Second Weekend - Malealea Lodge

We arrived in Malealea Lodge about lunchtime on the Saturday. It reminds me of a scout camp with outdoorsy looking people roaming about, fresh air up your nose and dogs and puppies jumping up to meet you. Our forst day was spent relaxing and exploring our new surrounds, while here we are sleeping in traditional Basotho huts. They are small one room round buildings which sleep two or three and are covered by a kind of thatch roof. Before dinner children from the local school came along and sang traditional songs for people staying in the Lodge, and were followed by a local band. Nearly everyone we have met over here seems to be born with an amazing ability to sing and will belt out the national anthem or a traditional song with the drop of a hat. After plenty of Malutis and wine we grabbed some take away from the bar and some firewood and headed back down to our huts for a midnight campfire. After plenty of booze and drunken debates I decided to call it a night, the fresh country air seemed to go to some peoples heads and they decided to spend the night freezing their arses off under the stars.On the Sunday morning we decided to go on one of the many hikes on offer around Malealea. So after a stroll over a few hills and down some gorges we went to see some cave paintings. Our guide John told us that they were 300,000 years old and were painted with animal blood and fat. Mind-boggling to see something that old still look so vivid. When we first arrived over here some of us had great intentions of going jogging every morning but laziness and a lack of bags meant that we didnt actually go once. The hike seemed to remind us that we were missing any kind of physical exertion so we decided to stay on and tackle Mt. Fukufuku. It's the highest peak around Malealea and at 2,357 meters and a six hour hike its a pretty steep reintroduction to exercise. Des is going to be climbing Mt Kilimonjaro with Eoghan from Camara after we leave Lesotho so he definitly needs to get some practice in before tackling all 6,000 meters of that.So getting up early on Monday after a early night in preperation we meet our guide John for our big adventure up the mountain. Its only the lads who decide to head up, the girls are taking it easy and having a day of plodding along on their arses on the back of a donkey. John is a quiet little fellow, eighteen years old and from the local area, and has the surefooted confidence that you want to see when you're being led up a ninety degree incline. After a few short stops to enjoy the view (i.e. the manly way to catch your breath) we made it to the top. Amazingly the top of the mountain is the only place around where you can get mobile phone signal so I managed to give Helen a buzz from a couple of thousand meters up to say my last bye before she heads off to California. The views from up there were lie nothing I've seen before and Malealea where we were staying looked like a dot. I figured that seeing as there is a slim chance I'll ever climb any mountain apart from the Sugarloaf ever again in my life I should drop pants and get a good shot of my arse and the African skyline, two amzing vistas in one photo I'm sure you'll agree! I'll lash the picture up here soon as I can for you all to enjoy. So proud as punch with ourselves and pretty tired we made our way down the mountain and back for some grub. Again the rest of the day was spent relaxing and boozing in front of our campfire admiring the African stars.