On Safari In Zululand & The Kingdom Of Swaziland

Richards Bay/Hluhluwe & Umfolozi Game Park


After a horrifc bus journey (that took 5 hours more than it should have) we arrived at Durban at 1.30am and were greeted with hugs and smiles by our London flatmate Stevo and his better half Debs. Lucky for us, they took us under their wing for a week which we spent at their home in Richards Bay about 150kms North of Durban on the coast, right in the heart of Zululand. With no sleep had and lots of catching up to do, Debs packed a picnic and beers and Stevo, armed with the biggest fishing rod we've ever seen, got us loaded up in his Bakkie (Ute) and we headed straight down to Nine Mile Beach for a spot of fishing. Unfortunately, the fishies weren't playing the game and we didn't catch anything but Sam and I provided about 20 minutes of entertainment trying to cast out Stevo's fishing rod which we quickly learnt was like his first born. We both even had a go at driving off-road and did a bit of bush-bashing which was pretty damn fun too - never driven 4 wheel drive before.

Sam celebrated his 26th birthday that weekend and we had a traditional South African Braai (Barby) with Boerewors and plenty of brews. Actually, we had 3 Braais the week we spent there - just couldn't seem to get anough of eating outdoors. The weather wasn't the best for the week but the rain held off for a couple of days and Debs took us out on our first African Safari to the Hluhluwe & Umfolozi Game Parks, in search of the big five. We managed to get pretty up close and personal with Baboons, Zebra, Giraffe, Wilderbeest, White Rhino, Warthogs, Buffalo, and many types of Buck. Lion were nowhere to be found and seeing a Leopard is like striking gold so we never had our hopes up about them. Our biggest disappointment for the day was the Elephant. We approached a waterhole about 5 minutes too late only to see the ass end of what was the biggest male African Elephant that God created - damn!!


Swaziland

After our lovely week of catching up with old mates, and invading their lounge room, we thought we should make a move to our next stop - The Kingdom Of Swaziland. With hardly a white man in sight, strangely enough we felt a bit safer here than in South Africa. We used our first local bus to get into town from our hostel (yes, we were the only white folks on it) which we were told not to do in South Africa, but the vibe among the people is much different here. Sadly though, 39% of the population are infected with the HIV virus which is the highest number in any third world country we have visited so far.

We spent a whole day in a local village with a Swazi family and learnt about their traditions and ways of life past and present. The men can have as many wives as they want as long as they have enough cattle and Emalengeni (their currency) to afford them. Some traditions have expired but the women for cattle deal still remains (I was told I was worth 25 cows, I think Dad would be happy with that exchange). We were also treated to an hour of music and dancing and afterwards Sam and I had our fortunes read by the Sangoma (kind of like the village witch doctor). We followed him into his little beehive hut and the ritual entailed him throwing a mixture of bones, coins, shells, teeth, and beads down in front of us accompanied by some strange noises and whistles. We struggled to keep a straight face as he read out our futures. An experience we won't forget in a hurry, that's for sure.

Swaziland is home to five game parks and we were pretty keen to go on another Safari (why not hey, only in Africa once). So we hired a very expensive little car and headed out to the Hlane game park in the search for more wild things. This time around we got really lucky and drove straight up to an African Elephant that was only about 5 metres away from us, and when there is a 5 ton animal so close to you with no fence in between, and you're sitting in a car that feels like a tuna can, the adrenalin kicks in and it all feels surreal. We also got very close to the many Rhino that roamed the park but lucky for us they were pretty mellow and just kept on doing what they do - lay in the mud and eat. The only other animal that we got to see that we didn't see in the other game parks were hippos. Actually, we only got to see what was poking out of the water, which wasn't much, they weren't being very cooperative but in all I think we did pretty well in our Safari adventures.

Driving on the way home we had to be pretty careful of the hundreds of cows that seem to just wander the highway aimlessly, stopping a couple of times to let them cross. We found Swaziland to be really under-rated and advise people to stop and spend a few days here. Apart from the car hire it's pretty cheap and the game parks are worth a shot to drive around. It's nice to know that there is more to African game parks then just the very over-priced Kruger National Park.

---

---