Just arrived back home last night after nearly 40 hours of flights and layovers. Fucking brutal. Screaming toddlers and I was stuck in the middle seat for EVERY SINGLE LEG of the flight back home. Almost had my flight home cancelled out of SLC last night. But I finally made it home, and my bed has never felt so fantastic.
Overall, I could characterize the trip as "good." Nothing really held us up concerning completion of the tower. In that respect, all went well. We overshot our completion date by three days. Not bad.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how modern Lesotho (pronounced “luh-SOO-too“) is as a country. Nice roads, nice cars, decent internet connection/availability, modern supermarkets with POS sales systems. It really made the four weeks more tolerable than my time in Ethiop-I-A. Stayed at a really nice hotel called the Lesotho Sun which was formerly a Hilton.
Lesotho is an enclave, meaning that it is an independent nation within the borders of another nation. It is also a kingdom, and is nicknamed The Mountain Kingdom. It’s very mountainous, and it actually snows heavily there in the higher elevations in the winter months. There is a small ski “resort.” It really reminded me of home in many ways: high, jagged peaks with gin-clear streams cascading out of the mountains.
Politically and socially, Lesotho is a very stable nation. However, there is a HUGE gap between the rich and the poor, and no middle class exists. Cars were either Mercedes and Beamers or shit boxes. It appears that it is not really what you know, but who you know. For instance, we met the ministry head of communications when he came to the radio station to see the progress on the tower. He asked my buddy/co-worker when we were going to put the antennae up. My buddy was like, “Um, the tower IS the antennae.” So it was apparent that technical knowledge was not a pre-requisite to heading the Ministry of Communications. This particular job was for the government, so we met many high-level officials which was pretty cool.
Kotse Dam
The first weekend we were there, our boss and his wife chartered a driver for us to go see the Kotse Dam. This dam is huge and sits at about 10k feet, with huge peaks surrounding it. This was to be our first opportunity to do some fly fishing. After we got there, we had the driver drop us off at a small inlet where a creek fed into the dam. There were no fish rising in this particular spot, so we fished sub-surface. Didn’t have any strikes. So we went to another little finger of the dam and found some Yellowfish feeding off the surface. Again, no such luck. The water was practically boiling with rises, and I threw everything that I had at them, but to no avail.
I tried everything: nymphs, nymphs with a dropper, streamers, streamers with a BB, streamers on the dead drift, streamers on a strip, emergers, straight dries, dries with a dropper, grasshoppers, ant patterns, and everything in between. NOTHING worked. I was absolutely baffled. Neither myself or my two buddies had any action. From my prior research on the Yellowfish, I know that their mouths are shaped in such a way that they primarily feed off the bottom of lakes and streams, so I figured that my floating fly line was playing a part in preventing me from getting my line down to the proper water columns where they were really feeding. So we start to walk back to the road and see some locals fishing and we stopped to see how they’re doing. Every five minutes or so, they would get a fish on. Their tackle consisted of fishing line, a Coke bottle, and a piece of bread.
They would toss the line attached to the bottle as far out as they could and had a hook baited with a piece of bread. Once they had a fish on, they would hand line it in; no rods for these guys. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a bread pattern in my fly box and chalked it up. I mean, I just had to laugh at the situation. Here I am, with my expensive rod and reel, boxes and boxes of flies, and I can’t even catch a cold. But, that’s fishing for you. To be honest, it would have been nice to catch a fish, but I just looked around and realized where I was at. And that was enough for me.
The Roof of Africa
We were kicked out the hotel for about three days and had to stay at another hotel in town because of the Roof of Africa endurance moto-x race. The hotel was a primary sponsor, so it had been booked since the previous year's race. It’s a three day endurance race in the mountains of Lesotho, and is basically considered the Baja 1000 of Africa. There were hundreds of racers from all over the world, and even some Americans were in the race. It’s a really huge deal, and we had no idea of its scope and size until talking with some locals. So it was pretty sweet to see all the bikes and the professional race teams. Of the 350+ entrants, only about 50 finished the race. The main teams were sponsored by either KTM, Yamaha, or Husky.
Billy
The night before the race started, we (my buddy and another coworker) were sitting in the hotel bar after work when this older skinny dude with long bleach-white hair and an equally long beard saddled up to the bar. I had just gotten up and was ready to go to bed, and my buddies stayed to talk with him. Turns out, this guy was helping broadcast the race and was also involved in the organization of the race. Unfortunately, we had to work the entire time the race was happening. However Billy invited us out to his house the following Sunday and we went out to visit him that Sunday.
Billy is a cool dude. If you saw him, you would probably think he’s an old crusty biker minus the tattoos. Super long hair and beard, both white. He was born and raised in Maseru and lived outside a small village about 30 clicks from Maseru.
When we got to his house, I thought I had found heaven on earth. Billy has a completely self-sustaining operation. His house and water supply is ran completely off of solar power. His waste water runs into a cistern that filters the water sufficiently to water his grape vines and apricot orchard along with his “herb” garden. From the grapes he makes wine and jam which he sells. He also cans the apricots and also makes jam from them. And as I mentioned, he maintains a very healthy herb garden, of which I procured an ample amount for personal consumption.
Unfortunately, I had caught a really nasty bug the night before and was very, very sick by the time I arrived at Billy’s. I was flush, nauseous, and had diarrhea so bad that I could’ve shit through a screen door from thirty paces. So Billy says to me, “Here, take a spoonful of cayenne pepper for your stomach, then I’ll give you some tea.” I was thinking, cayenne pepper! Was he serious? But I really trusted Billy and took the cayenne and amazingly it settled my stomach enough to drink the tea he had made. I was so dehydrated from the squirts that I ended up drinking nearly a two liter bottle full of tea before even pissing once. But the concoction made me feel 1000 times better, and I was able to go fishing with everyone.
Billy took us to the Kome Cave Dwellings and from there we hiked down to the stream. Unfortunately, it had rained for two days and the stream looked like chocolate milk, making any attempts at fishing futile. This was to be the second (and last) opportunity for me to fish for the rest of my time there. It was absolutely futile, but again, all I had to do was look around me and realize that I was standing in a stream in southern Africa. It was very, very cool.
Now, Billy and his wife have adopted a couple of children and we only got to meet one of them, Mehow (not sure of the spellling). Really cool kid of sixteen. I talked with him at length about women, and he expressed to me that he and his friends often talk about women and how to attract them. I guess some things are universal.
Billy was just an all around great guy, and he is someone that I will always talk about. Hopefully, I can see him again someday.
The Women
I cannot describe my disappointment in the women of Lesotho. They are HUGE. I mean, they all look they are smuggling Christmas hams in their pants. Plus, the predominant hair style is a shaved head. Ugh.
Don’t get me wrong. There were some serious beauties, but overall, the women of Lesotho leave much to be desired. My buddy and I met some youngin's (21ish) and went out with them a couple of times, but it was pretty apparent that they were just out for our money. We kicked them to the curb on the second outing after they started ordering drinks for all their friends (guys included) and put them all on our tab. I mean, it wasn’t the money (because the drinks were cheap), but it was the principle. Fuck that shit.
Overall, the trip was awesome and I continue to expand my global awareness. I met some amazing people with one-of-kind personalities and people that I will never forget. It’s great to be home.
Peace to all who read this.
Overall, I could characterize the trip as "good." Nothing really held us up concerning completion of the tower. In that respect, all went well. We overshot our completion date by three days. Not bad.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how modern Lesotho (pronounced “luh-SOO-too“) is as a country. Nice roads, nice cars, decent internet connection/availability, modern supermarkets with POS sales systems. It really made the four weeks more tolerable than my time in Ethiop-I-A. Stayed at a really nice hotel called the Lesotho Sun which was formerly a Hilton.
Lesotho is an enclave, meaning that it is an independent nation within the borders of another nation. It is also a kingdom, and is nicknamed The Mountain Kingdom. It’s very mountainous, and it actually snows heavily there in the higher elevations in the winter months. There is a small ski “resort.” It really reminded me of home in many ways: high, jagged peaks with gin-clear streams cascading out of the mountains.
Politically and socially, Lesotho is a very stable nation. However, there is a HUGE gap between the rich and the poor, and no middle class exists. Cars were either Mercedes and Beamers or shit boxes. It appears that it is not really what you know, but who you know. For instance, we met the ministry head of communications when he came to the radio station to see the progress on the tower. He asked my buddy/co-worker when we were going to put the antennae up. My buddy was like, “Um, the tower IS the antennae.” So it was apparent that technical knowledge was not a pre-requisite to heading the Ministry of Communications. This particular job was for the government, so we met many high-level officials which was pretty cool.
Kotse Dam
The first weekend we were there, our boss and his wife chartered a driver for us to go see the Kotse Dam. This dam is huge and sits at about 10k feet, with huge peaks surrounding it. This was to be our first opportunity to do some fly fishing. After we got there, we had the driver drop us off at a small inlet where a creek fed into the dam. There were no fish rising in this particular spot, so we fished sub-surface. Didn’t have any strikes. So we went to another little finger of the dam and found some Yellowfish feeding off the surface. Again, no such luck. The water was practically boiling with rises, and I threw everything that I had at them, but to no avail.
I tried everything: nymphs, nymphs with a dropper, streamers, streamers with a BB, streamers on the dead drift, streamers on a strip, emergers, straight dries, dries with a dropper, grasshoppers, ant patterns, and everything in between. NOTHING worked. I was absolutely baffled. Neither myself or my two buddies had any action. From my prior research on the Yellowfish, I know that their mouths are shaped in such a way that they primarily feed off the bottom of lakes and streams, so I figured that my floating fly line was playing a part in preventing me from getting my line down to the proper water columns where they were really feeding. So we start to walk back to the road and see some locals fishing and we stopped to see how they’re doing. Every five minutes or so, they would get a fish on. Their tackle consisted of fishing line, a Coke bottle, and a piece of bread.
They would toss the line attached to the bottle as far out as they could and had a hook baited with a piece of bread. Once they had a fish on, they would hand line it in; no rods for these guys. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a bread pattern in my fly box and chalked it up. I mean, I just had to laugh at the situation. Here I am, with my expensive rod and reel, boxes and boxes of flies, and I can’t even catch a cold. But, that’s fishing for you. To be honest, it would have been nice to catch a fish, but I just looked around and realized where I was at. And that was enough for me.
The Roof of Africa
We were kicked out the hotel for about three days and had to stay at another hotel in town because of the Roof of Africa endurance moto-x race. The hotel was a primary sponsor, so it had been booked since the previous year's race. It’s a three day endurance race in the mountains of Lesotho, and is basically considered the Baja 1000 of Africa. There were hundreds of racers from all over the world, and even some Americans were in the race. It’s a really huge deal, and we had no idea of its scope and size until talking with some locals. So it was pretty sweet to see all the bikes and the professional race teams. Of the 350+ entrants, only about 50 finished the race. The main teams were sponsored by either KTM, Yamaha, or Husky.
Billy
The night before the race started, we (my buddy and another coworker) were sitting in the hotel bar after work when this older skinny dude with long bleach-white hair and an equally long beard saddled up to the bar. I had just gotten up and was ready to go to bed, and my buddies stayed to talk with him. Turns out, this guy was helping broadcast the race and was also involved in the organization of the race. Unfortunately, we had to work the entire time the race was happening. However Billy invited us out to his house the following Sunday and we went out to visit him that Sunday.
Billy is a cool dude. If you saw him, you would probably think he’s an old crusty biker minus the tattoos. Super long hair and beard, both white. He was born and raised in Maseru and lived outside a small village about 30 clicks from Maseru.
When we got to his house, I thought I had found heaven on earth. Billy has a completely self-sustaining operation. His house and water supply is ran completely off of solar power. His waste water runs into a cistern that filters the water sufficiently to water his grape vines and apricot orchard along with his “herb” garden. From the grapes he makes wine and jam which he sells. He also cans the apricots and also makes jam from them. And as I mentioned, he maintains a very healthy herb garden, of which I procured an ample amount for personal consumption.
Unfortunately, I had caught a really nasty bug the night before and was very, very sick by the time I arrived at Billy’s. I was flush, nauseous, and had diarrhea so bad that I could’ve shit through a screen door from thirty paces. So Billy says to me, “Here, take a spoonful of cayenne pepper for your stomach, then I’ll give you some tea.” I was thinking, cayenne pepper! Was he serious? But I really trusted Billy and took the cayenne and amazingly it settled my stomach enough to drink the tea he had made. I was so dehydrated from the squirts that I ended up drinking nearly a two liter bottle full of tea before even pissing once. But the concoction made me feel 1000 times better, and I was able to go fishing with everyone.
Billy took us to the Kome Cave Dwellings and from there we hiked down to the stream. Unfortunately, it had rained for two days and the stream looked like chocolate milk, making any attempts at fishing futile. This was to be the second (and last) opportunity for me to fish for the rest of my time there. It was absolutely futile, but again, all I had to do was look around me and realize that I was standing in a stream in southern Africa. It was very, very cool.
Now, Billy and his wife have adopted a couple of children and we only got to meet one of them, Mehow (not sure of the spellling). Really cool kid of sixteen. I talked with him at length about women, and he expressed to me that he and his friends often talk about women and how to attract them. I guess some things are universal.
Billy was just an all around great guy, and he is someone that I will always talk about. Hopefully, I can see him again someday.
The Women
I cannot describe my disappointment in the women of Lesotho. They are HUGE. I mean, they all look they are smuggling Christmas hams in their pants. Plus, the predominant hair style is a shaved head. Ugh.
Don’t get me wrong. There were some serious beauties, but overall, the women of Lesotho leave much to be desired. My buddy and I met some youngin's (21ish) and went out with them a couple of times, but it was pretty apparent that they were just out for our money. We kicked them to the curb on the second outing after they started ordering drinks for all their friends (guys included) and put them all on our tab. I mean, it wasn’t the money (because the drinks were cheap), but it was the principle. Fuck that shit.
Overall, the trip was awesome and I continue to expand my global awareness. I met some amazing people with one-of-kind personalities and people that I will never forget. It’s great to be home.
Peace to all who read this.
Fortune favors the bold.
