My obsessive travels

The motivation to go on a new adventure can strike at any time. When we are tired of being cooped up in our own reality, ideas surface and hurried plans are formed.

Friends and I had heard of ancient lithified dinosaur footprints in the Kingdom of Lesotho, and we were determined to find them.
On a rainswept December day we headed for the border with food, a map and an idea.
Having missed the first location for prints, we headed South to the bottom of the Kingdom, to the unassuming shanty town of Quthing. It was late, we had nowhere to stay, but nothing would stop us getting to our ancient prints.
We had no idea what to expect there, but as it turned out having no expectations put us in good stead. We stopped at a very busy petrol station along the way to fill up, and as we did so we felt more and more conspicuous. We were among late night revellers, returning from taverns etc. People shouted, eyed us out, and after sitting around wondering who worked there and if we'd ever get fuel, a man with a shotgun strapped to his back motioned for us to drive to him. With trepidation I did so, but we were relieved to see an attendant come over to help us.

Just before midnight we pulled into Quthing, hoping to sleep at a dimly lit petrol station. I got the attention of someone who appeared to work there. His English was not great, my Sotho non existent, but he understood me, and I him. I asked if we could stay there, not in any accommodation, just in the car in the relative safety of the station. I then asked if it was safe to do so. He advised me to hold on and scurried off to speak to some sort of co-worker, who we hoped was not some sort of co-conspirator rather. They chatted in his taxi for some time before he returned with the good news. We could stay.
After several uncomfortable hours of sleep, we rose to a grey dawn. We greeted another shotgun-wielding guard, thanked the guy who let us stay, and left.

The door to the site was locked but I noticed that the walls didn't go all the way up to the roof. We had gone too far to be overcome by a mere wall, and so we quietly scaled it and jumped inside.
I stared in wonder, took my photos, and we walked where dinosaurs had walked around 200 million years before us.

We are no stranger to footprints, not now, not when our species dawned. We leave them all the time. And I think it is for that reason that seeing dinosaur prints is so thrilling. Such a transient thing, brought forward in time by millions of years.