3:13pm
I had an amazing trip with my Mom this past month! If you have been within a 100 mile radius of her and your ears are ready to bleed from constant talk about this trip, then I suggest you skip this blog entry. :-) For the rest of you, welcome to Zodwa’s African Tours. I will be your guide.
Our first destination was Johannesburg International Airport on March 4th. Although my Mom was thousands of miles and an ocean farther away from this point than I was, her journey went much smoother than mine. I left my community at 6:30am and estimated, with a planned multiple hour wait for public transport to fill, my arrival at the airport to be around 3pm in the afternoon. Plenty of time before greeting my Mother’s 5:25pm flight from Atlanta. After the expected wait in Nhlangano for a khumbi heading for Jo’Burg to fill, an UNEXPECTED 1 lane road construction, a back country detour, a slow police vehicle inspection, and multiple u-turns made for a stressful journey. I arrived, in a full out sprint (very movie-esk), to the arrivals gate at exactly 5:17pm! About a half an hour later, the hugs that I received from the crazy American who threw her bags in the middle of the floor and ran at me could have shattered bones. It was amazing.
For a bit we thought the trip was not going to get much further than the airport. After retrieving a forgotten coffee mug, we returned to our newly rented BMW (they were out of regular stock and had to upgrade us :-P ) to find a car blocking it in. Once that was sorted out, getting out of Jo’Burg construction, in the dark, proved to be a bit of a challenge. Between bad signs, our confused GPS, and sheer luck we were on the main highway heading back toward Swaziland. That night we got as far as Ermelo, arriving at about 11:30pm and running on pure excitement, and called it quits.
We hit the same construction the following morning, but it was much nicer waiting it out in an air conditioned car with your mother. :-) We went shopping for groceries in Piet Retief, South Africa (made me feel like I was in college again) and then crossed the border into Swaziland. We were held up at the border for a little while as the border patrol tried to verify that our rented car was permitted to cross borders and discuss how many cows my Mother would be willing (or thankfully - not willing) to take for me. Nhlangano is located just past the border, so we stopped to take a tour of one of my “closest” shopping towns. We also tried to track down a certain size chain and clips for a swing set I’m putting up in my community, so a certain amount of hardware store hopping occurred.
Heading East, we stopped in the teeny tiny clump of stores called Hluti where Mom got her first taste of Swazi food. The little café that I sit at when on a post office run while waiting for the bus was the perfect spot for her to try lipalishi (stiff maize meal) with veggie soup gravy and fried chicken. You could tell we were getting closer to my community in the lowveld, because we were informed that there was no water due to the taps being dry. Not more than a 15 minute drive later (so quick in a car!!!) we were at my homestead in Ekuphumleni.
Introductions with my host family went very well, even though I was trying to interpret. Both sides kept saying how happy and grateful they were… I can handle that. :-P My Mom did extremely well settling into my hut and we even got a short community walk in. It was a busy first day in Swaziland!!
Sunday morning was extremely relaxing as we talked and Mom proceeded to drink all my coffee. :-P Then we drove up to A1 for Mrs. Broodryk’s Birthday Braii (BBQ)! There Mom met my second, Swazi/Afrikaans, host family and had some excitement when a Green Mamba (venomous snake) was sighted on the property. Good food, good drinks, and great company made the small birthday party a huge success. My Mom especially had a good time, since everyone kept commenting on how young she looked and that our relationship was more likely as sisters instead of mother – daughter. True, true.
That night the kids on my homestead got a wonderful treat. In the 2 very large suite cases from America, there were books and corresponding stuffed animals for the little ones. Both of my host families were given a taste of Traverse City with a plethora of cherry products. In her amazing generosity, we also got to make up care packages for my amazing PC volunteer friends who we would be visiting the following day. I have to mention, for posterity sake and your amusement, that she brought us deprived Americans some cans of beer from the states (yes, this was possibly illegal, but the beer here is soooo bad!). Every single kind of this “American” beer that was lugged over here was actually imported from other countries!!! Guinness, Heineken, Corona, and a British Ale. Haha! No worries, though, we enjoyed them juuuuust fine. ;-)
The amazing people that I am blessed to have “near” me and working with me in this country were treated to a front door pick-up and lunch at Nisela Game Park. This is a luxury that you can not begin to fathom. Laura, Brandon, Ali, and Tristan (Rachel was sadly ill) got to be adopted for a day. In true motherly fashion she also took said volunteers to Matata so they could get some public-transport-free shopping in. By the time we got everyone back home and had picked up old donated tires at Laura and Brandon’s for our swing project, it was getting dark. Oh, this day was also the day that the vacation long tradition of a sun-downer (drink enjoyed at dusk) of Amarula began. Yummmm.
We got the following morning started, packed up the car, and headed north. Our task for the day was to get a pair of my hiking boots to a fellow volunteer. We were going to meet at a coffee shop in Manzini, the largest city in Swaziland, but due to some Nursing protests in Mbabane she was unable to meet us. We enjoyed a coffee and pastry, since it was Fat Tuesday after all, and walked around the bustling and grungy city. I even took my mother into the bus rank to acquire some true Swazi fat cakes and boiled umbila (maize cob). She had an experience with an over friendly drunk man there that I’m sure she won’t quickly forget. We also went to the craft market and through the small shopping mall.
It must have been a day for shopping (or at least window shopping), because our next tourist destination was the craft stalls in the Swazi Candles complex and House on Fire. Neither of us are big shoppers, but we did get to see how some of the items were made and had a very enjoyable lunch. Although still in Swaziland, I felt like I was in a totally different world. This world could only be reached by a privately owned vehicle / tour bus, and catered to people not from Swaziland. Our accommodation for that evening was a “beehive hut” in Milwane Wildlife Reserve. These kinds of structures were the most traditional form of housing in Swaziland, and not used anymore. They are made entirely of the thatching reeds which are bent over rounded sticks to form a dome. At this establishment, there was a mix of very traditional and very modern. In the back of these huts was an attached but separately constructed bathroom. Having been in my home, without running water, for a few days, long showers with accompanied singing was a blessing for both my mother and me. :-) After feeling “like a new person”, we got to see traditional Swazi dancing (kukitsa) performed by the park staff.
Being a wildlife park we would be amiss if we didn’t search out some animals. Hiding hippos, which are not as easy to spot as you would think, made our short morning drive on Wednesday well worth it. Next stop, the capitol of Mbabane! Not to fear, the small protests were over and life returned to normal in the city. We met up with Nancy, the awesome volunteer we tried to meet the following day, and drove up to Ngwenya Glass Factory. We watched from the overhang walkway as the highly skilled workers blew molten glass into vases, stemware, and figurines below. With some encouragement from both Nancy and my Mother, I purchased some beautiful and unique wine glasses for my hypothetical future house, which I hear made it home safe and sound in my mother’s extra suite case. :-P After our purchases, we returned to the city and stopped at the Peace Corps office before lunch. In town we ran into another awesome PCV (it’s a small country :-P), Cameron, who joined us. Sadly, there isn’t much else to do in the 2nd largest city in Swaziland, so we made our way north to Malalotja Nature Reserve nestled in the mountains. The scenery at sunset was breathtaking as we checked into our small cabin accommodation and then sat next to the braii area for our sundowner.
I have to give major props to BMW and major apologies to AVIS for what we did with their car the following morning. Feeling energetic, we decided to drive to a picnic area that also marks the start of a nice hike. About 20 minutes into this nature walk we realized that any trace of a marked “path” had been lost months before at the start of the growing season. Thrashing through the think, hopefully non-snake inhabited brush, we climbed a steep hill to find the gravel road that was present on my poor excuse for a map. We did safely make it back to our car with only minor bumps and scratches. :-P Then the real challenge began. We should have taken the hint that this park was not well maintained by the lack of hiking paths, but we thought surely the roads would be better... We drove to two different lookout sites that would have been much easier to get to with a 4x4 off-roading vehicle. Maneuvering the washed out and crumbling sections of this one car width sized path was stressful but quite exhilarating. There wasn’t another soul out there with us, which probably just meant that they were smarter. :-P Adventure, hoorah!
Out of the park, and back on tarred roads, we continued on our northern trajectory stopping only to admire the Maguga Dam (mini-version of the Hoover) and Piggs Peak. The little town of Piggs Peak was where I went shopping during my training months at the beginning of my service. Not much has changed there except for the addition of a KFC (seriously - its Swaziland’s McDonalds)! Oh, I almost forgot, because I’m almost ashamed to admit it. Just outside of the town there is a casino called The Orion. We had to stop and play a few slots so we could say we did it. Needless to say, we lost all of our few rand within a short time and proceeded to the Matsamo/Jappes Reef border gate. Lying just a 30 minute drive past the border of Swaziland was Kruger National Park, and our safari location for the following few days and nights!
We wasted no time searching out animals! From car to reception, reception to bungalow, bungalow to safari vehicle, safari vehicle to LIONS!! That evening’s night drive was a blast. We saw everything from un-submerged hippos, hyenas, owls, rhinos, impala, cape buffalo, hare, to a pride of lions strolling down the tar road! A male lion walked by me no more than a few meters away! Amazing.
We thought our private game drive, in the faithful BMW, the following day wasn’t going to be as successful because of the hot hot sun. Just as we decided to head back to the Berg-en-Dal camp (Afrikaans for “Mountains and Valleys”), we spotted a couple elephants nonchalantly mudding themselves in a water hole right next to the road. There was a vehicle stopped taking pictures directly in front of us. While we were looking right at the two elephants, many MANY elephants just started appearing from out of the thick brush on the left not more than a couple meters from the front of the gentleman’s car! What made this situation all the more dangerous, and thus thrilling, was that there were multiple baby elephants in this group. Fearful of being surrounded by angry Momma elephants, and not wanting to trap the photographer in front of us, I slowly inched backwards with every intention of flooring it if necessary. We watched as the herd kept materializing out of the dense growth and made for the crowded mudding hole. There were so many of them!! Once we thought that the herd had finally all arrived, we slowly followed the previous car’s example an inched by the elephant teaming watering hole! A few of the largest elephants tracked our progress quite diligently, but allowed us to pass without charging. Phew…
I’m sure we had a couple beers with lunch after that adventure! We also signed up for the sunset drive that evening. Not as many animals were spotted that evening in comparison to the night before, but the highlight was certainly seeing the babes of the lion pride napping on the side of the road. We were informed that the rest of the pride was probably out hunting and left the young ones with the “nanny” or eldest female of the group. The two month old cub was completely adorable, but my Mom wouldn’t let me keep him. :-)
Our last day in Kruger was quite nice, and began with a guided morning walk. Our guides both carried a loaded gun. :-/ It was a really informational walk, and we got to identify animals by their prints, poop, and palate preferences. We spotted rhinos, giraffes, and zebras, but were far too un-stealthy to get very close. A light snack was enjoyed on the top of a hill overlooking the park. One item that our guide provided for our tasting was the nut found inside the marula seed. These seeds were collected from dried elephant feces, and were quite tasty. Got to try everything once! Mom also got to try biltong here for the first time, which is very similar to our jerky. Interesting and disgusting fact learned on this walk: a termite queen can live up to 25 years and births her own workers, protectors, and mate. Yuck.
We took a very long, scenic route out of the park to see as many animals as possible before saying goodbye. Looping northwest, we exited the park at a different gate, Numbi, after lunch in Pretoriuskop Rest Camp. We knew we were out of the park when the amount of cows by or in the road quadrupled the number of impala we had seen. :-( The one night stop outside of Nelspruit ended up being one of the nicest places we stayed in our entire trip! The quaint and really inexpensive Bed and Breakfast was gorgeous, and certainly the most romantic get-away location I’ve ever been to!! There was a sprig of some smelly plant on our pillows, a shower ½ the size of my hut, and sherry on the nightstand! Sooooo nice. We treated our car to a well deserved wash in Nelspruit and made a very early start toward the Johannesburg Airport on Sunday morning.
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT TIME ON "Darryn Turns Swazi":
- Livingstone, Zambia, Victoria Falls, and the adopted Swedish guy
- Chobe National Park, Botswana and more animals!
- Gorgeous Cape Town
- Updates on work and life in the Swaz!
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