Swaziland

  Mbabane, Swaziland
Tuesday, January 3, 2006

Hello Everyone,
We left Nelspruit and took about a 5 hour drive south east to go to Swaziland. It is a small landlocked country. It is bordered by Mozambique to the East and surrounded by South Africa everywhere else. It is very tiny, only 17363 sq kilometers. You could drive across it in a little over 2 hours. Although it is so small it actually has over 120 species of mammals. It is one of the few countries left in the world with a true monarchy. The king currently has 9 wives, and each year picks another new one. There is much controversy about him. His country is one of the poorest in Africa, but he lavishes himself with a private jet costing millions of dollars, as well as throwing himself very expensive birthday parties, etc. Apparently most of the Swazi people have great admiration for him though. There is also a queen mother, just like in England. This country is supposed to have one of the highest HIV rates in Africa as well as an average age expectancy of 27! because of it.

Someone should write a book on how to go through the borders in some of these countries. There is no direction as where to go or what to do. Just try to follow what most others are doing that are carrying passports. It can take a while to get through. It isn't all in one like how we go from Canada to the United States. You drive and park, exit from the 1st country, then go to a totally seperate area and buildings and then enter into the 2nd country. Then go back to your car(which is still inside the first country) and drive across the border.

On the way to our accomodation we drove through and area called Piggs Peak, it was quite a high elevation. Very nice scenary, mountainous and green. It was first settled by someone named Mr. Pigg, who apparnetly had a son that married a girl from a nearby family whose last name was Hogg, no joke! We drove through another thunder and lightening storm. We arrived at the city of Mbabane.

We checked into another backpackers. This one was okay, nothing too special. We stayed 2 nights here. We also drove past a large granite dome which is only 2nd in size to Ayers rock in Australia. It was very impressive. We went to a well known glass blowing factory in the area. They blow recycled glass, which is supposed to be much more difficult. The workers here were trained by a man from Switzerland. They had some very nice stuff. There was also a shop near by that makes rocking horses from different kinds of hardwood. They cost in the thousands, and are stunning.

We went to a craft market, Swaziland is very well know for it's crafts. It is a stretch of stalls that goes on for over a kilometre. It does get quite repetative in product after a while, so no need to do it all. In almost every long skinny stall if you went into the back you were sure to find a small sleeping baby. They were lying on anything from straw mats to baskets.

We left the the first backpackers and went to another one that is inside Mlilwane Game Reserve. It is known as the limosine of backpackers. It is called Sondzela BackPackers. It was definately the nicest one we have stayed in so far. It has the most beatiful view of the game reserve and mountains. You can stay in double or dorm like rooms in the main building. This also has the kitchen, some bathrooms and a living room area. Or you can have your own private rondeval away from the main building. There are more sets of showers and toilets in a small building near the rondevals. For a charge of $36 we chose our own rondeval. It was quite a nice size with a very high ceiling again, a fan, and a sink. The view was great, and every morning we would be visited by animals. Impala, wort hogs and some different kinds of bucks. The resort also had a nice pool and offered a cheap meal by the outside fire each night if you didn't want to cook your own.

Here's a photo of the rondeval accomodations and a view just outside our rondavel


The reserve is very nice. You can drive yourself around or hire a guide with 4 wheel drive. There are also many walking trails that will take you past all kinds of wildlife including hippos and crocidiles, obviously don't get too close to the waters edge.



We drove around on two different days, it was nice to drive ourselves, we got to spend a lot of time observing animal behaviour and get some great pictures. We saw zebras, impala, worthog, crocidile, hippo, many differnet bucks, a rare one called the Nyala. As well as many colourful birds.








One night we went to a different camp set up within the reserve. We had a nice buffet dinner by a large hippo pond. It had a tree at one edge of it covered in hundreds of white Ibis birds. It also had a lot of large fish you could see, and turtles that were so used to being fed that you could stick your hand out over the restaurant patio and snap your fingers to call them to you. They would eagerly swim towards you, they were a bit dissapointed when I had nothing to feed them with.

Jack sitting at our dining table near the water


The highlight of this evening was the traditional Swazi dancing we got to see. There were 3 large drums used. Some were dressed in warrior like costumes and others in clothing which represented either the King or the Queen mother. It was very exciting to watch and listen to the drumming. As we drove back to our accomodation in the dark we were quite surprised to have to drive through hundreds of huge cows on the road back up to the backpackers. Some were as big as the car and didn't seem to want to move out of the way.




This backpackers held a lot of people, we guessed at least 50. It could get very busy trying to cook dinner, but it was a good atmoshphere. We had a great stay at this backpackers, we would definately recommend it.

Next stop, back into South Africa to a town called St. Lucia on the coast. It is in the province of Kwazulu Natal. Home of the zulu tribe, remember the movie Shaka Zulu anyone???