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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stopping just about anywhere to pick up passengers. They have a reputation for reckless driving, though most of them aren't too bad, we would find out.

It was very easy to find the right combi because all the drivers stood outside their vehicles shouting their destination, so we just headed for the driver yelling "Mbabane! Mbabane! Mbabane!......" The car wasn't full yet so we found a good double seat in the middle of the vehicle. Soon a ticket seller came collecting the fare of R15 p.p., and in return giving us a ticket with the destination written on it. We were surprised it was so well organised that they even issued tickets.

The thing about Kombies is that they don't leave until they are full, so there might be a bit of waiting. In our case, we had to wait for around 35 minutes, which we didn't mind since it was so interesting to watch everything that happened around us. To let the potential passengers know the Kombi was about to leave, the drivers constantly honked their horns and yelled out their destinations. It was loud, but efficient! People selling food and fruits went around to all the cars hoping to sell something. This was the real genuine Africa! Not a single tourist in sight, and in fact we didn't see any other whites at all. It was obviously not common for white people to use the Kombis because we got many curious looks :-)

A good advice about Kombis is to avoid the back row of seats, or the row behind the driver, because this is were they always put in four people instead of just three, which can get very uncomfortable on long journeys. Our trip to Mbabane went well, though. The driver drove quite acceptable and the Kombi was full but not overcrowded. In the Ezulwini Valley there was a police roadblock and the Kombi was stopped. I don't know what the police were looking for, but everybody had to get out of the car and the police checked our bags. It probably had something to ...