The most common way into Lesotho is via the frontier town of Ficksburg, and then the border capital of Maseru. Counter-intuitively, once across the border, it doesn’t feel at all like South Africa. One reason is that no part of Lesotho lies below 1 400m, which means the mountain kingdom – and the world’s highest country – is also essentially a world perched in the sky. It’s a place of cooler climes and rugged beauty. But virtually none of the roads are fenced or tarred and here rivers cross roads rather than the other way around.

Now, with renewable energy expenditures having for the first time trumped investments in fossil fuels ($187 billion in 2010 vs. $157 billion respectively), Lesotho is reaping the renewable whirlwind – and in a big way. The R110 billion project is the biggest of its kind in Africa (80 percent is financed via Chinese loans). The timing is, if anything, fortuitous, given the November climate conference (COP17) in Durban last year.