Best Things to Do in Maseru

Maseru combines a compact riverside capital with immediate access to the historical heartland and dramatic basalt gorges of the Mountain Kingdom. Here are the ten experiences that define a visit to Maseru and its surrounding valleys.

1. Climb Thaba Bosiu, the Mountain at Night. Follow a local historian up the narrow Khubelu Pass onto the flat sandstone mesa 24 km east of Maseru where King Moshoeshoe I defended the Basotho nation against nineteenth-century sieges, and visit the Cultural Village at its base.
2. Step inside the Basotho Hat (Manthabiseng National Convention and Craft Centre). Built on Kingsway in the exact shape of a traditional woven mokorotlo hat, stocked with hand-woven grass baskets, clay pottery, mohair tapestries and heritage woollen blankets.
3. Day trip to Maletsunyane Falls in Semonkong. Drive two hours southeast into the high basalt ranges to watch the Maletsunyane River plunge 192 metres in a single unbroken vertical drop into a misty gorge.
4. Visit the Kome Cave Dwellings at Ha Kome. Explore five interconnected mud-and-dung houses tucked beneath a towering sandstone overhang in Berea District, built in the early nineteenth century to shelter families fleeing famine and still inhabited by their descendants today.
5. Sunset views from Mpilo Hill and the Parliament Precinct. Drive or hike up the sandstone ridge overlooking central Maseru to see the modern National Assembly building and watch evening light turn the Caledon valley gold.
6. Drive up Lancer's Gap toward the Berea Plateau. Follow the narrow road climbing through a cleft in the cliffs northeast of town for wide views over Maseru's sprawl and the distant Maloti peaks.
7. Cross Blue Mountain Pass to Mohale Dam. Wind up the paved A3 mountain highway past the twin peaks of Machache to the turquoise reservoir of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project.
8. Dinosaur footprints at Morija and the Morija Museum & Archives. Travel 40 km south of Maseru to Lesotho's oldest missionary printery and cultural archive, then hike fifteen minutes up the slope behind town to see preserved Triassic dinosaur tracks in the sandstone.
9. Rock art at Ha Baroana. Detour off the Nazareth road east of Maseru to view delicate San Bushman ochre paintings of eland, leopards and dancers sheltered under a river cliff above the Liphiring stream.
10. Pony trekking through the foothills. Ride sure-footed Basotho mountain ponies along bridal paths between sandstone villages around Roma, Malealea or Semonkong.