SOUTH AFRICA Continued
Swaziland
Thursday,
May 17, 2001
Woke up early (kind of a running theme here), packed up, and
was off to Malolotja. Drove through dirt roads to see more animals,
saw more giraffe, more wildebeest (close up this time) and lots
of birds. Also saw giraffe way up close next to the Mozambique
road signs (we were about 11km away from the border), up near
Crocodile bridge where we exited. On to Swaziland. Swaziland
used to be a part of South Africa but now its its own country.
At the border town, Jeppe´s Reef, it was very quiet and we went over the border easily. When we got into Malolotja, I loved it. Wide open nothingness, barely anyone there, great camp spot with the park all to ourselves, perfect. We set up camp and then drove to a mine area. Leonard, a man who worked at the camp desk, told us about his cousin who leads tours through a 41,000 year old mine. We met Dennis, Leonard´s cousin, at the gate, and he took us in. We met up with an American, George, who did some work with the IMF, and the son of a South African friend of his. Together, we drove through an old Japanese iron mine. The 41,000 year old ocre mine was found during the iron mining, and we went up and around, and down the other side where the mine, a long, hollowed out cave was. Dennis gave us a sample of what people used the ocre for, and smeared some on Laura´s arm. In the sunlight, her skin turned red and glittery, and people in Swaziland still use ocre for make-up during special festivals and rituals. It was a lot like body glitter, and we were all overwelmed by how old the mine was, 41,000 years. We thanked Dennis and told George about a hike we were planning on doing the next day. We drove back to the camp and from our campsite we could see antelopes grazing, white faced antelopes with long horns. In the fading light, we cooked (Lower Sabie Cabbage) and it got colder and colder until we couldn´t stand it. The showers had hot water (supplied by a fire outside the ablutions), but we skipped on that. Cold, tired, we went to bed at 7pm. The ground was also very cold, but we had our very well made South African sleeping bags.
Friday,
May 18, 2001
Woke up early (went to bed at 7pm!) and unthawed. It had gotten
so cold the night before there was frost on the ground. Ate breakfast
(wheetbix and peanut butter, anyone?) and drove off to a peak
where we could hike. Our poor rental car. Road turned out to
be a 4X4 road and we had a dangerous time of it. But I made it!
No holes in the car. When we got to the trailhead to a waterfall,
we met George from the day before. We put on our packs (this
and the Kruger walks were practice for the 80km Fish River backpacking
trip in Namibia) and chatted with George as we hiked down a steep
incline. We hiked all the way down to where we could see the
falls and then we had to walk all the way back up, with our full
packs on. It was hard, which made it good practice, but it wasn´t
fun! We then left Malolotja and drove into the capital city of
Mbanane on our way to Mlilwane. In Mbanane, we had lunch at a
German restaurant called La Casserole, and the schnitzel we couldn´t
finish so we saved it for dinner, made for a nice treat. Parking,
well, I didn´t know what to do about parking. I finally
found a spot with a local guy and paid him, but the whole experience
was frustrating and unclear as to how we should park. At one
point while driving around I asked Laura what to do, and she
said, "I don´t know, I´ve never parked in Swaziland
before." So we say that now, when one asks a question that
the other can´t possibly know. In the end, we paid the
guy to wash our car and so we parked where he told us to. After
our lunch, we did email for a frustrating hour. Horribly slow.
When we got back to our car, it was clean and nicely parked,
and then we were off to Mlilwane. Laura fell in love with Mbanane,
the capital of Swaziland. It had a nice feel to it, and she thought
she could liver there. At Mlilwane, our second national park
in Swaziland, we set up and settled, lit a fire, cooked our dinner,
which was awesome (not the Lower Sabie Cabbage, the leftover
Schnitzel), and went to bed.
Saturday,
May 19, 2001
Woke up early (you didn´t think I was going to type that,
did you?) put on our heavy backpacks, and went for a walk with
Numfundo, a local woman who works at the reserve. She is highly
educated and was the best part of the two hour bush walk. She
was funny, intelligent, and spoke freely about her culture and
the politics of Swaziland. We talked about women´s issues,
family, marriage, education, parents, and she was very insightful.
We did see a herd of wildebeest and one, lone, lazy hippo, swimming
in a lake. She told us funny stories about her aunt who used
to bribe her and her sisters to help with the laundry, but then
never came through on the bribe. Now Numfundo does that with
her cousins, and her aunt gets mad at her, but not too mad. Numfundo
also told a story about when she guided a gaggle of British school
girls on a long backpacking trip through the bush and at one
point they came upon a group of lepoard tracks. She didn't want
to scare the girls so Numfundo told the girls it was going to
rain, so that they would go inside their tents. When they protested,
not believing it would rain, Numfundo said, "I´m African.
I´m in touch with the land, of course it´s going
to rain!" She was great.
Drove
back to Mbanane and ate at Chicken City (not as good as the Chicken
Treat in Bangkok, I must say). After that, we bought ice cream
and a pen, both very useful. On the way to Mbanane, we hit a
local handicraft market and shopped til we dropped. Very fun.
Drove on to Dundee and crossed the border behind some obnoxious
South African rugby players. Crossing the border took a long
time, as did the 41/2 hour drive to Dundee. We tried to stay
at an old farmhouse converted to a bed and breakfast, but it
was full, and we didn´t feel like camping again after the
long drive, but the farmhouse called the Kamnandi Guest House
and that´s where we stayed. We tried to eat at the best
restaurants in town, but everything was closed. We finally slummed
a meal at the local Wimpy burger, Aaron had a triple cheeseburger,
and then went home. We later learned the whole town shut down
to watch the rugby championships. The local team, the Sharks,
lost, and we had to eat at the Wimpy´s. For shame. That
night we did watch a biography on Cher on TV (a read treat to
have TV), and it was only interrupted by two commercial breaks.
We checked our cell phone voicemail and Rusty Petersen, our friend
in Capetown, had called us twice while we were out of cellphone
range in Swaziland. What a nice guy!
View at the 41,000 year old mine. Aaron is sporting
his new South African hat.
Our beautiful campsite in Malolotja
Scene from our hike in Malolotja
Preparing for our big Namibia hike in June
