PERU-BOLIVIA: 2nd day: On the road from Johannesburg to Swaziland

I left Dubai this morning at 4 a.m.and had a good sleep on the Boeing 777, which brought me to Johannesburg and landed short before noon at OR Tambo. I picked up my car keys at Sixt, started my navigation device in order to leave asap but did not find the steering wheel in the car. Unfortunately it was on the wrong side.

I was too excited to leave and forgot to pick up cash from the ATM. The result was that I was not allowed to enter or leave the highway.

These kind of small mistakes always happen to me in the first few hours, when arriving in a country, which I never visited before. I call this a "culture shock" and need usually a few hours to realise that I am not at home.

By clicking on the map you can see the route I made just after arriving in south Africa and also the geotagged pics of the day.

I approached the Swazi border in a short time, which was a really important point of the plan for the day, because the border station was closing at 8pm. I was driving on pretty good roads, only crossing small villages. The landscape was like you see in some movies about Africa. Red soil with really rich vegetation, villages on the hills, where kids playing football and women carry heavy loads on the top of their head.

I arrived at the border in time, as you can see the gates of the country were half opened. Crossing borders in Africa is slightly different than in Europe. First you go in to a first building to check out of the country. Than in the next building you declare things to customs. Than in an other building you check in the other country, declare customs, pay the road tax. You go with all the papers and the stamped passport to the fence/gate somebody taking a key from his/her pocket and opens you the "country".

Some facts about Swaziland:

Area
-	Total	17,364 km² (157th)
-	Water (%)	0.9
Population
-	2009 estimate	1,185,000^[1] (154th)

It is more interesting that only 5% of the population die of cancer, as opposed to 55% in the USA. In Swaziland 65% dies, because of AIDS. However, life expectancy is only 49 years. The spread of the virus is encouraged by letting the men to have several wifes/partners and the lack of informing people about the virus. I will write about the culture in more detail tomorrow.

I booked in advance a room in Mantgena Lodge for tonight and had a fantastic dinner on the terrace. Now I go to sleep, because I am bit tired of flying 5500kms and driving almost 400kms in one go.