With leaving Knysna at the Garden Rout of South Africa, I finally started my way north. With a 12 hours overnight bus ride I got at 3:00 AM to Bloemfontein where I unrolled my Terma-Rest and sleeping bag in a corner of the bus station. At 6:00 AM a worker woke me up just to ask me which bus I had to catch since he was concerned that I would oversleep the bus-departure. I explained him that I had to catch a Minibus to Maseru in Lesotho from the minibus station in town and I would not exactly know when that would leave.

Since I was awake, I packed up and took a taxi to the Minibus Station. Along the way the taxi driver looked at me and asked whether there were no buses to Maseru from the bus station. I explained him that there were buses to Ladybrand which is close to Maseru but those would cost something like 290 Rand and the minibus is supposed to cost something like 50 Rand. He then looked at me and asked whether I was aware of the fact that all the passengers on the minibuses are black peoples. I turned around, looked surprised at him and sad: “Yes, and what is the problem with that?” – needless to say that the taxi diver was a white person. Fortunately this was one of the very few occasions I could fell that there is still some sort of apartheid-thinking in South Africa.

At the minibus station I managed to find the right bus quite easy and as I paid for the ticket – just 40 Rand – and asked at what time the bus would more or less leave. “Whenever it is full”, came the answer. “And, from your experience, around what time would that be more or less”, I asked. “Well, hard to say – can be in one hour or in 4”, came the answer back.
I seated myself in the bus – I was the second passenger, just another 12 had to come – and waited. One hour passed during which three more passengers came and I hoped that the hours after 8:00 AM would be busier. In the meantime I watched the women setting up here marked stall and the peoples passing by on there way to work. It felt really good being amount locals again – in this particular case among black locals since I was the only white person around.
The hours after 8:00 AM got not really busier but around 9:00 another white person -also a traveler, going to the same place I’m intended – came to the buss and we needed just another 7 to come.
Having waited for 3 hours the thought crossed my mind that it might would have been not to bad an idea to have paid the 290 Rand. By know I would already be in Maseru and on the way to my final destination Malealea. But that would have also meant that I would have missed all the bustle at the bus station and that would have been really sad.
Finally, finally we left and after one and one half hour bus ride we got to Maseru. I do have to agree that it is a bit a miss relation between the 5 hours we waited and the 1 and one half hours it took to get to Maseru but that is how it sometime is. After the border formality we got another minibus to the minibus station – this time we did not had to wait for long but the minibus had to be pushed down a hill in order to start it. At the minibus station we were told that the bus to Malealea would leave at 4:00 PM – just 2 hours to wait.