What would another African country stop be without a “family fundraising” encounter with local police? In this instance, thankfully we weren’t driving. Not so thankfully, our driver wasn’t able to get out of the speeding ticket by gesturing to the Honorable Minister of the Interior she had as a passenger. The incident naturally sparked some lively discussion regarding police in Lesotho. We learned that broadly speaking, police officers do not have access to a police vehicle of any sort. Ummm…. Ok, so what if we had blasted through their scammy speed trap? Just hope they didn’t recognize you or see your plate, it seems. Ok, but what if they stopped you and found something that warranted arrest? Let’s say you had drugs or were driving drunk, for example. Wanna guess how you’re getting transported to jail? In your own freakin’ car.
I gotta say, overall I love this. Keep those guys a little humble. Unlike in the States where we basically issue a supercharged urban assault vehicle loaded with firearms to GED graduates with anger management issues and let them terrorize our citizenry with legal immunity. But I digress… Ok where was I? Lesotho, yes, the “Mountain Kingdom”.
Our last stop on this month-long loop was a small landlocked mountainous country inside South Africa. We stayed at a kind of business resort hotel filled with local chuckleheads boozing it up into the wee hours. For such a small country, Lesotho manages to have some significantly long road trips to get to some of the tourist sites. A trip to the massive Maletsunyane Falls involved hours of treacherous mountain roads. On the way back from the falls, we encountered a possible side-effect of their lack of police vehicles. On a very steep incline we came upon a disabled vehicle completely blocking both lanes of traffic. After watching one guy try in vain to move it while his partner steered, we all hopped out to possibly assist. Upon closer inspection, these two guys were absolutely wasted drunk. And if the slurred speech, staggering movement and stench of alcohol wasn’t clear enough, both guys were clutching 40oz mega-pints and drinking between attempts to right their vehicle. It seems they were also out of gas. On the bright side, there was zero risk of some buzzkill cop rolling up on them harshing their vibe. On the not so bright side, it was freezing cold and they were probably gonna be stuck there overnight. Yeah, idk, maybe the cops need some kind of cars, fine. Maybe like a Suzuki Jimny or something. The smaller and less capable the better.
For such a small country, travel time is quite lengthy. This was a day trip to see cave paintings in Ha Baroana.
Lions face
First there’s signs for a “robot” (indicating a stoplight), and now this silliness for a speed bump.
Apparently disturbing this aloe will land you in prison in Lesotho.
There are male & female spiral aloes that form opposite clockwise & counterclockwise patterns.
Photo credit to Dr Iyer
Throw on a blanket blanket and we fit right in.
But seriously, the blankets are a really big deal in Lesotho, it’s a whole thing
One thought on “A Country Without Police Cars”
I’ve got it – get those cops some scooters! You can only get so puffy on a scooter lol. Or a Segway! Better for the environment.