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Published: November 18th 2023
Dear All
After overnighting again in my Johannesburg lodge, I flew to Swaziland on a beautiful Sunday morning in the southern hemisphere. I was seriously impressed by this country - it seemed to be the calmest, chillest African country I've ever been in, with good roads, solid buildings, plenty of shopping malls, and lots of happy people. While South Africa seemed a developed, westernised version of Africa, Swaziland appeared more of a developed yet African version of Africa, if that makes sense. I arrived in another 40-seater Airlink plane from Johannesburg - it was only around a third full, and I was clearly the only tourist, which is definitely my kind of travelling! I shall overlook the need to declare whether one has had a c-word vaccine or not, and the temperature check, at the airport, and say that the airport officials were so welcoming and friendly to me. The local Swazi language seems very similar to Zulu, which I had been learning prior to this trip, and I was able to use some of of my words with the passport control staff, who just loved that I was speaking their language!
King Mswati III International Airport is a
newly created transport hub, replacing Swaziland's former international airport called Matshapha Airport in 2014. While the latter was conveniently located in the developed and touristy Ezulwini Valley, between the country's capital Mbabane and its largest city Manzini, the former is literally in the middle of nowhere in the far east of the country. Admittedly this still isn't that far from the places to be, given the tiny-ness of the country, but it very much felt like a huge monolithic construction in the middle of nowhere. It is a very modern airport, and would not feel out of place in any European country, and although there is slightly more air traffic than Lesotho airport's daily flight to Johannesburg, with a few flights each day to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Harare, it had the whiff of a potential white elephant. This was the first sign I noted that Swaziland's absolute monarch, King Mswati III who built the airport and named it after himself, isn't quite so loved as the constitutional monarch back in Lesotho.
King Mswati III International Airport is a one-and-half hour, 50-mile drive, away from Mbabane where I was staying for the night, and the airport shuttle that
once ran there stopped running a few years ago due to lack of demand. There wasn't even any kind of bus or taxi service to take me the five miles or so to the nearest main road to catch a shared minibus. Fortunately I had already researched all this, so was able to arrange a good taxi pick-up deal with my accommodation in Mbabane with a very friendly driver called Peter, who was waiting for me in the arrivals area. While I appreciated Peter's very enthusiastic tourist descriptions of everything we passed from the airport to the capital city, he seemed to be looking at me more than at the road ahead, and I was even in the back seat! This unnerved me somewhat, although I did get a brief introduction to the country. Similar in size to Lesotho, and sharing a similar history of avoiding being swept up in the massive South African state, the two countries couldn't be more different.
Lesotho's capital and largest city, Maseru, was bustling and frenetic, with people regularly shouting greetings to me as an obvious foreigner and staring. Swaziland's largest city Manzini, and its capital Mbabane, were seriously relaxed and chilled places,
Me, Mantenga Falls
Mantenga Nature Reservewith calm and orderly streets, and well-dressed middle class people filling up their many shopping malls - and there were many! People were friendly, greeted and made eye contact, but didn't fall over themselves and shout when they saw you as a foreigner. Peter thought the people of Swaziland are more relaxed and reserved due to the British influence in the country from colonial times, and I could very much understand this. Over the eastern border in Mozambique, the people are apparently louder and more energetic, probably due to their Portuguese-Latin connections. I prefer reserved Swaziland I think. Also, and as briefly touched upon, while the King of Lesotho holds no political power, rather like the King of England, the King of Swaziland is the political as well as royal leader - he has all-encompassing powers, and with his 15 wives, 45 children, and I can't even imagine how many grandchildren, has a little chubby finger in every pot of the country. Finally, visiting Lesotho seemed like going back in time a couple of centuries, with all its thatched-roof village huts and men riding around on ponies, wearing blankets and balaclavas. As mentioned, the people of Swaziland in contrast are
Airlink Flight to Swaziland
OR Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg well-dressed with modern attire.
The reader may have noticed I refer to the country as Swaziland, and not eSwatini as it is supposedly officially called. But as I suspected when I learned from the taxi driver, as well as many others in the country, the Swazi people had no say in the name change, and it was imposed on them undemocratically by the dictatorial king, rather like Burma being undemocratically renamed Myanmar by the Generals. There are also no other countries that I know of which we refer to using the local language rather than English, and thus we say China rather than Chung-guo, Japan rather than Nihon, Brazil rather than Brasil, and so on. So I will continue to use the English name of Swaziland in my blogs.
After the pleasant drive with not many eyes on the road, Peter dropped me off at a fantastic and very cosy guesthouse on the slopes of one of the many hills surrounding the very aesthetically-pleasing capital of Mbabane, population 95,000. While Manzini remains Swaziland's largest city with 110,000 inhabitants, smaller Mbabane retains its capital status since the British moved their colonial base there from the latter in 1902 to
Airlink Flight to Swaziland
You can just see my Mbabane accommodation right in the bottom of the picture! escape the heat of the plains. Indeed, just before arriving in the city, the road wound its way beautifully up wonderful hills out of what the locals refer to as the Low Veld below. The guesthouse owner was a Chinese-Mauritian lady who had lived in Swaziland for over 20 years, and it had a very Chinese feel throughout, with red, gold and shiny decor, and fried rice, chow mein and noodle soup on the menu. It was lovely to have a bit of a change from African decor and fare for a short while. Dropping my bag off, I set off to explore the very cute city with the hour or so of sunlight left, and thoroughly enjoyed my pleasant wander.
As mentioned, Mbabane is beautifully located in a valley surrounded by rocky hills, and the city centre felt very modern, filled with shiny buildings and a disproportionately large collection of shopping centres and supermarkets for a town of its size. The people were smart, friendly and middle-class, and it all felt so developed and orderly. Even the minibus station, normally in Africa a riotous collection of noisy vans, hawkers, passengers, dogs and lots of muck everywhere, was organised,
orderly and sensible. This felt definitely my kind of country, and it made such a wonderful first impression on me. I was very much looking forward to exploring more of the country over the next few days.
The next day was a very nice and chilled one, and was just what the doctor ordered! My gracious hostess offered me a wonderful late checkout of 2pm, when a driver from my next accommodation back down the mountain in the Ezulwini Valley, more on that below, would pick me up for a complimentary ride there - amazing! I had a late breakfast at 9am, and had arranged for another taxi driver to pick me up from there to take me to quite a phenomenal place just outside of the city - the amazing Sibebe Rock.
At 250 metres high and 63 square miles in area, Sibebe Rock is the second largest monolith in the world after Australia's Uluru, or Ayers Rock. It was absolutely not touristy at all, with no visitors centre or even a car park. My driver just parked up by the side of the road, and we had a very little walk up its very steep rock
Airlink Flight to Swaziland
Arriving at King Mswati III International Airport sides, before it became too steep and slippery - probably only five metres up it! It was really a stunning sight to behold, and mesmerising to contemplate just how big that one rock is! It is so famous and loved in Swaziland that they named their national beer after it - Sibebe Beer. And a very nice beer it is too, having already sampled a couple!
I headed back to my accommodation for a very hearty and filling chicken noodle soup for lunch, and more chilling on my terrace overlooking Mbabane below, before my next driver came to pick me up at 2pm. I seemed to be having rather a lot of drivers there, lol, and was enjoying being chauffered around! This chap was called Lello, and he took me down out of the mountains of Mbabane and onto the historical and spiritual centre of the country, in the Ezulwini Valley, which would be my base for the next two nights. He even stopped off at a nearby supermarket for me to buy groceries as my next accommodation was self-catering and a fair walk from nearby eateries, and boy what an accommodation it was! At really quite a bargain
My Accommodation
Mbabane, Swaziland price, even cheaper than my already decently-priced Mbabane guesthouse, I had a huge living/dining room, kitchen, another separate sitting area, bedroom and bathroom, along with a very big outdoor area, and even a swimming pool! The days there were warm while the nights were chilly, so although the pool was rather cold, I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon blissfully dipping and sunbathing in the heart of this lovely little country! The day was topped off with a couple more Sibebe Beers, two fantastic films on TV (Gremlins 2 and Blood Diamond), and a lovely microwaved ready meal. I was so happy to be there, and was very excited to explore more the next day.
My full day in the Ezulwini Valley turned out to be as enjoyable as I had hoped. Centred around Swaziland's royal capital of Lobamba, the Ezulwini Valley is very much the spiritual and political heartland of the nation, and I learned lots that day about this fascinating little country by visiting the many sights the valley has to offer. It also involved a lot of walking, probably about seven miles in total, and thankfully it was a cool and cloudy day - 19 degrees,
compared with the 28 degrees of the day before. After a hearty self-catered breakfast of instant noodles and instant coffee, I set out on my first walk of the day. This was two miles through the Mantenga Nature Reserve to the brilliant Mantenga Cultural Village, by the side of a lovely babbling brook called the Lusushwana River, and under the watchful gaze of the striking 1150m high promontory mountain of Execution Rock, where they used to throw criminals and witches off in the olden days.
My visit included a guided tour of a recreated traditional Swazi village with a friendly chap called Paul, with fascinating insights into Swazi culture, including family relations, marriage ceremonies, cultural traditions and the like. I then did a mile-long return walk to the lovely Mantenga Falls nearby, though there was no swimming or dipping to be had due to a couple of "Beware of Crocodile" signs dotted about. Finally, I enjoyed a wonderful cultural dance display by local people, called the Sibhaca Dance, with singing, dancing, and some seriously loud drumming which I thought would burst my eardrums...! Here I encountered my first fellow tourists, who were shipped in for the dance by the
Mbabane
Swaziland busload, and I was happy to escape them when a taxi the management called for me picked me up to take me on to my next destination, the very plush and modern Gables shopping centre.
As I believe I have mentioned a couple of times, the number of shopping centres in the country is striking, and indicates a wealthy, middle-class population to me, and along with numerous good schools and hospitals also, the country just seems so developed. I felt in two minds about the King there - on the one hand, all who I spoke to about him believe he has recently gone too far, in terms of taking and keeping onto power, and believing that Swaziland is simply his to do with as he wishes, including the sudden name change to eSwatini without consulting the people. On the other hand, on the surface he seems to be doing so well, with the happy and relaxed people, good cars, roads, infrastructure, and the afore-mentioned panoply of shopping malls, schools and hospitals. Perhaps he is more of a "benign dictator", though I have yet to figure the situation out - admittedly, five days in the country was probably not
Minibus Station
Mbabane, Swaziland enough!
Anyway, at the Gables I enjoyed a good £6 slap-up lunch of more steak and chips at the South African restaurant chain "Spurs". I also got talking there to a friendly white Swaziland chap, and found it fascinating to learn that 3% of Swaziland's population is actually white, descended from the European settlers who arrived in the region, like in nearby South Africa, in the 19th century. I never knew this, nor that they are referred to as "white Swazis". I then walked from there about one-and-a-half miles to my next destination, Lobamba. This is very much the heart of the country, being home to the Parliament of Swaziland, which I would love to know how it works in an absolute monarchy such as this one, and the Swaziland National Museum. The museum was a fascinating place to walk around, learning just as I had done back in Lesotho, how this fascinating little country also got to keep its sovereignty as the South African Republic came together at the beginning of the 20th century. It seemed that the tourist buses back in the Mantenga Cultural Village had whisked the chattering groups off to another destination, which I was
pleased about, and I had my whole time in Lobamba to myself, along with a massive group of local school children.
It seems as though, just like Lesotho, Swaziland came about through a remarkable and similarly-revered leader, King Sobhuza II (1899 - 1982). As with King Moshoeshoe I of Lesotho, Sobhuza successfully garnered the interests of the British Empire in allowing them to maintain a foothold in their Empire in southern Africa as South Africa became independent in 1910. To my mind this was a very wise and prudent move, considering how the Swazi people could have also ended up had they been entangled in the whole Apartheid machinery. The museum also showcased very interesting pictures of white Swazis from the 19th century, various photos of King Sobhuza II himself from childhood to maturity, a delegation of Swazi nobles who visited London in the early 20th century to secure the country's colonial status in the face of South African nationalisation next-door, and our very own Queen visiting the country and Sobhuza II in 1947 with her parents, when she was still just a princess.
King Sobhuza II is so revered in Lobamba and Swaziland, that just opposite the
National Museum is the King Sobhuza II Memorial Park, with an interesting museum on his life, a mausoleum (no photos allowed) that only held his body for a few hours before it was buried off in the distant mountains but still burns an eternal flame for him, and a three-metre statue of the monarch looking very benevolent indeed. I particularly admired a quote of Sobhuza's given when the country achieved independence in 1968, "what is good for Africa, I want to keep, but what is bad for Africa, we won't keep", as well as his cool collection of three black cadillacs from the mid-twentieth century.
After visiting this intriguing park, I walked past the Somhlolo National Stadium on the way back to the Gables, host to Swaziland's quite famous, and most important national event, the Reed Festival, which takes place around the end of August/beginning of September each year. This is when thousands of young ladies from around the country come and dance with not too many clothes on for the King, who often uses the event to choose another wife - as if he hasn't got enough already!! As I write this, I think I'm edging to the
side of dislike for this man, rather than admiration.
Two-and-a-half miles later I arrived back in my accommodation, having stopped off again at the Gables to stock up on some tasty treats involving lots of dairy and sugar-filled products from Woolworths there. I had just worked out that Woolworths seems to be the South African equivalent of our very own Marks and Spencer, so I think I'll be stopping off there more on my journey now! I had another lovely evening in my large and very cosy chalet, having a good chat with a friendly South African guy who was staying that night in the chalet next door, before moving on again the next day to the stunning Hlane Royal National Park further eastwards.
But of course, more on that in my next one! Until then, thanks for reading, and all the best for now!
Alex
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Ake Och Emma
Ake Dahllof and Emma Holmbro
A country I know nothing about
I realise now that I don't know anything about Swaziland. Interesting to read your blog to learn a little bit more. /Ake