Three days on a Basotho pony

The horse’s name was Tutor and he knew exactly what he was doing

The staff at Malealea Lodge assign horses to riders after a brief assessment of experience. Our honest assessment was moderate — we had ridden occasionally, never for more than two hours. Tutor was assigned to the less experienced of the two of us: a compact Basotho pony, dun-coloured, with a patient expression that suggested he had been through this assessment many times and had calibrated expectations accordingly.

Basotho ponies are a mountain breed, developed here over several centuries of selective breeding in conditions that favour endurance over speed. They are short by conventional riding standards — most stand between 14 and 14.3 hands — and their conformation is adapted for the specific demands of the Lesotho highlands: rocky paths, steep gradients, high altitude, cold. They are not fast. They are exactly what the terrain requires.

We departed from Malealea Lodge on a Tuesday morning in November, which is early summer in the highland kingdom of Lesotho and which means the grass had returned to full height and the fields of sorghum around the village compounds were approaching harvest. Our guide was a young man named Lihloho who had grown up in a village two days’ ride from Malealea and who had been guiding this route since his late teens. His English was functional and his patience was considerable.

Day one: Malealea to Likhoting

The first day’s ride covers approximately twenty-five kilometres through the Pitseng Gorge — a river canyon that cuts through the basalt escarpment south of Malealea — and climbs to a plateau at roughly 2,000 metres. The gorge is the most dramatic section of the route and also, in the first morning, the hardest adjustment to the horse. Basotho ponies navigate gorge paths that are half a metre wide and that fall sharply into stream beds on the downhill side. They do this with complete indifference. The rider’s job is to trust the horse and not to lean into the slope, which is the reflexive but incorrect response.

We crossed the main Pitseng stream four times on day one. The stream was running from the summer rain and the crossings were knees-to-saddle, ponies walking steadily through chest-high water (their chests, not ours). Lihloho crossed without pausing on a pony that appeared to enjoy the water.

The village of Likhoting sits above the gorge on the plateau rim. We stayed in a family rondavel — a traditional circular thatched dwelling — with sleeping mats on an earthen floor, a fire in the centre for cooking, and no electricity. The family cooked papa (maize porridge) and morogo (wild spinach stew) over the fire. There were seven people in the extended household, ranging from a grandmother who spoke no English but communicated through Lihloho and through gestures that required no translation, to a teenage boy who had ridden to the village specifically to practice his English from the secondary school twenty kilometres away.

The sky from the plateau at 2,000 metres in November, away from any town light source, was a thing that is not available in most of the world anymore.

Day two: the higher plateau

Day two was the hardest physically. The ride climbed further — roughly 2,300 metres at the highest point — on paths that Lihloho navigated from memory, including a section where the track was not visible to us at all and where Tutor followed approximately one metre behind Lihloho’s horse without instruction.

We passed four village compounds. At two of them, the family came out to watch, which Lihloho explained was normal — visits from the trek were an event, especially for the children, and also a source of income from the accommodation payments that Malealea distributes through a community fund to the villages that participate in the programme.

The second village overnight was slightly more sophisticated than Likhoting: two rondavels dedicated specifically to trekkers, a separate kitchen that the village women ran for the accommodation, and a solar-charged lamp. The mattresses were on raised platforms.

Day three: the return

The third day’s ride returned to Malealea on a different route, descending from the plateau through a valley system that opens below the escarpment into a broad, tree-dotted lowland that looked, after two days of high plateau, almost tropical in its warmth and greenness.

Tutor was more energetic going home. This is a horse behaviour that Lihloho confirmed was consistent — they pick up the pace on the return leg. By the time we came over the final ridge above Malealea Lodge, he was moving at something close to a trot that we had not asked for and that we were too tired to discourage.

The practical reality

Three days on a horse leaves specific soreness: inner thighs, lower back, and hands. This is not extraordinary but it is worth knowing before you commit. First-time riders should be honest about their experience level because the terrain genuinely requires a horse that matches your capability and a guide who can intervene if needed.

The Malealea Lodge model is community-embedded in a way that the site makes explicit: accommodation payments go directly to village families, guide wages are set by the lodge at rates that are above the local average, and the horse owners — many of the ponies are owned by village families who lease them to the lodge — receive a daily rate per animal. The economic distribution is not perfect but it is transparent.

A two-day pony trek from Lesotho’s mountain areas is available as a shorter format if three days feels like a stretch — covering less ground but still reaching the plateau villages.

The Malealea route in particular requires no prior booking through anything other than the lodge directly. Call or email the lodge. Tell them your experience level honestly. Ask which route is appropriate. They will tell you.