Day 3, Part 2: Sani Pass SA Border Post to Lesotho Border Distance 11.4 km Altitude 1,961 m to 2,886 m Ascent / Descent +1,105 m / -189 m Avg gradient (Strava HC segment) 11.5% over 7.78 km Time on this section ~5 hours Terrain Loose rock, steep switchbacks, river crossings. Mostly hike-a-bike. Start SA Border Post (1,961 m) Finish Lesotho Border Post / Masoba Soba Lodge (2,886 m) Accommodation Masoba Soba Lodge. Solar only, no grid electricity. Water Available at river crossings en route 11.4 km. Nearly five hours. Those two facts together tell you most of what you need to know. From the SA border post at 1,961 m, the tar ends and the mountain takes over. Loose rock, steep switchbacks, gradients that give no quarter. The GPX track rises 925 m to the Lesotho border at 2,886 m. There is very little of this you ride. Rain came in not long after the start. One minute open sky, the next inside cloud. Wet weather gear on at the side of the road. At a river crossing I stopped for photographs. The bike tipped and went into the water. In the scramble to pull it out, Rocky's sunglasses went downstream. Just gone. People often ask why Rocky wears sunglasses. It is not for show. He has no pigment in his left eyelid, which makes it prone to sunburn, especially at altitude where the UV exposure is harsher. I learned that the hard way in Namibia. I had not prepared for it properly and ended up taping gauze over his eye with duct tape while he rode in the basket. It worked, but it was not ideal. Since then, the sunglasses are standard kit. Each morning and evening I clean his eye and apply Maxitrol drops to control inflammation. He also receives Rimadyl for anti-inflammatory support when required. Managing his condition is just part of travelling responsibly with him. He is also an exceptionally fussy eater. At home he will sometimes go two days without eating. You can put a full steak in front of him. If he decides he is not eating, then he is simply not eating. That temperament does not change in the mountains. Managing his food on these trips is often more complicated than managing my own. In Namibia I leaned heavily on biltong because it was easy to carry and calorie dense. It worked, but it had an unintended side effect. Too much dried meat left him constipated. That was another lesson learned properly. For this trip I packed a veterinary laxative paste as a precaution. I wanted to avoid repeating the mistake. Fortunately, we never needed it. His digestion held up fine across the escarpment. Very little actual riding happened. Mostly pushing. The switchbacks demand it. Loose underfoot, steep enough that the rear wheel breaks traction on anything but the most conservative line. Thunder somewhere behind the cloud. The cliffs disappear into mist and reappear without warning. You can hear the scale of it before you can see it. Later, I checked Strava. The main climb was rated HC. Hors Catégorie. Above Category 1. The segment covered 7.78 kilometres, gained 896 metres and averaged 11.5 percent. Alpe d’Huez in the Tour de France is classified HC. Col du Tourmalet is HC. So is this. Sani is busy. Foreign tourists and 4x4 tour operators grind their way up all day. I am under no illusions: Nobody cares about a slightly overweight, middle-aged man in Lycra pushing a bike into the clouds. That is not headline material. Add a Jack Russell in a basket, though, and suddenly the whole mountain loses its composure. Windows came down. Fists went up. Cheering from passing vehicles like I had my own travelling support crew. A couple of people stopped completely to photograph Rocky, both on the way up and again on the way down. He soaked it up. I just kept pushing. There were moments up there where I stopped not because I was finished, but because the altitude, the effort, and the reality of being in that place with Rocky overwhelmed me in a way that's difficult to explain in daylight. It wasn't distress. It was something closer to the weight of the thing pressing down. At the Lesotho border post the formalities were simple. I had Rocky’s vaccination certificates ready, but they were not requested. The entry fee was R100 and the paperwork was handled without fuss. Within minutes we were through. I stayed at Masoba Soba Lodge that night, roughly two kilometres past the border post on the plateau. Solar lighting only. No grid electricity. Cold and quiet. The food was simple and properly good. After five hours on the pass, and three more getting there, it mattered more than anything else.