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I hitched a ride into Swaziland from Maputo with Lou and Fran the owners of The Base Backpackers in the city; they were just going to the country on a day trip and offered me a ride. We reached the Mozambique border town of Namaacha at about 08.00 in the morning. It wasn't busy and it didn't take long to go through immigration formalities in the new, very modern looking immigration offices on both sides of the border. I was impressed; I was expecting something a bit more low-tech. We continued into Swaziland passing through a few more roadblocks, one for foot and mouth control and another manned by the army, for what purpose I don't know but they checked our travel documents anyway. We continued on our way to Manzini through the scrubby lowveld landscape and past endless sugar cane plantations. Sugar was once the largest export from Swaziland and is still today a major export crop. The road also passed through the Hlane Royal National Park, Hlane meaning wilderness, a 30,000 hectare conservation area in the lowveld. We passed by a troop of baboons sitting beside the road and also some small herds of impala.
Lou dropped me off at the Swaziland Backpackers on the western side of Manzini near Matsapha, just over the Lusushwana River. Manzini was the combined administrative centre for the British and the Boers between 1890 and 1902 and today is the country's largest city and industrial centre. Downtown Manzini is small and there is not a lot to see or do so I didn't bother stopping. The hills around the city are covered in factories and warehouses and the sprawl seems to go on forever, this was not what I was expecting to see in Swaziland. On the nearby Matsapha Industrial Site is a large Coca Cola plant. It is only one of seven concentrate factories in the world and supplies concentrate to over thirty countries in Africa and Asia. Today Coca Cola is the countries major revenue earner, replacing sugar, which is also the major ingredient in the concentrate.
The Swaziland Backpackers was not what I expected after reading their leaflet in Maputo. It was a mistake to stay there and looking back on it I should of just left after Lou dropped me off, the country is small enough to easily get to the next town within an hour. For a start the hostel was in the middle of nowhere at the edge of this huge industrial sprawl around Manzini; the only place you could walk to was a rather tatty looking out of town retail park. The accommodation was not much better, both toilets were broken, pipes dripping water into a bucket and the management didn't seem bothered about anything except their own party they had going in the 'bar' area. When I arrived I was the only guest, later that evening two more people checked in. I really could not work out how this awful place stayed in business. A clue came when I found out that the Baz Bus, a backpackers bus that ferries travellers door to door between hostels across South Africa, stopped here. Later I found out that the Baz Bus had bought this hostel and used it as an overnight stop; suddenly everything began to make sense. The passengers on board the bus did not have a choice of where to stay if they were transiting through Swaziland because surely if you had a choice you would not stay at the Swaziland Backpackers.
I left as soon as I could the following morning and by 08.30 I was on the road and hitched a ride the short distance along the MR103 to the Malkerns junction. From here I walked to Malendela's restaurant and phoned the Sondzela Backpackers Lodge to come and pick me up. While I waited on this clear, warm, sunny morning I reflected on how good it felt to be away from last nights hostel. Many people I had met while travelling through this continent had recommended the Sondzela Lodge to me, it must have a reputation as big as Africa itself. It is situated in the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary and is a converted private house complete with a swimming pool on the lawn. Mlilwane is a small reserve created by Ted Reilly during the 1950's in the middleveld, characterised by rolling grasslands and more fertile soils than that of the lowveld to the east. The reserve is in the Lobamba Valley and is dominated by the ragged Nyonyane Peak to the west.
The Sondzela Lodge didn't disappoint me and lived up to its reputation. The location was wonderfully peaceful and quiet; there was also a bar with a satellite television (essential equipment while the World Cup is on), a fully equipped kitchen with even a small shop to buy some basic supplies. If you didn't want to cook you could order dinner, which would be served outside by the fire. Alternatively you could walk about twenty minutes to the main camp that also had a good restaurant. As soon as I arrived I walked to the main camp and sat down to a fried breakfast and pot of tea. The view from the open air restaurant looked out across a waterhole, famous for it's hippos, although all I could see was one crocodile lying on the mud in the sun. Throughout the camp impala and warthogs roamed freely, not bothered in the slightest by any human activity.
Between watching football in the mornings I went on hikes around the reserve. As the reserve is quite small it is feasible to see a lot of it on foot, although it is also possible to rent a mountain bike, ride a horse or take a tour in a Landrover. I enjoyed a long walk around the park, stopping frequently to watch the wildlife, mostly zebra, many species of antelope and troops of grey monkeys in the woods; it was nice to once again be out of the towns and cities and back in the wilderness. One of the main reasons, apart from the Sondzela Lodge, for coming here was to see the hippos. I wanted to record a sound bite of the hippos for my website and this was one of my last chances on this trip to see them. The hippos are famous at the restaurant as they feed them at 15.00 each afternoon and entice them out of the waterhole by leaving grain on the banks. I thought that this would be my ideal opportunity, but the hippos were no longer around. I walked up to the hippo pool, a lake created by a dam in the valley, but once again there were no hippos, just a couple of large crocodiles lazily swimming along the far shore. In the end I never saw a hippo, let alone heard one at Mlilwane, they had gone missing.
After watching the England, Argentina match on Friday, which finished at 15.30, I left the Sondzela Lodge and made my way to the capital, Mbabane. I walked back to the main road passing by pineapple plantations on the way and quickly managed to hitch a ride back to the junction with the MR103. From there it was a short minibus ride to the capital and I arrived at the bus station next to the Swazi Plaza just before 17.00. There are only a couple of travellers hostel in this small city, I chose The Chillage on Mission Street. When I arrived the owners were out but one of their friends was there and made me welcome.
Mbabane must be the smallest capital city I have ever visited with a population of just over 50,000; it would be a competition between Mbabane and Banjul in The Gambia. The city was founded in 1880 by Mickey Wells who built one hut as a canteen. By 1903 the city became the capital of the British Colonial administration, although still the city was nothing more than a collection of huts and small houses nestled in the valley between the mountains. The British choose this site for the capital because of the cooler mountain climate as the city sits at an altitude of 1,200m. Today I found a compact city with most of the facilities I would need, including two large shopping malls, the Swazi Plaza and across OK Road, the Mall. The people were all very friendly and helpful and I didn't feel threatened at all during the day, although I heard that at night it is a different story and crime is a problem.
I settled in at the Chillage and after an hour the owners, Des and Liz arrived with their young daughter, Ava. Des and Liz are originally from Britain and have been running a backpackers hostel in the city for about the last eight years. Previous to that they had been living for a couple of years in the north of Mozambique. Their hostel has a long reputation as a place to sit back, relax and, as the name suggests, chill out. I was the only guest staying that night and I felt more like I was staying at a friends house back home than a travellers hostel in Swaziland. Before I left Maputo I had agreed to contact Mandela, who was from Mbabane but was working in Maputo, who said he would be in the city this evening to see a band play. The phone at the Chillage was dead so I couldn't phone and Liz only had enough credit on her mobile phone to send a text message. It turned out that Des and Liz were also going to a party that night at the French Cultural Centre where the Black Roses were playing. The Black Roses are billed as Swaziland's best reggae band and this being a small town, I guessed was the place that Mandela would be at. We drove a short distance across the city to the French Cultural Centre where the party was already in full swing. Almost as soon as I walked into the building I saw Mandela in the crowd. I had only been in the city for a few hours and already Des, Liz, their friends and Mandela seemed like old friends to me.
There's not a great deal of interest for a visitor in Mbabane, but I found it a pleasant enough city to use as a base to explore the surrounding area. I went on a day trip to the Ezulwini Valley, the Royal Valley, and boarded a minibus in Mbabane that hurtled down the smooth, four-lane MR3 highway that stretched downhill in wide sweeping curves into the valley. The Ezulwini Valley, which means Place of Heaven, is a very scenic valley that is the centre of royal life in Swaziland. It is here that the royal residences of Lobamba and Ludzidzini are found, the main tourist attractions in the country. I have to admit that I was very disappointed with what I saw along this valley, it had more the feeling of a cheap American tourist strip, the road lined with motels, hotels and campsites. There were also casinos, which used to make a lucrative trade catering for South Africans until gambling was legalised in South Africa. It may be that I was visiting during the low season but the whole valley seemed to have the air of an amusement park that has gone out of fashion.
The royal residences are not open to the public, they were not marked on my map and apparently it is forbidden to take photos of them if you do find them. Instead, after stopping at a large roadside craft market, I made my way to the parliament building and the Swaziland National Museum next-door. The museum was small and had a varied display covering archaeology and traditional Swaziland life including traditional costumes and household items. There was also an interesting display of old photos of the royal family over the years. In a separate room were three of King Sobhuza's limousines, all classic American motors. The curator showed me to the room and told me that they were taking donations from visitors to help pay to restore them to their former glory.
Opposite the museum is the King Sobhuza II memorial park. King Sobhuza II reigned from 1921 to 1982 and was one of the world's longest reigning monarchs. The previous king, Bhunu reigned from 1894 to 1899 and when he died his son Sobhuza II was only five months old so his mother, Labotsibeni, became Queen Regent, a position she held until 1921. This park is where Sobhuza II lay in state before being buried elsewhere in the country. The present gardens were built with money donated by the Taiwanese government and are guarded twenty-four hours a day as they hold spiritual power. The current King, Mswati III left the country in 1982 to receive an education at an English public school before returning to the country two years later for his coronation. Just before my visit to the country the King had just married his ninth wife, only about a week after marrying wife number eight. Also situated in the valley is a cultural village, a reconstruction of an 1850's chiefs village designed to give tourists an idea of what traditional Swazi life is like. I didn't visit, I prefer to find the real thing rather than a show just put on for tourists; I took a bus back to Mbabane and made myself at home again at the Chillage.
I still felt that I had not found what traditional Swazi culture was about after visiting the Royal Valley, which for me was full of disappointments rather than insights into the culture of this kingdom. I talked this over with Des and Liz at the Chillage and they suggested that I take a trip out into the rural, northern region of the country with their friend Skinny, the taxi driver. I wasn't too sure what I would see on this trip as Skinny normally just drives passengers around the city, rather than taking tourists around the country sightseeing. The day started late when Skinny finally arrived at the Chillage with his car that had a leaking heater under the dashboard. Hot water was pouring out from under the dashboard and steam misting up the windscreen. We drove out of town to one of Skinny's friends who was a mechanic who disconnected the water pipes from the heater. After stopping at the mall downtown to pick up some snacks and drinks for the trip we finally got going at around 11.30.
We drove out of Mbabane and turned off onto the Pigg's Peak road at Motshane, 15km north of the city. We stopped along the way at a homestead of one of Skinny's school friends and had a brief look around. The huts were circular and built of mud with a thatched roof, this type of building had replaced the earlier bee-hive huts that were made entirely of reeds. We continued along the road through the highveld landscape of jagged, short mountains covered in grass and dotted with homesteads and farms. We turned off at Nkhaba and drove down to the new Maguga Dam that looked like it had just been completed, the lake still filling up behind this huge concrete structure. The road continued on to Pigg's Peak past large pine forest plantations. Once we reached Pigg's Peak the day felt like it was losing direction so I asked Skinny if he knew where the bushman paintings were, which I had read were somewhere along the Pigg's Peak road.
Skinny asked around town and we were soon heading back towards the Maguga Dam and took a turning off to the left down a small dirt road. From the directions we were given the paintings were 6km along this road alongside the Komati River. Along the way we stopped and asked directions from a couple of villagers who hopped in the car and showed us the way. Skinny parked the car and the two villagers lead us up onto a ridge overlooking a valley and the Komati River. They pointed out the rock to us where the paintings were, about halfway down the slope of this valley covered in bush. It looked easy and the villagers left us as we walked down the valley towards where we thought this rock was. Once we were in the bush though we soon lost our bearings as we tried to find our way through the tangle of undergrowth and trees. Soon we were almost at the bottom of the valley and had completely missed the rock and so began to climb back up, stopping to inspect every large rock on the way. Back on top of the ridge again, sweat dripping from us, we spotted the rock again, we had missed it by just a few metres. Now I knew where the rock was, we walked straight to it and at last found the paintings under a large overhang.
It was great to at last see these paintings that consisted of depictions of men hunting, some human figures with wings and animals that they hunted. This was the first time that Skinny had seen these paintings and he too was very impressed; so impressed that he wished he had something to write on the rock, 'Skinny was here.' I groaned and begged him not to come back with a can of paint. Unfortunately some villagers had already been to the site and in their attempt at helping out tourists had painted around many of the images in orange paint. For me this desecration with bright orange paint ruined the beauty of this ancient, remote site, but it was still worth the adventure finding the place. By then the sun was getting low on the horizon so we headed back to Mbabane, the setting sun casting an orange glow across the mountains. It was dark once we got back to the Chillage on Mission Street.
I could of spent quite a few more days in Swaziland, relaxing in the friendly atmosphere. Nevertheless, the days kept passing by and soon I would have to start thinking about making my way back home. My travel was still governed by when England were playing in the World Cup, the next match was against Nigeria on Wednesday, so I either had to leave on Tuesday or wait until Thursday to travel to St Lucia in South Africa. I decided to leave on Tuesday morning and Des and Liz gave me a lift down to the bus station by the Swazi Plaza. As I was saying goodbye Mandela walked past, Mbabane is a small city, and he showed me to a bus to Manzini and said goodbye. On the way to Manzini a local girl started chatting with me all the way and gave me her address, I never found myself sitting on a bus for long until someone, or the whole bus, would begin talking to me. I waited around for a while in Manzini for a Durban bound minibus to fill and depart. After an hour or so waiting around the bus park in Manzini I was back on the road again heading for the Golela border post in the south of the country via Big Bend.
This had to have been the friendliest minibus I had ever travelled on. After a while the man in front of me began chatting with me. It wasn't long until everyone on the bus was listening to our conversation and adding questions of their own to me. Everyone was interested in how I perceived life in Southern Africa and Swaziland and how it compared to life in England. Questions ranged from what staple foods we ate back home, did we too eat mealie meal, to AIDS and if it was a problem in England. We reached the border post and we all filed through completing the necessary paperwork. There was a television on in the Swaziland immigration office showing the football and we were able to catch up with the latest scores and the news that the current world champions, France, had been eliminated in the first round of the competition. We crossed into South Africa the conversation now about football.
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