Once again it was daybreak in the Maluti Mountains. The sun shone high on the peaks and the rest of the world around me was under cold shade.

Unlike the first day of this adventure, when I realised early that morning that I was not the only person to rise early in Maseru, here in the highlands there wasn’t a soul in sight.
I crossed a rocky river. The water looked cold.

Up on a mountainside to my right, sheep were penned within a stone wall, standing dead still. The road went on uphill, up a long, long valley. It never seemed to end!

Halfway up I saw in another mountainside sheep pen that the animals were beginning to move.

The herders in their blankets were walking around among them. A dog barked.

Further on, sheep had gathered higher up on the mountain in what looked like an old quarry.

Towards the top end of the valley, a herd of cattle came walking towards me.

“Lekeae,” I greeted the first human being with whom I was to make contact that day.

The top of what I had called a steep valley turned out to be at the bottom of a mountain peak. There was also a signboard there to give me all the proof I needed that I had gained all the altitude I had lost since freewheeling down hill after reaching the top of the Moteng Pass.

Evidence that I was standing at 3222 metres.

Image: Duncan Guy, CC-BY-SA

WHAT DO YOU THINK? If you’ve ever felt being in solitude (the only person around in sight), what was it like? Where were you?