A Road Travelled

Aitch! There’s a new border post just past Phuthaditjhaba, the capital of Qwa Qwa. l want to try it. ‘OK’, says Aitch, always up for adventure.

I have a double motive: Try new routes, and old friend Steph is building a mall in the capital and we can say Hi Long Time No See on the way. Also, small border posts are usually less drama than the big busy ones.

(This memory jog is from an email I just found that I wrote back in 2007)

In Phuthaditjhaba we park outside a building site and in a cloud of dust a monster Ford F250 draws up alongside, towering high over the kombi. A bushy moustache with a wide grin under it peers down at me out of the wrong window of the truck. Left Hand Drive. My swashbuckling friend Steph the Builder.

When he hears my plan Steph tells me in no uncertain terms, ‘You can’t go that way, Koos! The road is just too bad, I built that road to the border and it’s perfect, but past that it’s impassable!’

But we go. We get to the new Monantsa Pass border control on an excellent road, made by my mate Steph. There, the lone South African official stamps us out of SA in a jiffy, easy and friendly. Good decision, I’m thinking. We drive into Lesotho and turns out it’s even easier than I imagined. We just keep driving. There’s no Lesotho border control. Nothing. Just beautiful countryside. And the road is only challenging in parts. But also so picturesque with many river crossings where you drive through over the pebbles, getting the kombi’s tyres wet, no bridges.

In the back of my mind I’m thinking getting out of Lesotho will be easy if we come back this way and just check back into SA. Of course, we won’t. It’s just too long and too slow. I put it out of my mind – We’ll double-cross that bridge when we come to it, as a well-known politician once said.

So now we’re trying to leave Lesotho at the Caledonspoort border post after a great week of skiing, snowboarding and eating. ‘Madam, I am not a brigand! There wasn’t a borderpost there!’ I explain, but the Lesotho border post lady is unimpressed, unamused and rude. Well, I’m not touching your passports, you can just go, she says. I go.

The next year we want to go back – the kids are raring to go. This is now their Winter Thing! I think I’d better sort this out before I rock up at a border post.

Oh boy…

I go online, I phone, I get a real person. She says, phone the Consulate General Of The Kingdom Of Lesotho in West Guard House, 301 West St, Durban, on 031-307 2323

So I phone 031-307 2323

Can’t help: “This is a tough one. Rather you phone Pretoria – The High Commissioner!” 012-460 7648 – Try Mrs Kumi

So I try:
1:18pm Tuesday – no reply; 2:24pm – engaged (5X)
3:50pm – Mrs Kumi is on leave. Probly went home to Lesotho through the Caledonspoort border post, I think to myself.

“Nabuka” will call me back. Left my work number with her.

Surprise! She phoned back!
“No, rather phone Immigration. They will fine you per day that you overstayed”
Oh, Great! They say I am more than a year overdue!
“OOOOH!!” (loud shout/giggle on the phone!)

More advice: “Just go to the border post and ask them.”
Right! And then drive back to Durban if refused? And the lady I dealt with at the border was a real pig. If anyone’s like that, NO CHANCE they’ll assist. She took great pleasure in basically telling me to get lost.

“Oh. OK. Phone them then.”
002662 232 3771
Who do I ask for?
“No just explain yourself to switchboard.”

SO:
I’ve done full circle back to where they did NOT want to help!
Oh, well, I’ll try tomorrow. It’ll be too cold there at 4:29pm for any kindness.

On Wednesday I try 002662 232 3771 again
First lady: Ooh, I can’t help you.
Second lady:  Why didn’t you stamp out!? This is a hard one.
Better I’ll ask my boss, Mrs Jonathan.
Mrs Jonathan is out, phone again after, say, one hour. Ask for ext 280

Try again. Get put thru to ext 280 who laugh at me for wanting a Mrs Jonathan when there’s no Mrs Jonathan there. How stupid can you be? I apologise and ask if she can put me back to switchboard. *click* Turns out she can’t. (Maybe the “Mrs Jonathan” was a joke/prank on me? Leabua Jonathan was a past prime minister years ago)?

Switchboard again. 280 is busy. Shall I wait, or must I phone again. Pardon!?
I’ll phone again.

At last! The real, live Mrs Jonathan! I tell her my story: I didn’t stamp IN cos there was no border post there; I didn’t stamp OUT cos the lady refused – told me over her dead body;
Mrs Jonathan is most sympathetic and helpful. Just before I leave for Lesotho, I must phone her colleague Mrs Molifi, the immigration manager at Buthe Bothe on 630 55525
She’ll sort me out.

YAY!
Fingers crossed.

~o0o~

I did. She did. We went back. See, it was a good idea to take the road less travelled…

~o0o~