A Whirlwind Tour of Swaziland
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2007
1
36
38
Trip End
Jun 2007
Mbabane,
Swaziland
Friday, June 1, 2007
Once again, my overstay in Tofo affected my onward travel plans. A visit to Lesotho has been cancelled; I don't think I'd have time to do the place justice. It's also snowing there, and my shorts and t-shirts mightn't quite hold up. I decided to still pass through Swaziland, as it was on my way, but I only spent a day there. I caught a minibus from Maputo, and for the first time we were seated three to a row, not four (or more!), as it had always been in other countries. The reason: it was a Swazi combi (the latest word for matatu), and I was about to enter into a country which feels like an extension of South Africa, which is quasi-First World.
The drive to the border was spent sleeping, so I can't tell much about the landscape we saw. Border crossing procedures were the most relaxed to date; no queues, no visa payments, no hassles, and not even a single moneychanger! A few kilometres down the road, however, we were stopped at a police checkpoint where my bags were searched more thoroughly than they ever had been before. The Swazi landscape was beautiful, gently sloped, rounded hills of lowveld, painted red and yellow by winter, glowing and treeless, almost radiating warmth in its wonderful colours. The road was excellent - one of the best I have seen in Africa. Although rural areas had circular huts for houses, the people didn't look poor, in comparison to the poverty of Mozambique, at least.
As we approached Manzini the roadside sported more and more enormous billboards advertising this and that - Western commercialism was fast approaching. My visit to Manzini consisted of buying a few overpriced bananas for my lunch, and getting further transport to Swaziland's capital, Mbabane, 45km away. Because of the good road this trip took only twenty-five minutes. I couldn't help but think of how the 90km journey from Kasanga to Sumbawanga in Tanzania had taken nine hours. Whatever grievances I may have had about the Americanization (or South Africanization, to be more accurate) of Swaziland, good roads were very welcome.
The first thing I did in Mbabane was to enquire about buses to Durban. It transpired that they actually leave from Manzini, where I had just come from. I considered backtracking and staying the night there, but it was so close (time-wise) that I decided to stay in Mbabane. I trekked through town, looking for the Christian guesthouse that my guidebook said had Mbabane's cheapest bed. When I did find it I was shocked to hear that the price was about €18 a night, nearly my entire daily budget. My fright at this price must have been so outwardly visible that the receptionist took pity on me and said I should talk to the pastor, who might reduce the price for me. I was ushered into his office, and warmly greeted by this jolly, plump man. I told him I didn't have €18 to spend on a bed, and he sympathetically let me stay for €10.
I wandered into town then and ate junk food for lunch, it was either that or restaurant food at exorbitant prices. I spent the afternoon online, checking emails, and walking around shops trying to get as many 1 Lilangeni coins in change as I could. This coin, worth about €0.10, has the most convenient feature that it has the exact same weight and size as the English one pound coin. I intend to make a few rather dishonest trips to English vending machines when living in London.
The reason for my mischievous idleness was partly because I was tired (recall that it was the day before that I had made the journey from Tofo to Maputo), and partly because there was absolutely nothing to do in Mbabane, whose size is so small, home to only 50,000 people. And, to be honest, its Western feeling, with huge, shiny shopping centres and fast food chains, depressed me. Already I missed the bustle of "real" African cities; here everything was dull, drugged, commercial and depressing. I have begun to think a lot about commercialism, and this taken-for-granted idea that Westernization is better. In the West everyone is so consumed by their wants and "needs" to have more and more material wealth, prizes and possessions, that they become slaves to capitalism. They work longer and harder to get those things they believe will fill the holes in their souls, and in the process only become emptier. I think Africa has turned me into some sort of a hippy.
I ate a disgusting meal at KFC for my dinner, returning to the guesthouse before darkness fell. Mbabane is yet another town where post-sundown activities are ruled out by high levels of street crime. This imprisonment was the final nail in the coffin for any thoughts of remaining in Swaziland. To enjoy this country at all I would have to go into rural areas, something I simply didn't have time to do. So it was decided I would move on to Durban the next day, entering South Africa, the twelfth and final country of my journey through Africa.
