The Kingdom of Swaziland

Earlier this week we had to leave South Africa to renew our visas. We are quite close to three borders, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland. Since Swaziland is the closest and the only one that is free, that is where we headed. Since Swazi is bordered by South Africa on three sides, I kind of expected it to be like South Africa, but I was definitely wrong. It is its own distinct and incredibly beautiful country full of people who are proud of their land and of their king (…and his 13 wives!). According to mapquest it should only take us 1 ½ hrs to get from our house to just across the border, but it didn't take into account the formidable mountain range in between! We drove up and up and up some more, thrilling the kids, who were happily hanging over the sides of the road to see the clouds below us. Despite the lack of civilization, we didn't see too many animals…only a few baboon families and some random cows.

We gave a ride to a logger who was on his way home. He was very nice even if he did smell like he had been working far, far away from running water. All of the guards at the border crossing were very nice and low key. We realized why it wasn't a very busy crossing as soon as we entered Swaziland and the road turned into a lot of potholes with a few feet of tar here and there! We stayed in the small town of Bulembu immediately across the border, which is a deserted mine turned into a village for orphans (see more info in my other post). We really enjoyed our brief vacation of sorts, including a very harrowing drive to the town of Piggs Peak on a dirt road that hugs the top of a mountain range and is used by tractors to pull out cart loads of logs (pictures us heading up an extremely steep one-lane dirt road with a 100-year old tractor coming down pulling a homemade wooden cart piled 14 feet high with logs teetering precariously back and forth with a mountain wall on one side of us and a sheer drop off on the other…enough said, right?). We stayed in an old miner's cottage turned into a guest cottage with pear and guava trees in the yard. It was even chilly enough light a fire in the fireplace and roast marshmellows, which was of great excitement to the kids!

We got new visas at the border without a problem (except Y, that is…we never noticed that for some strange reason she was given a visa for twice as long as the rest of us) and even had time to hit McDonalds in Nelpsruit before heading home.