Highest pub in Africa

It’s impossible to miss the building at 2874 meters above sea level, which is even higher than Machu Picchu. At the top, surrounded by bruised sky and stubborn terrain, you don’t find enlightenment or a herd of Instagram influencers. You find a pub. The highest pub in Africa. Naturally.

Sani Mountain Lodge sits like a weather-beaten fortress at the barren eastern edge of Lesotho, a country that feels more like a secret than a nation. The air up there is thinner, the beer colder, and everything tastes like it was hard-earned—because it was.

Sani Mountain Lodge.

I enter the lodge and have a look at the simple bar. The beverage of choice is of course a Maluti beer, brewed by the only brewery in Lesotho, Maluti Mountain Brewery. The beer isn’t great, but it’s glorious.

The lodge started out as a rustic inn in 1913, providing shelter for weary traveling traders. It feels good to arrive over a century later, finding that the place is still there.

Having a Maluti beer at the highest pub in Africa.

We exit the lodge and gaze at the impressive mountain range called Drakensberg, the highest mountain range in southern Africa. An unexpected soundtrack was provided by the local band on a nearby hilltop, who looked like ninja versions of Tuareg nomads.

The local band. I have no idea what they’re doing.

Lesotho sprawls out in a tapestry of rock and cloud, slopes that look like they were painted by a god with a hangover. Civilization feels a hundred years away. And yet, here we are, sipping a Maluti at the roof of the continent.