Christmas & New Year: Swaziland

After 12 weeks of amazing encounters with beautiful creatures, it was time to say goodbye to Wildlife Act - well, almost.

Thanks to Bronwen and Vincent at Wildlife Act, I was able to spend one last night at Zimanga before setting off for Swaziland the following day. It was a lovely way to end my time with Wildlife Act, but also gave me the opportunity of seeing the newest wild dog pack - the two male uMkhuze dogs and their four Zimanga females - who were lazing together in the shade of a tree on my drive to the reserve gates In the morning.

My journey into Swaziland - and my first proper border crossing - was pretty smooth. It consisted of a 40 minute drive to the border post, a short walk across the border, some friendly border officials on both sides, a long queue at Swaziland immigration and a temperature test (Ebola screening - I was fine).  As I walked through, my friend Myxo was waiting for me.

I met Myxo when I spent a month in Swaziland six years ago and we kept in touch. The plan was for Myxo to drive us from the border to his village - a 3-4 hour journey - but unfortunately his car was in the garage having work done on it, so we had to get local buses instead. 

Local buses in Swaziland are called 'kombis' - they are minibuses that you can hail like taxis along the road and which drop off and collect passengers anywhere on the way. They are generally very crowded and hot and a bit of a challenge with a large rucksack! There were also none going directly to where we needed to go to, so we needed to get more than one  - a total of five in fact!  When we finally arrived at the garage working on Myxo's car to collect it and drive the remaining 1.5 hours to the village, we discovered the garage hadn't finished the work...

So, after some heated debate with the mechanic, Myxo decided we should stay at his house in town, give the garage a few more hours to do the work and travel on to the village in the morning. 

Thankfully things had progressed a bit at the garage the following morning, so we were able to collect the car and drive to the village.  Myxo's village is in an area called 'Kaphunga', which is right up in the mountains, so the last part of the drive was beautiful - full of winding mountain roads, red earth, lush green trees and incredible views. 

Myxo lives in a traditional rural homestead in Kaphunga. It has several beehive huts for sleeping in, along with a small brick-built food preparation/store area, a covered cooking/fire area and a small outside toilet with an incredible view! There is no electricity or running water, but if you stand on the big rock behind the homestead, you can sometimes get an Internet signal! Kaphunga is a lovely place to have some peace and spend time just relaxing, visiting the neighbouring homestead and gazing at the stars at night. 

On Christmas Day, we visited the neighbours in the morning. They were busy preparing the food and we weren't allowed to leave without eating, so I ate my first Swaziland Christmas Dinner at about 11.30am. There was a lot of meat involved, but they happily gave me a plate with just the vegetables and rice and didn't seem to think I was that strange for not wanting to eat goat entrails...

After eating, we drove to Myxo's family's home about 2 hours away to spend a couple of hours with them. There I met Myxo'a Mum, Sister, Brother, Sister-in-law, cousin's wife and nephews. We had a lovely relaxed afternoon - and a second dinner! - before heading back to the village.

After a lovely, peaceful stay in Kaphunga, I headed to the Ezulwini Valley for the last days of 2014. Ezulwini is the royal valley and is a much busier area with hotels, lodges, restaurants and shops. I stayed for a few days at a backpackers hostel called 'Legends', where I met other travellers and celebrated a fantastic New Year'a Eve out at a local club called 'House on Fire' - a wonderful way to start the New Year.


Swaziland highlights:

• Spending Christmas Day with Myxo's family
• Staying in a traditional rural homestead
• The warmth and friendliness of the people I met in Swaziland (okay,  maybe apart from the mechanic fixing Myxo's car...!)

Language - siSwatisi:
SiSwati is closely related to isiZulu,  so many words are almost the same apart from a difference in pronunciation.

• Monday - uMsombuluko
• Tuesday - Lesibili
• Wednesday - Lesitsatfu
• Thursday - Lesine
• Friday - Lesihlanu
• Saturday - uMgcibelo
• Sunday - Lisontfo

Interesting Facts:

• Swaziland has a King and a royal family. The king - King Mswati 3rd is an 'absolute monarch', which means that he has the final say in all decisions and no laws or customs restrict his power
• Polygamy (having more than one wife or husband at the same time) is legal in Swaziland. The king has 15 wives in total

:)
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