The bustling town of
MAFETENG
, 20km from the Van Rooyenshek
border post
(daily 6am-10pm), will be the first place you come to in Lesotho if crossing from Wepener in the Free State. It means "the place of Lefeta's people", after the son of a French missionary Emile Rolland, who was the district's first magistrate and was nicknamed Lefeta, or "he who passes", by locals, who regarded him as virtually Sotho except for the fact that he "passed by" initiation school.
Unfortunately, much of the town suffered in the 1998 riots, leaving the centre in quite a mess, but in any case the only building of interest in Mafeteng is the
council office
on the main street. It's worth a quick look for the animal heads studding its front wall, and a nice statue of a handlebar-moustached Cape Mounted Rifles soldier in the front garden. There are two good nearby excursions, though you'll need your own transport to get to them. The
Luma Pan
, 3km from town, attracts a good selection of birdlife; head for Wepener, and turn right down the first substantial dirt road you come to. About 20km east of Mafeteng, along a road that deteriorates past the village of Likhoele to the point that you're taking a risk in an ordinary saloon car, is the impressive
Thabana Morena Plateau
. Rising above a village of the same name, it rewards the steep climb with good views of the Free State plains to the west and the Thaba Putsoa Mountains to the east.
