Swaziland

Our two days in Kruger National Park were some of our best in Africa, leaving us with fantastic memories, good times, … and a sniffly nose. Unfortunately, for the next few days I battled a cold while we traveled, but not to let a little cold keep us down, we headed to the tiny kingdom of Swaziland the next morning, a country nestled between Mozambique and South Africa. Swaziland is one of the last few absolute monarchies left in the world where the late king of had over 60 wives and 300 children in his lifetime! A very interesting place to say the least. Actually, it was refreshing to be in Swaziland after a week in South Africa- the people are more friendly and laid-back, and the culture lacks the racial animosity and tension that we'd experienced throughout South Africa. Swaziland was not conquered by the Boers as South Africa was, so they don't have the turbulent history of apartheid. We found Swaziland to be a peaceful, beautiful country.

Now, what's a good road trip without a few bumps? On our first afternoon in Swaziland we stopped in the picturesque mountainous area of Phophonyane Falls Nature Reserve where we planned to do a little hiking. However, once we stopped at the entry gate to pay our fees, we couldn't get the car to start. Thus began a daylong ordeal with our rental car company, as the tow truck couldn't bring us a new rental car from South Africa over the border of Swaziland. So the tow truck met us at the nature reserve, picked us and the defunct rental car up, took us back to the border we'd crossed earlier that morning where we had to register the new car, and completed our third border crossing of the day (by now it was 9:00 p.m. at night). What a day! Despite the car drama, the nature reserve was a lovely oasis to spend our afternoon, and taking the 2-hour border drive three times that day was a good opportunity for Bryan to admire and collect the oldest known rocks in the world (and collect a few more stamps for our passports). For you geology buffs out there, the oldest rocks in the world are gneiss formed 3.8 billion years ago! Bryan was so amazed by the mountains, that he started to question the impressiveness of the rocks in the Andes that he'd studied last summer. Relatively, he said the mountains in Swaziland made the mountains in the Americas look very young.

We arrived very late that night at our backpacker's lodge, where we slept in a rondavel hut and awoke with a view of the Mlilwane Nature Reserve – a place teeming with wildlife. Ostriches, warthogs, and antelopes wandered freely outside our hut. We took a long hike around the nature reserve that morning, coming very close to herds of zebra, wildebeest, and impala- and were treated to a rare, close encounter with a Nyala (an elusive species of antelope). We spent the rest of the day browsing the local markets and visiting the oldest mine in the world- a place where humans have mined iron and hematite since 40,000 B.C.! Bryan collected some rocks there, too; and although small, they were extremely heavy to lug around since they're heavy with iron. Leaving Swaziland on our third day, we visited another market, this one the largest in the country, where I bartered for unique Swazi fabrics, and admired handicrafts while chatting with local women.