Home » South Africa Swaziland » Southern Africa 2000 - Part 5: Soweto and Swaziland

After spending one day in Pretoria and going on a guided tour of Soweto, we headed for Swaziland. We stayed two days at the orphanage in Nhlangano before travelling by kombi to Mbabane. From there we arranged a hiking tour in the Komati Valley. It was a really beautiful place, although our crazy guide turned out to be slightly disorganised.

Southern Africa 2000 - Part 5: Soweto and Swaziland

Jan Arild Teland
2006-05-09 00:02:39

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the lines of "No! No! Rich no good! No good! More important to be happy!" While we certainly agreed that being happy is the most important thing, we failed to see how being rich would prevent anybody from being happy. On the other hand, the Swazis always smile a lot and look quite happy, which I guess could have to do with them being poor, then :-)

When we finally reached the bottom of the valley, it suddenly occurred to Mthunzi that the last bus back to Mbabane had already left some time ago. It was getting dark and I was getting tired. Our hope was that a Kombi would come by and pick us up. Since we were in the middle of two towns (Piggs Peak and Mbabane) I was worried that any Kombi would be full already and there would be no room for us.

However, luck turned out to be on our side, as we hadn't waited for more then 15 minutes (just enough time to drink a Coke we had bought in one of the local stores) before a big Kombi came by and stopped. We ran over to it, hoping for a seat and it wasn't full at all. I was so happy when I could finally sit down in the seat and knew we were going to Mbabane again!

The weather had been relatively cloudy today and on reaching the top of the hill, we were right inside the clouds and visibility was almost zero. However, we still made it back to Mbabane by 18.45, where we headed straight for the shop to buy food and drinks for the night.

On returning to the hostel, we found our room full of people and almost all the beds were taken. It was of course something you have to expect in a dorm, but it came as a little of a surprise to us, since yesterday had been so quiet. It would have been so great to have the room to ourselves after this trip. No showers were working, so we just had to wash ourselves in the sink as best we could. This was not easy, but it would have to do for now. Since our room was so crowded we discussed going back to Nhlangano already the next day and just hang out there.

For dinner (we hadn't eaten properly the whole day) we made bacon and eggs in the kitchen. We had to eat standing up since there were no chairs in the kitchen. Someone was already asleep in our room, so to avoid disturbing them, we went to the TV room, which was basically another dorm room with a TV in. One of the guys in there was from Angola and was the first African backpacker we had ever met. It could have been interesting to talk to him, but he didn't turn out to be very informative. When Jan Arild asked him about the situation in Angola, he just replied that it was not as cold as in Norway. And that was it -- Never mind the civil war the country had been struggling with.

With rain pouring down outside, there was not much to do, so we just went to bed early. People were coming and going throughout the night, which was quite disturbing, but is to be expected when you're sleeping in a dorm. On the whole I didn't sleep very well that night.