Just 44km from Maseru,
MORIJA , established in 1833 as the first mission in Lesotho, is a pleasant little town 1km off the main road at the foot of the Makhoarane Plateau. It's easy to get to Morija from Maseru with your own or public transport, with buses and minibus taxis running throughout the day in both directions. Morija is also a good spot to pick up transport going further south to Mafeteng and Mohale's Hoek.
Morija houses the country's only museum and Lesotho's oldest building, church and printing press. Granted by King Moshoeshoe I to three missionaries of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society (PEMS), Eugene Casalis, Thomas Arbousset and Constant Gossellin, they gave the place the name that Abraham bestowed on the mountain where he was reprieved from killing his son by God (it means "God will provide").
The large, red-brick mission church , with its impressive teak-beamed roof, is almost always open. Begun in 1847, this is the third church built on this site, using the labour of Pedi economic migrants on their way to the Cape Colony, though its tall steeple was only built in 1905. You have to make special arrangements to get in to see the historic printing works nearby, which have produced Sotho literature since the 1860s and the country's oldest newspaper, Leselinyana la Lesotho (Little Light of Lesotho), which has been in almost continual publication since 1863.
Most of Morija was razed to the ground by Afrikaner troops in 1858, and almost the only building left standing was the Maeder House , built in 1843 and now Lesotho's oldest building. Today, this simple stone house next to the mission church contains a small craft shop, selling inexpensive Sotho hats, dolls, carvings, tapestries and batiks. Close by, the Morija Museum & Archives (Mon-Sat 8am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm; M5) is a stimulating combination of a geological and fossil exhibition, ethnographic material and historic items of Moshoeshoe and his contemporaries, and a useful commentary on Lesotho's history and modern-day political issues. The geological and fossil displays are presented somewhat drily, although the dinosaur exhibits are striking, but you should find something of interest amongst the ethnographic and historical items, including a succession of treaties broken by the British, Moshoeshoe's china tea set, and a khau , the beautiful V-shaped neck ornament awarded to brave Sotho soldiers. The archives have yet to be fully organized and catalogued, but you are allowed to dip into them under supervision and see what you can unearth among the jumble of nineteenth-century missionary tracts and records and some valuable Africana. The museum also produces a booklet , A Guide to Morija , which tells you everything and more that you could possibly want to know about the town, including some pointers to nearby sites of interest. The museum's tea shop (Mon-Sat 9am-4.30pm, Sun 2-4.30pm) offers cold drinks and simple Basotho meals; you can sit either in the cool little rondavel or on the attractive lawns outside. In early October every year, the museum helps organize the Morija Arts and Cultural Festival ( ), the largest and most significant event of its kind in the country, where traditional music, dancing and crafts mix with theatre, cinema, sport and children's events.
Linked to Morija Museum is a pleasant place to stay in the self-catering Ha Matela Guesthouse (tel 36 0308; R100-150), set in a dramatic spot right at the top of the town on the way to the Makhoarane Plateau. The large thatched house has a number of comfortable rooms and a large verandah with great views out over the surrounding area. A simpler, smaller house in the village is also available to let. If you organize it beforehand, catering can be arranged with the tea room at the museum. The lodge can also arrange pony trekking for competitive rates.
The best of a number of walking trails marked out from Morija leads to a dinosaur footprint on one side of a large rock, halfway up the Makhoarane Plateau . To get there, make first for the Ha Matela Guesthouse , up the hill behind the museum, and from there head for the plateau, across a donga , following a succession of red arrows. Though a stiff climb to the rock, much of the path is sheltered by trees and the footprint itself is impressive, though rather faint; it takes about an hour there and back.
