Heavy rains over Lesotho cleared long enough for Johan de Smidt to make the pilgrimage from the Basotho’s birthplace to an iconic pass via a famous waterfall.

I bet you ten malotis those are donkey ears sticking out from the pothole, Frank.”
“Nah, it’s a rabbit,” Frank counters and carefully steers the Cruiser past the pockmark, pocketing a crisp note of the Lesotho currency.

After all, a pair of ears protruding from a pothole might be that of something much larger than a rabbit − it could be a donkey, as the saying cautions here in the Kingdom in the Sky.

The donkey, of course, could be the one of local legend who hiked with his two buddies, a bull and a goat, to the Reef’s gold mines to find work.

Crammed into a 4x4 Hi-Ace the trio returned to their beloved Maluti Mountains after a year. When the minibus stopped near the goat’s hut, it well, hoofed it, leaving the donkey and the bull to settle his fare.

Ever since, the out-of-pocket comrades have been hunting for the bilking goat, which is apparently why goats run away every time they see an oncoming vehicle, and donkeys and bulls block the road, looking for the goat to extract a refund.

I mean, have you ever seen a goat ending up as roadkill? We certainly didn’t on our three-day, 850-km trip from Maseru to Sani Pass here in the land of many thabas (mountains).

Our journey took us via the academic centre of Roma, onto the nation’s birthplace of Thaba Bosiu and into the cannibal-linked Kome cave dwellings on the first day.

A river-hugging 4x4 dirt road was the highlight of the trip to the thundering Maletsunyane Falls on the second, while views over the gigantic Mohale Dam and steaming gluhwein at an icy Sani Top vied for the honours at the end of a long third day.

What we did encounter, besides a technicolour dreamcoat landscape, were equally colourful yarns about an off-roader plunging from the infamous Jockstrap Pass, a harrowing exit − in reverse − out of the same pass, and newly-weds being towed in a crippled Land Rover most of the way over the mighty Baboon’s Pass.

Even local royalty such as Moshoeshoe II, killed in a 4x4 that plunged over a cliff in 1996, have fallen prey to the Malutis, the mountainous eastern part of Lesotho containing the highest peaks in Southern Africa.

Then of course, no Lesotho story is complete without a cattle-rustling tale – and we have an intriguing one for you, one where the victim made an effective, if gruesome plan …

But those stories we would only hear later, in cosy lounges at the Ramabanta Trading Post and Sani Top Chalet as blanket-covered herdsmen began moving their stock off the highlands in the face of an early cold front.