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Four Miserable Hours in Swaziland

Lab
2004-08-12 09:43:51

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My friend Mike and I left from Lesotho early in the morning for the long drive into the small Kingdom of Swaziland. The southern border entry was about an eight hour drive the way we were going and we had planned to drive up to the Ewulzini Valley between the only two cities in Swaziland, Manzini and the capital Mbabane. We had heard wondrous things about the Sondzela Backpackers, which was the famous hostel in the valley. We thought it would be a nice way to spend a few days getting in touch with nature in an obscure place like Swaziland.

We arrived at the border from South Africa at the Mahamba crossing in the south of the country. Upon entry into Swaziland, you immediately notice the difference from South Africa. The roads are rougher and skinnier. Additionally, the landscape becomes a lot more rugged and there are no houses or buildings. You will pass a lot of mud huts and the occasional store with a metal grate roof and a Coca-Cola sign in front. Finally, you will see a lot of Swazis just walking the highways. We thought to ourselves, where could these people possibly be going? We drove for miles and saw absolutely nothing. It became a running joke between us that all the Swazis do is walk around aimlessly.

In southern Swaziland there is a whole lot of nothing but the scenery is very pretty and the mountains can be treacherous. We were there in January, in the middle of the summer season. However, in the mountains there was snow on the side of the road even though the temperature was still hot. On the afternoon that we arrived, it was starting to get dark very early and it looked very ominous.

About 30 minutes into our drive through the mountains of southern Swaziland, it started to pour. Since the roads were so bad and we were in the mountainous, we were going to drive very slowly. It also became very dark and we had the lights on bright and windshield wipers going as fast as possible. Our Toyota Echo rental car was not ...