| Swaziland |
| First views of the country - rural villages of mud and concrete houses, roofless buildings, burnt-out cars. |
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| As if living inside an African Nature Reserve isn't enough, there is a pet ostrich walking around the pool most of the time. |
| And suddenly here we are at Sondzela Lodge inside the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary with an atmosphere for royalty and $8 beds. It's a great place to base your Swaziland experience. |
| After being there for a week, Swaziland became one of my favourite countries in some important ways. However, crossing the border from South Africa into Swaziland for the first time hardly seemed like passing into another country. Things looked pretty much the same, but there are some distinct differences. First of all, almost none of its 1.1 million people are "white", and because the policy of apartheid never existed here, there is no associated "hangover" as you definitely can feel in South Africa. The other distinguishing features are the Swati language and the unique history of a small country struggling to hold onto its independence despite immense pressure. And finally the thing I noticed the most - possibly the friendliest race of people I have ever encountered. Another unique thing about Swaziland is that it is the last remaining African monarchy, under the rule of King Mswati who among other things has established comprehensive laws forbidding sex between people under 18 (to combat the spread of AIDS) and then married a 17 year old girl, which caused quite a controversy in 2001. At the age of 33, he then had eight wives, 15 children, and 200 brothers and sisters. We'll see what happens next. Swaziland doesn't really have any single attraction that makes people say "wow" like Table Mountain or the Pyramids of Egypt. It does however have many beautiful natural environments and a warm spirit that takes only a short time to appreciate. |
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| They're adding onto the resort by building traditional style houses. It was good to see just how they're made. |
| This is how one gets around much of the time in South Africa, in a public taxi, although in Swaziland I hitch-hiked quite a bit, and I swear I got picked up by the first car that passed nearly every time. Once it was a policeman and I had to ride in the "cage" when there wasn't room up front, and there was blood on the floor from a recent traffic casualty. |
| One guy gave me a ride and turned out to be a Scottish lad who'd married a Mozambique girl and made a home in Swaziland. He took us home to their village and made us feel welcome. When we left a group from the village ran behind shouting to wish us well on our travels. It's times like this which made Swaziland one of my favourite places. |
| I think this image also says something about my experience in Swaziland. People are seldom in a hurry and might just sit under a shady tree for hours talking and joking. I saw this kind of thing a lot and the relaxed example can't help but rub off on you. |
| The "Tea Road" winds its way to the top of the Mdzimba Mountains, burial place for Swazilands Kings. This place was featured in the tale of King Solomon's Mines, and overlooks the road to Sondzela Lodge. . |
| We usually hitch-hiked or rode the public taxi as far as a huge plant nursrey called Vickery Seedlings and then walked the remaining 2km to Sondzela. The walk passes a huge pineapple field and there was ripe fruit in many locations. I have fond memories of this walk, usually around sunset after a day of exploring. |
| I went past the Ezulwini Valley Craft Market many times, and on one of the last days I had to spend some time there, and now I seem to have quite a few things from there on the shelf. Particularly popular here are ebonywood and soapstone carvings, hand-woven baskets, and the unavoidable wooden Giraffe which is found throughout sub-Saharahn Africa. |
| A group of funny Dutch guys, who we had a fantastic night with (including hillarious jokes and everyone jumping in the swimming pool) took us into the main city of Mbabane where they hoped to find the Mozambique embassy. They hoped to get their visas and say goodbye, and we found the embassy on the edge of the city as well as this fella who was doing visa photos as a sideline business with a Poloroid camera, a chair, and a shelter made of tree branches and plastic bags. He seemed quite interested in us, but unfortunately for him the guys already had the required photographs. |
| Mbabane is an interesting stop in a Swaziland visit. Aside from Manzini 50km away, it is the only real "city" in Swaziland and offers a dose of "Western" civilisation with it's air-con shopping centres and semi-fashionable cafes. There is also a big bus and taxi rank, where you can get a ride to just about anywhere in the country which has a road. I was looking for a camera shop someone told me about, and when I asked a bank security guard for directions, he insisted on walking with me through the city to show me the way. Again, this is the spirit of Swaziland with someone always offering a helping hand. Great people! |
| One evening at Sondzela a bunch of us packed into a 4wd and went over to the park headquarters to see a traditional Swazi cultural show. I wished they had explained the meaning of each dance more, but it was captivating, with lots of shouting and legs kicking in the air. The Swazi are a proud society, and the men are usually very athletic. They have traditionally used dance as a means of keeping fit for battle. The women in the audience seemed to enjoy the shiny green shorts the men were wearing under their animal skins. |
| And of course I took advantage of this very clear evening to make some more moon photos... |
| The last day at Sondzela I finally did a long walk through the park, which is one of the best reasons for living inside it. You just need to walk out of the Lodge and over a small footbridge and you are in a pretty wild place. Maybe you can get a sense of what a peaceful day it was from these pictures. I walked for hours and climbed all the way to the top of "Execution Rock", at the top of the hill on the horizon. Along the way I saw Zebra, Giraffe, Kudu, Hippo, Wildebeest, Warthog, Impala, and Crocs in the waterholes. Click on the "Animals" link at the bottom of this page to see them. |
| From the top of Execution Peak (so named because of a long delicately-balanced flat rock at the summit extending out over the edge like the plank convicted criminals on the high seas were previously forced to walk off a ship) I could see the entire journey from the lodge. In the adrenaline rush that followed, I made it back in only an hour, but maybe that was a mistake... |
| Despite eating juicy plumbs and drinking lots of water along the way, I returned seriously dehydrated from my long walk through the park on the evening before I was to leave Sondzela Lodge and go down to Zululand, and I litterally fell into the swimming pool totally exhausted and dying for a drink. However, I have a hard time remembering a better place to end a journey. |
| Just as I found all around the Transkei, aloe huge vera plants were everywhere, and some of them were huge. It made me feel silly to have paid for aloe vera gel in the city. If you have a cut or a burn, just break off a piece of this plant and rub it on your skin. |
| In the distance, you could see the Sondzela Lodge and also the city of Mbabane on the horizon. |