With it being only a 3 hour drive from the Crocodile Bridge Gate of Kruger, it seemed quite reasonable to us to make a quick stop in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) to visit another YA and to add to our country list. It was a short visit, with us being there 1 full day and two nights, but it was a blessing to go.
Swaziland ’97 and Canada ’97, together again after 26 years.
In true YA fashion, the ’98 YA from Swaziland found out we were here and stopped by to say hello! He and Julia had never met, but that matters little in the YA world.
We visited the Swazi Cultural Village and learned about how a village was setup with various huts and how people traditionally lived in this area.
The hills behind the village lead to a huge cliff on the other side called Execution Rock where back in tribal times, anyone caught committing a serious crime and deemed guilt by the chiefs would be brought to the cliff and forced to walk off.
There was also a traditional dancing and singing performance during which they pulled people from the crowd to participate. Much to Julia’s chagrin, she was selected (though I was not allowed to put that video on the blog!). There were numerous dances and songs and here is a compilation of some of them:
That afternoon we visited an arts and crafts market so that the girls could find some souvenirs from Eswatini.
The day ended with a lovely dinner together.
The next morning was a bit earlier that originally planned due to a mistake I made. We had spent our last night at Kruger in a camp just outside the park gates. I missed my laptop when doing our normal look around the room while checking out and ended up leaving it there. Thankfully I recognized it pretty shortly after we arrived in Eswatini and a quick call to the camp describing where it was allowed them to find it before anyone else checked in. Thankfully we hadn’t left on a flight and we could drive back to get it, but rather than driving out of the west side of Eswatini back to Johannesburg, we had to drive back north to Kruger first. It added about 4 hours to our drive and meant we had to leave at around 10am vs 2pm to get back to Johannesburg before it got too late.
So we met early with the YA and his wife and headed to the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary. They took some bikes and we rented some bikes and we did a mini-safari by bike! Where else can you ride a mountain bike past wildebeests, warthogs, blesbok, and kudus? Thankfully no lions or leopards in this park and as long as you didn’t swim in the croc infested waters, you were good. It was a enjoyable way to see the countryside and some wild life.
Wildebeests and blesbok antelopes, which we hadn’t seen in Kruger so another animal to our list.
The picture I got about 11 secs into the video.
We did see a few crocodile snouts in the lake behind us.
Group photo that was photo bombed by some kids. Much laughter ensued when everyone found out.
A short but sweet visit.