Lesotho Breaks, Lesotho Mends

I knew Lesotho would be hard. At 1600 meters, the country’s lowlands are still higher than almost any other place I’ve ever experienced, and at nearly 3000 meters, the mountains of the Central Region around Thaba-Tseka, have tested my lungs, my legs, and my tolerance for the cold. 

Maybe visiting this mountain kingdom in the dead of winter was a poor decision.

I’m not going to deny that this has been the most challenging leg of the journey so far. At 2800 meters, the air is always cold. At night, temperatures plummet, dashing any idea I had of camping my way through the country. Even indoors, without electric heating, the cold gnaws away at my bones, confining me to an early bedtime beneath layers and layers of blankets. It spills its way into everything, and at times I feel as if I shall never be warm again. On the bike, the sun keeps the cold at bay, but too much time dawdling in the shadows of a mountain quickly reminds one that the cold is real and that the ride must be completed before the night falls. Without the heat of an African sun, the wind bites, and the threat of rain or even snow can quickly ruin the prospects of a day’s ride.

I became painfully aware of this on the road to Thaba-Tseka, on a fifty kilometer stretch of gravel known as ‘The Pass of the Jackals.’ The day may have started out warm enough in the valley surrounding the town of Marakabeis, but it soon grew chill, as clouds blanketed the sky and hid even the dimmest rays of sunlight.

Five kilometers uphill, then ten, then fifteen; finally after twenty kilometers, you think it’s impossible to climb anymore, there’s nothing left but sky. You’re up on top the roof of Africa, above 2800 meters, but then you round the mountain, and there, in the distance, you can just make out that white bush taxi, the one that passed you over half an hour ago, a mere speck, climbing still and disappearing into the fog of a cloud. The weather here is dangerous. In these mountains, it can change in an instant, and the warm air that hung over the valley has risen, condensed, and now patters at your helmet, your jacket, your panniers, and the stones that make up a heavily pitted road.

The view is stunning. Somehow, the road manages to chart a course over the very tops of the mountains, at times staring down into immense chasms on either side: wide, fertile valleys reached only by foot or by horse. A herd boys moves with his cattle, goats, and sheep, a solitary figure in gum boots, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, a woolen balaclava covering everything but his eyes, walking stick in hand, a mangy, but powerful, dog never far away. We see one another across kilometers of open space, both thinking the other is equally crazy: him for standing out in a field with virtually nothing to keep him safe and warm but a blanket from Pep, the South African equivalent of a shitty Wal-Mart, me for cycling through such terrible weather in a search for, what, a sense of adventure? A mark of pride that only I can carry with me, that only I may truly know?

I’ve had several people ask me what prompted this journey, and, especially here, they wonder, “Why Lesotho? Why Lesotho in winter?” The only answer I can come up with is pure, unadulterated masochism. It is a personal journey, one that I knew would challenge me, and one that I wanted to experience, to test myself and take a measure of my own character.

I anticipated a physical challenge, especially from the mountains. I’m from Indiana, a part of the United States that, when asked for a description, I will openly reply, “It’s about as flat as the table we’re sitting at.” I never even had stairs in my house, and when I ran cross country in high school, the only incline training we could get consisted of a set of bleachers overlooking the football field.

Here, in Lesotho, the altitude alone is enough to make you question the sanity of such an expedition, one undertaken with virtually no training other than zipping through London traffic on my way to work or school. Here, in Lesotho, your lungs simply never feel like they can get enough oxygen. Climbing these mountains, your body aches for a full breath of air, and every gasp feels like you’re drowning, clawing for an invisible lifeline you’ve always taken for granted.

Such is the environment I’ve entered into, but these are challenges that get easier with time. I’ve reached the highest mountains in Lesotho, and I’ve felt myself growing stronger with every passing day.

What I couldn’t have anticipated were the mental challenges that would await me, as the rugged landscape has tested, to the breaking point, both bike and rider. An early attempt to leave the pavement and take to the gravel roads from Mohale’s Hoek to Malealea proved more difficult than I could have imagined. In Lesotho, there is only one tarred road. Everything else is paved with, well…nothing. Cow shit, maybe, and rocks. The heavy summer rains carve ruts into the road that lead off the sides of mountains. Stones jut from all angles, some lodged in the earth, some free to slip and fly, forcing the rider to chart a haphazard course or risk damage to gears, spokes, wheels, and brakes.

I fear that the road has not at all been kind to the bike, and after a day and a half of riding on these back roads, forced to push the bike up hills too rocky and rugged to stay in the saddle, a bolt that held my pannier rack sheared off at the base, the result of a particularly brutal downhill jolt and a particularly large rock thrown up by the front wheel. A hitch and a trip to the hardware store fixed that problem, but only a few days later, I realized that the valve stem on my front tire had snapped, ruining the tube and leaving me with no backups until I reach South Africa. I’ve had to ride gingerly, regardless, as the pannier rack, bent from the incident with the broken bolt, touches the back wheel at even the slightest bump, and the risk of another broken bolt has been almost too much to bear. This frustration only compounds the mental exhaustion of long days in the saddle, and added to the physical toll of bad roads, high altitude, and inclement weather, these last few days of riding have been unbelievably difficult on both mind and body.

What Lesotho has broken, however, Lesotho will mend. The bike and I are currently taking some time apart. I’ve been fortunate enough to hook up with a Peace Corps Volunteer who teaches at a trade school, and her fellow teachers have been so good as to give the bike the care it needs. I, meanwhile, am taking the week off to experience Basotho culture in the remote highlands of the Central Range.

Some time apart has already done us some good, as, like a lover after a particularly petty argument, I realize that I miss the company my bike. I miss the freedom of the road and the thrill of feeling as if you’re on top of the world. We’ve come through some pretty tough challenges already and seen some pretty amazing things together, and I want to keep on going. Lesotho can bend, but it can’t break, and it may turn out that the country acts as a crucible, forging a stronger bond between us. Maybe it sounds silly to speak of an inanimate object in such a way, but I’ve found the longer that I’m on the bike, the more it becomes an extension of myself, just as a backpack, a water bottle, or a warm jacket becomes indispensable, and thus, invaluable on a long trip. Every item I carry with me carries with it the scars of experience, and thus become symbolic of everything I've overcome. The road may be hard, but it rewards those who suffer its challenges.

Stage Two: Headed North

I've been out of Internet range for a while now, but as of this writing, I've ridden over 1300 kilometers in just under one month. That's about 47 kilometers per day, though that average could be higher if it weren't for some extra days of rest with various hosts from Couch Surfing and Warm Showers.

Here's what I've got so far...


View Larger Map

So that's the first third of my journey out of the way. It's taken much longer than I'd initially planned, and my intentions of making it through Lesotho before the snows came have come to naught. The best laid plans of mice and men...I guess.

To be fair, the snows have come to the mountain kingdom much earlier than normal, but I never would have made it regardless. Cape Town to Port Elizabeth marked the first third of the journey, and I naively thought I'd be able to make it in two weeks. Two weeks, however, have quickly stretched into four, and a trip initially planned for six weeks is ballooning into a three month saga. 

Like a weapons program unsupervised, this project is sucking away time and money, but I've gone too far to quit now.

So from Port Elizabeth, I turn north. This is the truly masochistic section of my ride and one that I am both looking forward to and dreading with my entire being. From the coast, I will climb to over 3000 meters above sea level, winding my way up through the Winterberge and Stormberg ranges, mere foothills to the towering heights of the Drakensberg Mountains, the teeth of the dragon that separate me from the highveld and the final third of my journey. 

It is, quite literally, all uphill from here.

And I'm still not quite sure what has prompted all of this. Others have asked me, "Why not cycle along the coast and up through Mozambique?" I've heard the coast is beautiful, with sandy beaches warmed by the Benguela Current drawn from the Indian Ocean's equatorial waters.

But even with the difficulty of several thousand more kilometers, that trip would just be too easy, and thus, it's not for me. Even at the age of 28, there's still something to prove. Not to anyone else particularly, as I'm not sure who I'd be trying to impress. 

Instead, it's me. It's all for me. There's some critic hidden inside of me that's demanded more and more and isn't too impressed by any of my former travels and experiences. 

"An iron ore train through the Mauritanian desert?" he says' "Call me when you've spent 80 days with the salt caravans crossing the Sahara. Border posts in Cote d'Ivoire's Wild West? Yawn. I hear Kashmir is where the fun really is." 

Because these stories and experiences have been lived by me, they fail to impress, and I often overlook how adventurous they actually are. Instead, I devour stories of others' adventures, their experiences, the crazy things they've done, and I want more. I want to bike up and over the mountains. I want to struggle in the thin mountain air and fight it out in the Pass of the Jackals. It's only in the challenges and the suffering that I feel truly alive, and I don't know why that is or if it will ever go away.

I meet South Africans who hear my story and their first reaction is typically, "What possessed you? That takes some courage and strength." But it doesn't. It just takes getting on the bike. Some construe that as humility, but every day that I'm riding is just another day in the saddle. Clipping off seventy-five, eighty, ninety kilometers is something that is steadily becoming more and more routine, as innate as breathing, and just something that powers me through some of the most stunning scenery I've ever encountered.

And I'm beginning to wonder if I'll appreciate this climb after the fact. When I finally hit the Monontsa Pass and descend out of the mountain kingdom, will I truly think, "That was an accomplishment," or will I turn back to the mountain, shrug it off and think, "I wonder where the next challenge lies?"

I've never been an adrenaline junkie, but I'm starting to understand the mentality that goes into finding that next peak higher, that next gear faster, that depth unplumbed. I don't know if it ever ends, or if once you get a taste of adventure, you're left searching for the next great thing.

I'm not sure, but for now, all roads point north.

Time to climb.

Passes? We Don't Need No Stinking Passes!

I hate to start it with a quote, but when it's Hemingway, you get a little lee-way. Hemingway once said, about cycling,

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of the country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."

He wasn't half wrong, and in the past few days, I've learned this lesson through some very intense experiences with this stunning landscape.

In the previous five days of cycling, I have gone up and then down, or down and then up two mountain and ten river passes. Eleven if you count the Gouritsrivier, which we really should, because it looks like this:

See those cliffs? Fuck those cliffs.

So what have I learned from these beautiful, but beastly, roads?

Well, for one, the two are not created equal. Even if they're the same length and climb and descend the same distance, river passes are far preferable to mountain passes. I was due to stay with a host from Warm Showers who, I discovered after about ten kilometers, lived just off of "Seven Passes Road."

Dear Lord, I'd just spent the last three days battling with Tradouw, Cloete's, and du Plessis Passes on the back road from Barrydale to Herbertsdale. This would kill me.

Not at all, it turns out. It was actually one of the best days of riding I'd had yet. Unlike the mountain passes in the semi-desert of the Klein Karoo, the seven passes of the namesake road (actually eight: Black River, Kaaimansgat, Silver River, Touw River, Hoogekraal, Karatara, Homtini, and Phantom Pass) all dove down into valleys or gorges, completely shaded, cool, and wet. Moreover, they were amazing! Bombing down winding roads at 40 km/hr is just a ton of fun, and when you're doing about 100km per day, a mental boost, having fun on the bike, is one of the best ways to power you through a ride.

Mountain passes, on the other hand, give little indication of the terror that awaits. You hit the base of the pass, check the sign (Tradouw Pass - 14km), and start to climb. And climb. And CLIMB. AND HOLY FUCKING HELL WHEN WILL THIS EVER END?!

Okay, it looks like I'm almost, OH WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT COME FROM?!

Mountains hide mountains that hide even greater mountains. Worse, what seems like the end of the climb is often just a level stage that gives you just enough breathing room to curse your ancestors and all the stupidity that ever took you on this trip before HITTING YOU WITH ANOTHER MOUNTAIN.

When you've finally overcome the pass, and you're on your way down, you're too exhausted to really enjoy it. You've sweated it out, often under the full blaze of a noonday sun (I seem to be hitting mountain passes right in the middle of the day), and now you have this amazing view...and all you want to do is roll into the ditch and die.

But you can't, because you're clipped into the pedals, and you've still barely learned to unclip in high traffic areas. So even if you died, your body would just carry on down the hill, strapped to the bike, flopping about like some wacky, Weekend at Bernie's set piece.

Where was I? Ah yes, passes.

The longer I'm on the bike, the more existential the ride seems to get. Hit a river pass, and everything is golden on the way down. Even when you hit the climb, the energy you've built up and the fun you've had make the challenge a lot more manageable. The difficulties faced as a result of a hard uphill climb, on the other hand, can strip you of your ability to truly enjoy the great things in life (like getting a wicked downhill ride).

So you have to attack the hills. Seriously, it's the only way to get through it. Attack the most challenging parts that life (or landscape) throws your way, then pause to enjoy it once you've overcome it. Don't forget to stop and take a look from the top, but then carry on. You have many more miles to go.

Hills, Wind, and Rain

I've remained a few extra days in Cape Agulhas, waiting for a rain that I'd been watching with trepidation roll in from Cape Town. It's forced me inside and away from the road for the last several days.

I don't mind the rain, but when it's bucketing down, with no shelter along long stretches of road, it's not exactly ideal. Moreover, the rain brings with it 30 to 40 km/hr winds, and after surviving two days of these winds to finally crawl into Hermanus, I'm extra cautious. I respect the winds. Nay, I fear them.

I fear the mountains as well. They've come much sooner than I thought they would. I thought I might be able to build my strength before I hit Lesotho, 'the mountain kingdom.' Instead, they hit me hard on my third day of riding. Ten uphill kilometers, just climbing and climbing without cease, would destroy the spirits of any novice on a bike, and if nothing else, I am a novice to this type of riding. 

Give me London traffic, splitting lanes up Piccadilly, jumping a red light, cutting across stalled intersections, avoiding taxis (always the taxis), that's it, that's me. That's my element. That's where I cut my teeth as a cyclist (if you don't count the block off Wayne Street in Flora, Indiana, a scene that gets two or three cars an hour MAX on a busy summer day). 

But this cycling, long distances on dusty gravel roads, I just haven't done it before. It's amazing: the ride, the scenery, the pace of a heartbeat and the whir of wheels crunching stone. But it's a workout. I think my first leg, down to Cape Agulhas, 'the souhernmost point of Africa,' has been harder than anything I could've imagined. It's almost as if I set myself up to fail - especially as I've ridden into a southeasterly wind blowing constant and true at 20 knots as the miles slowly crawl by. But I've pushed through. It's north from here, a race against winter and the rains that accompany the season. 

I've got many  miles to go, and I'm still learning to take care of myself and the bike. The thing is, when it's good, it's so good. Once I'd crested the downs in the Overberg, I was flying through the backroads, through small towns with thatched fishing cottages, through fields of fynbos in Agulhas National Park, part of the UNESCO Cape Floral Region, through pastures dotted with sheep and ostrich. 

But when it's hard, it's the hardest thing I've done in a long time. Before I could get to the cottages, the fynbos, and the pasturelands, I had to muscle through ten kilometers of uphill cycling in the heat of a noonday African sun. 

That was bad, and when it's bad, it's enough to break you.

But when it's good, there's nothing like it.