African Sky Hotels - Harrismith Inn

You stay at Harrismith Inn for the crossroads. The hotel sits where the N3 and N5 highways meet, a junction for traffic between Johannesburg, Durban and Bloemfontein. The Drakensberg mountains begin just beyond the car park.

The building holds a hundred and fourteen en-suite rooms with air-conditioning, satellite television and tea stations. The restaurant serves breakfast and dinner from a buffet and an à la carte menu; the bar stays open through the evening. A generator keeps the lights on during power cuts.

Conference rooms take from forty to two hundred guests in cinema, schoolroom or boardroom layouts. The gym has weights and treadmills; the laundry service handles dry-cleaning. A swimming pool stands behind the building.

The town of Harrismith was laid out in 1849 at the meeting of trade routes. The hotel still serves the same crossroads, now paved and numbered.