What is skiing like at AfriSki in Lesotho? — featuring e34xpeditions

0:02 I can't shift at all. A damn minus 6. That's  not good. And Theo looks like he's an Arctic   expedition here. My goodness. After having crossed  the entire length of the African continent in a   37year-old BMW, we have a new challenge. It  is called the race to Mombasa. Because in  

0:19 only a couple of weeks, a container ship will  leave from Kenya towards Oman. And Theodor is   supposed to be in one of those containers,  in order to get to Oman where the Middle   East challenge will be waiting for us. Join the  wild ride on one more episode of e34xpeditions.  

0:36 And I'm driving through the capital city of  Lesotho towards the mountains because today   there'll still be absolute highlight. We're  driving high into the mountains and there'll   be a serious challenge. Probably the coldest  night on the entire journey coming up. So,   some real real adventure action followed by a  ski slope. I have no idea how that will look.  

0:53 Probably very different than expected, but I  cannot wait to go skiing tomorrow. Join me on the   wild ride. Off we go through Lesotho. Oops, bumps.  To be careful here. Okay, guys. I'm a bit worried.   I think something is wrong with my gearbox  because if I change gears and press the clutch,  

1:09 sometimes it makes a horrible noise as if I  wouldn't have pressed the clutch all the way. I mean, it's only like maybe 5%  of the gear changes, but still,   it's not nice. What do you think?  And what do you have to do? Put it   into the comments. Engage low gear. Yeah.  I can't imagine these roads are steep here.

1:32 Hello. Yes. How are you? How's it going?  Where are you going? AfriSki. AfriSki.   Yeah. Okay. No problem. Perfect. Yeah. Just  go faster. There is a big load coming here.   Just go faster. Oh, we'll do. Thank you.  Take care. Have a nice day. Nice guys.

2:18 Okay, time to Check out the view because there's  a viewpoint here. And the viewpoint of course   also needs a Theodor sticker. Perfect. And right  now we're on the highest point in Africa so far.   We're in over 2,800 m. Something is really wrong  with my gearbox. This noise is coming more and  

2:35 more often. Some everything is breaking. Also, my  microphone broke, so I'm using a small one now,   but I don't have a charger for it, so  that's very time limited. I always turn   it off between every single vlog. Ah, not  good. I'm not sure if it's smart to still   drive to where I'm driving now because it's a  small detour in the mountains and I don't want  

2:51 to be stuck here with a broken gearbox clutch  or whatsoever. Damn it. Damn it. Uh-oh. So,   we're on 3,228 m over sea level and still going  up. And right now it's 0° outside at 4 p.m. This   will be a cold night, guys. This will be  a cold night. Let's see how that goes. I'm   not really prepared for this type of climate.  Oh, yeah. Here we go. Marcela Pass, 3,222 m.  

3:16 Let's go. There's no right and left. I like  this. This is not what you expect in Africa. And here we are, AfriSki Mountain Resort. Let's go  and check that out. But I'm very very curious. I  

3:47 bet it'll be very different skiing than I ever  saw before. Let's go. It's late to go skiing   today. It's already uh 4:20 in the afternoon. But  I'll just have a small look at it. Huh? Let's see   what's happening here. Park City, Courchevel and  Meribel. Well, there that's uh interesting. Um  

4:05 yeah, way to go guys. I see the slope. If you know  Courchevel and Meribel that are quite amazing ski   resorts in France and they have more than half a  slope because that's what I can see here. Okay,   made it to the parking next to the slope.  Let's have a small look around here and I  

4:20 want to have a coffee in this cafe I think. Yeah,  ski slope. Incredible. Somewhere in Africa. Okay,   made it to pares ski vibes place. Um right  at the ski slope and it started snowing. You   can see people here that love snow. Everybody  rushed out and outside taking photos now being  

4:37 being truly excited about yeah a small snow. You  don't see a lot on the camera I think. But yeah,   it is some snow. Okay. Damn, guys. It is getting  really cold already. Theodor is waiting and it's   more luck at the ski resort. Getting back here  tomorrow for some skiing action. Let's go. Last  

4:51 meet us to the camp spot for tonight of probably  the coldest night coming up. Let's check out the   camping spot outside now. Let's have a look.  Definitely in full view from the road which is   right there. But I guess I don't care too much.  The spot looks very nice here. It's a mountain  

5:06 road. Nobody will really pass here. I think at  night should be pretty okay. There's some cars   now. I think I'll just open the tent a bit later.  So now it looks like a car is parking here. And   later I open the tent and I should be good. Guys,  do you know this feeling? You do something and you  

5:19 know that you will regret it. Well, I'm doing  that right now. I mean, I'm over 3,000 m above   sea level. It is winter here. It's already  -1° now in the evening. The sun didn't even   go down yet. And I'm about to sleep in my rooftop  tent. And I mean, I do have a good sleeping bag,  

5:33 but I'm not I'm not prepared for winter camping  as it is. So, this will be interesting, I think,   tonight. Yeah, let me know in the comments what  something is that you did where you knew from the   beginning it's a bad idea. But sometimes, you  know, you just do these things and uh it's the  

5:47 beauty of the challenge. And I would also do that  without YouTube channel. I'm not doing it for the   content. Believe me, guys. Sometimes it's just  is nice to be stupid. But I'm not sure that I   will agree with myself in like seven, eight hours  time and I'll be freezing in the rooftop tent. But  

6:02 this is not the coldest night yet. The coldest  and highest night so far. Well, maybe it will be   the coldest, but the highest altitude so far was  in Tajjikistan where I slept on over 4,600 m over   sea level on the Akbaital Pass, highest pass  on the Pamir Highway. That was cold as well,  

6:20 but it was summer there. It's winter here.  It's not quite as high, but it's uh yeah,   not the right season for that. As you can see with  all the snow and ice along this rivered. Beautiful   though, huh? Okay, guys. It's -2°. We're on 3,20  m over sea level somewhere in Lesotho. And I think  

6:38 it's the best moment to make a small cooking  show because a question sometimes also, well,   the question comes up quite often um to show a  bit more from my everyday cooking life. First,   I got some new equipment. His name is um I don't  know what is his name. What do you think is a good  

6:52 name for this guy? Let me know because this is  Paula, the frying pan. Um how should we call a   new friend? I bought him today in Checkers. Um  together with a lot of cheese because cheese is   always very important I think for the vitamin C.  And today we'll have one of my signature dishes.  

7:06 It's a creamy cheesy pasta which needs not a lot  of ingredients and also not a lot of utensils to   cook and it's also pretty quick. At the same time  on this pot there's some eggs that I'm cooking   for tomorrow as well. It's good to have some  hardboiled eggs and such a journey because they  

7:22 keep fresh for a long time full of proteins.  They're easy to handle. So eggs are always   convenient. Also if you're up on this altitude  when you boil eggs and you set yourself a timer   uh so that the hard boiled you have to consider  that because of the altitude they take quite a  

7:35 bit longer to to cook because the water boils at  less than 100° up here. So I put the timer to 8   and 1/2 minutes. Um and hope that's enough recipe  here. some tomato paste. You can find tomato paste   almost everywhere. It's sometimes hard to find  nice natural one that doesn't have a lot of sugar  

7:49 and [ __ ] inside. But this is good one. On top  of that, some milk. If you want to be even less   healthy, you can also add some cream. And this  will be my sauce. There we go. Looks very strange,   but it'll be very tasty and not very healthy. But  there'll be vitamin C called vitamin cheese. Also,  

8:05 if you want to see where e34expeditions camped,  you can sometimes see it because some cheese might   have fallen down somewhere. That's all. Don't  leave anything else in nature when camping.   A bit of cheese is okay. Oh, and I also have  some garlic. I'll add some garlic. Okay, the  

8:19 eggs should be done. Let's go. And make sure they  get some cold water. We have enough of that here. Okay, got ready. Pasta's cooking. That's great.  And as soon as they're done, the cheese, milk,   tomato sauce, and garlic. Oh yeah. Stirring  it a bit softly. Don't worry. They also eat  

8:42 vitamins once a while, but this is the  soul food when crossing Africa. You know,   not many countries have a good cheese supply.  Pasta is almost done. Not 100%. And it's perfect   because now I add it to this very liquid type  cheesy sauce and I'll still Yeah. leave it inside  

9:00 the sauce for a few minutes. So, absorb all the  nice cheese taste. This will be really tasty. Then   I only need four ingredients. Huh? Cheese, milk,  tomato paste, and pasta. That's all. Okay. salt,   but I guess everybody has salt who cooks. Okay,  so I'm sitting in my living room. Turned on the  

9:16 engine a bit just to heat up the car a little.  And food is ready and it does smell very very   good. Okay guys, food was great and now it's time  to be productive because yeah, without this time   spending there wouldn't be any video for you  to watch. So yeah, let's go. Okay guys, it is  

9:32 uh 8:45 in the evening and I just went outside to  get some from Theodors boot and I have to show you   something. It's already frosty here. Yeah. Yeah.  This will be cold tonight. It's already freezing.   Oh, even this is frozen already. Damn it. Oh,  yeah. I was outside for like 3 minutes and it's  

9:49 so cold. I am seriously worried about this night.  This is not a good idea, guys. Okay. Also have the   most nerdy thermometer here. My multimeter, but  also can measure temperature. And in the car,   it's 11° right now. Not too bad. I'm not ready  to go outside. Oh, damn it. Ah, damn it, SC.

10:08 Oh, directly going down. -2 -3 -4. My goodness.  - 5. Oh, damn. - 6. That's not good. And it's not   even 9:00 in the evening yet. Have a small life  hack. These things are hand warmers. They work a   bit like a power bank, but they can also heat.  It's not a big difference, but if you add like  

10:28 a small heat source into a sleeping bag, it really  helps. They're like €30 on Amazon or so. They will   heat for I think seven or eight hours non-stop.  Not super super hot, but still like my feet feet   are cold. I put them to my feet and at some point  I move them somewhere here or so where it's cold.  

10:44 Put them wherever. And it really helps to keep you  a little bit warm in extreme climates like here.   Okay. Currently it's only minus 3 in the tent. But  you can also see like these little frosty crystals   already on the inside shining. It's uh not the  best sign. It says minus 9 in the the tent now.  

11:03 Um, this will be a really cold night. Okay, guys.  This was a really cold night. Oh, yeah. You can   see what the tent looks like. Flo ice. Yeah,  not the optimal idea. I'm in my sleeping bag   and I still added this blanket because at some  point did get cold and it's 6:00 in the morning,  

11:24 still dark. Still pretty much recall this  time. I'll still definitely stay in the tent   for at least 1 hour. I'll try to get a bit more  sleep now. Okay, guys. I'm still pretty sleepy.   It also wasn't the best night to be honest. It  was cold, cold, cold, cold. Uh, my hand warmers,  

11:41 my electric ones really helped. I think I wouldn't  have been very happy without them tonight. I think   I'll wait and hope that the sun will make a bit  of difference for them up a bit. Ah, that's my   water bottle. Huh, that's well frozen. Okay, time  to get up. It's only Well, it's 40° in here now,  

11:57 so it's pretty luxurious. Nah, I can see what's  cold. Hey, I got our welcoming shoes here. Looks   like he's an Arctic expedition here. My goodness.  Ah, there it went. Damn it. I think yesterday was   colder than the other nights because all this  ice that's here now wasn't yesterday. It's all  

12:17 frozen. Better not walk on it, though. Um, yeah.  Crazy. I mean, look at it. Even here, I mean,   it's basically moving waterh. And it's it's  frozen all the way. There's a small waterfall. My goodness. Beautiful though. Look  at these details here. Amazing.  

12:46 Somewhere in 3,000 m over sea level in  Africa. It's crazy if you think of it.   Okay, Theodor is warming up a bit and now it's  definitely time for a well deserved coffee.   Theodor is warming up. I warmed up some water  to wash the dishes from yesterday and a coffee   is getting prepared. All that combined with this  amazing view here. It's a really good morning.  

13:13 I think it's still freezing. All this frost is  still there where the sun didn't reach it yet.   Looking very authentic indeed. Beautiful though.  And now it's slowly starting to melt. Ah, but look   at it. Also, all the ice here on the Brooklet.  Some of it is moving, some isn't up there. It's  

13:31 completely frozen. Beautiful, beautiful day here  in the Lizian mountains. Is that how I say it?   I have no clue. Anyway, in Lisoto, but I think  my tent will not dry really well today. It's so   frozen here. It's all humid also on the inside for  the first time. Yeah, not made for winter. I think  

13:50 the worst thing is putting back the tent together  because the hands get so painful and cold. I think   it's working right. The circulation of the blood  isn't so good and it's wet and cold. And now I'm   trying to remove the sand board here and it's all  frozen into the ice. My goodness. A You know this  

14:03 feeling when the hands are just burning because  they're too cold and fingers. It's so painful.   But enough crying. It'll get better in a moment, I  guess. And we're driving to go skiing. I hope they   rent out gloves because I don't have any gloves  with me. Um it's only I think 4 km from here. So  

14:18 really not far. Driving up this beautiful mountain  road. Yeah. Time to go skiing. My goodness, in   Lysoto. I cannot believe it. Let's go. Yeah, we're  on the free ski grounds and it's strange. You have   to pay 150 entrance fee, which is like €7,50. It's  actually quite a lot of money here just to get  

14:34 onto the um yeah ski area where you may then buy a  ski ticket and rent the equipment and everything.   I don't quite understand honestly. I mean, you pay  entrance to to to pay for the next service. Um,   yesterday I managed to avoid it because apparently  after 5:00 p.m. it's free and I well I was at 20  

14:51 to 5 and they made an exception. They were  nice enough. Now I had to pay a lot of money   in Africa. And yes, I said Africa is general. I'm  sorry. I mean I know it has over 50 countries but   some tendencies you find in most of them at  least. Oh well, let's go skiing. Whatever.

15:10 Okay. Waiting in line for ski pass in  ski rental. That really feels like it's   somewhere very different. I'm getting some  ski boots. This is exciting. Serious here. Oh,   this is fun. Walking in ski boots. And I feel  like such a tourist wearing just jogging pants   and a regular jacket. No ski outfit at all. But  the guys are so nice here when they found out  

15:28 that I'm a ski teacher overseas. They gave me the  best service. They still sharpening my skis. Let   me choose the rental ones. Got the best ones.  I found old ones, but you'll be fine. So guys,   this is exciting. I want to see K lift. Very  slow old lift. No idea where they found that  

15:42 double Maya. It's Austrian brand. Um, rare.  They still found some uh gloves for me in the   lost found box that I can use for the day.  I really want to buy gloves for one day and   they don't rent them out. Super nice of them.  Yeah. Off we go. This is super exciting. Okay,   guys. So, how is it to ski in Listo? I'm on the  ski lift. I almost reached the top here. Normally,  

16:03 it would go further, but apparently there's not  enough snow for it to go that far. So, only eight   of these ski lift poles are Yeah. being snowed.  So, put this way. Yeah. And I'm reaching the top.   Now we go down and going up takes I think 4  minutes and going down takes 20 seconds. So that's  

16:18 a very short experience. But it's still a bit fun,  huh? Always good to go skiing once in a while. Yeah, I'm back on lift already. It goes very quick  here. I have to say I cannot imagine skiing more   than I think half a day because I mean yeah the  slope is very small. I guess it's a cool place for  

16:46 beginners because I mean there's still some small  beginner slopes here. Um so if you're a beginner   it's I guess quite a good option to yeah have  some lessons here. But yeah, look at the slope.   It's like I should time it next time. I guess it  takes 20 seconds to drive down. So still nice to  

17:02 ski. Not complaining. Yeah, some jumps here.  Let's check them out later as well. And then   later today, I have to make sure to maybe find  a camping spot which is a bit less high. Yeah,   maybe also change my skis. I think they're a  bit too short. Oh well, somewhere in this photo,  

17:22 huh? Oh, yeah. I bet somebody will ask how much  you pay for skiing here. Um, basically I paid   about €60 for a day pass, including rental  equipment. So, it is cheaper than in Europe,   but it's of course very expensive considering how  short the stop is. But you also have to be fair  

17:38 and consider that I mean I think the season  is only three months a year. So these three   months have to yeah pay for the entire ski resort  slope whatever. Uh yeah but I guess for one day   it's fine. Back in the car and leaving the ski  resort. That was fun. And now it's time to head  

17:52 back towards South Africa. Let's go. Yeah. That's  currently the only ski slope in Africa as far as   I understand. There's one also in South Africa  which is closed for a couple of years already.   And this is also actually kind of a sad site  if you see. I mean only half is opened. The top  

18:07 part is closed. You can see it pretty well from  here. But it was fun for a few hours. But that was   also definitely enough because I mean you go up  with it for 5 minutes and then you go down in 20   seconds or so. So the ratio is a bit off the same  stop. But it was was good fun. And now let's go.

18:37 Okay, guys. I'm very worried. Theodor is  making very, very bad sounds out of the   gearbox or clutch or both. I'm not quite  sure. I don't know if you can hear it on   the camera. I don't like the sound of that.  Still 5 hours to go to Joberg altogether. 5   and a half I think or so. And I cannot  wait to get to check there because I  

18:52 mean here there's nothing we can do about  it. Huh. Ah, damn it. Sorry to be fine. doing 10 minutes ride to the border to South  Africa. So, I almost made it to South Africa at   least. After that, it'll be about 4 hours ride  to Johannesburg. And I have to say, the sounds   that my gearbox makes are absolutely horrible.  I'm trying to shift as little as possible. So,  

19:16 I'm driving almost all the time in the third gear  as long as I can. But even if I'm in the gear, it   makes some scraping noises. I bet you don't really  hear them on the camera, but I mean, Theodor went   strong for 55,000 km without any problem. Then the  stupid timing belt tour, which I don't blame on  

19:30 him. And now this, I mean, many kilometers, huh?  I'm not disappointed in him. He's doing absolutely   great all in all, but I'm already considering if  I should try to get a tow truck because I hope I   don't destroy anything since I'm continuing like  this. God damn it. So, good news is there's some  

19:48 cars in front of me towards the border. So, I  hope the Buddha is still open because I know   that quite a few Buddhas close already at 400 p.m.  and I will reach the border around 4:50 p.m. Uh,   I think I'll take a campground after that as  well because yeah, nothing on I land except  

20:02 for a campground and I have to try to now get to  Johannesburg as directly as possible. But then   the next side quest is I mean Johannesburg is uh  one of the most dangerous cities in the world. So,   also not the place where you want to get stuck  with a broken car in the middle of the wrong  

20:16 neighborhood. This will be hectic as people in  South Africa tend to say hectic. Very hectic   indeed. Yeah. Okay. The Buddha's right in front  of us. Play sto and go back to South Africa. Also time to turn off the camera so  I don't get into trouble here. Okay,   so it's still 18 minutes to the campground  and Theodor sounds horrible. I'm really  

20:44 worried about his health. But the border  took I think about three minutes. Do you   hear this? Trying to shift gears. And that's  the noise it makes. I can't shift at all. No. Now I managed. Ah, god damn it. I'm  considering to get a tow truck tomorrow   for the last uh few hundred km to Joborg  because I'm not sure if we can make it  

21:11 like this to be honest. God damn it. Well, for  now, I think a camping spot is not a bad idea   because it's already getting late. Following a  farmer. Um, here's a small camping spot here.   No idea how much it costs, but it's right  next to the road, so it's no detour. So,   it's good for my mechanical problems not to make  any detours and was close to the border. So,  

21:32 I'm yeah, spending the night here, friendly guy.  And then tomorrow, it's still about 4 hours ride   to the BMW dealership in J'burg. That'll take care  of Theodor. arriving at the farm and I see this   guy also also owns a BMW. That's of course very  good. And doggies. I like doggies. That's nice.  

21:53 Okay. It's really really beautiful here. Look  at this view. Absolutely magnificent. Had a look   underneath here. It's definitely dry. No oil is  coming out of the gearbox. Also nothing visible,   but the sounds are horrible. So yeah, hope  I'll make it to draw tomorrow. Tune in next  

22:10 Friday to see if we made it to Johannesburg  without a tow truck at this point. Also,   welcome to all the new subscribers. I'm very  happy to have every single one of you on board.