts, they are built in stone. Villagers travel on horseback or on donkeys. There are few cars, but hitchhiking is relatively easy. When villagers see my camera, they often ask me to be photographed and then they laugh when they see themselves on the small LCD screen. People are welcoming and amused to see tourists.

 

In this paradise for hikers, we just do a four hour walk to the Maletsunyane falls (Semonkong) which has almost disappeared. As in Zambia, Botswana and South Africa, the rainy season is several weeks late and everything is dry ... until the big storm of our third evening. We did not want to sleep in our tent and could not afford a hotel, so we asked for hospitality at the local church, which turns out to be the one of Jehovah's Witnesses. The welcoming is cold but we can stay warm. The priest is so shocked to hear that we are an atheist, that he does not even try to evangelize us. The next day, we walk two kilometers to reach the Qecha's Neck pass and we enter South Africa again to continue my hitchhiking world tour.