Pony Trekking in Lesotho

Lansky drives Number 2 into the water

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We rode the ponies about eight hours before we arrived at the village where we were supposed to spend the night. But that wasn't the end of our first day's journey. We still had to hike for an hour to see a waterfall before sunset. Apparently, seeing the waterfall was the main goal of our trip, though this hadn't been explained up until now. Izeikel and Clement, whose extracurricular activities had left them exhausted, found us a local guide to take us to the falls.

We reached the scenic waterfall, only to discover the sun had already set and the water was approximately zero degrees Kelvin. A few of us, who smelled more like our ponies than we cared to, jumped in and then hurried back to the village. After a beef jerky dinner we fell asleep in our rondavel, a basic round thatched hut with a mud floor. Ours was a VIP rondavel; we had glass windows, a gas burner and some foam mattresses scattered on the ground.

We saddled up the next morning for our ride back, taking a slightly different way so Izekiel and Clement could rendezvous with two other girlfriends. We never managed to improve our speed much because Reiner had no more control of his pony on the way back than when he first mounted it. He was the sort of rider who would get lost on a rocking horse.

When we arrived back at the river, most of us decided to ride the ponies across ourselves, much to the disappointment of the six-year-old boys. We doffed our pants and rode the ponies into the water, which was deep enough in the center so that our ponies could just barely keep their heads above the surface. The saddle was completely underwater and I was beginning to wonder if I was drowning Number Two. Then I felt him touch the solid river bed. I have to mention this because it was the most exciting thing that happened on the entire ride.

Number Two and the other ponies marched us up the steep path they had refused to walk down and then we raced the remaining two miles back to the camp, or so to speak. The ponies had not gone faster than a slow trot during the entire trip, but, smelling home, and with a lot of kicking, they broke into a bouncy trot with occasional low-speed cantering, except Martin's pony, who was clearly straining under the weight, and Number Three, who had carried Reiner into a large bush.

I dismounted, wobbled into the bar with my genuine pony trekking hat in my hand, and added my business card to the collection.