A Birthday Celebration with Hats and Rats

Sunday was Joe’s birthday.

We spent the afternoon at the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens (not to be confused with the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens), a couple of miles from Melville. It’s a big park that includes a lake created by the Emmarentia Dam. We strolled around looking at trees and watching dogs fetch sticks from the water. Then we visited the park’s rose garden, where roses were blooming in every color imaginable.

Horse-riding for Health in Mokhotlong

Let me back-track and explain the purpose of our trip to Lesotho. Bear with me because this will take time.

On a map, Lesotho looks like a small dot in the middle of South Africa. It’s nick-named “the Kingdom in the Sky” and is one of the few places in Africa where it snows. Lesotho’s Maluti Mountains are among the highest in Southern Africa – many peaks are over 10,000 feet.