3rd day: Swaziland and entrance to Kruger NP

I like to give first some background info about Swaziland (source Wikipedia):
The Swaziland independence Constitution was promulgated by Britain in November 1963 in terms of which a legislative Council and an Executive Council were established. 


The head of state is the king or Ngwenyama (lit. Lion), currently King Mswati III, who ascended to the throne in 1986 after the death of his father King Sobhuza II in 1982 and a period of regency. By tradition, the king reigns along with his mother. The Senate consists of 30 members which some are appointed by the king on recommendation of the advisory council and others elected by the lower house. The House of Assembly has 65 seats, 55 of which are occupied by elected representatives from the 55 constituencies around the country, 10 appointed by the king on recommendation of the advisory council and the attorney general is the ex-officio member.

Above you can see the Swazi parliament and the parking bays for the ministers.


Swaziland's most well-known cultural event is the annual Reed Dance. In the eight day ceremony, girls cut reeds and present them to the queen mother and then dance. (There is no formal competition.) It is done in late August or early September. Only virgins can take part. The aims of the ceremony are to preserve girls' chastity, provide tribute labour for the Queen mother, and to encourage solidarity by working together. There is also a secondary aim of the ceremony. 
The event is a great opportunity for the king to choose some new wifes every year to give some company to the existing 42 wifes he already has. 

My guide said: "The king is like a male impala..."

Above the National stadium, where they hold the ceremony every year.

Source: Youtube

I stayed in Ezulwini valley i.e. "The Valley of Heaven", where you can visit some traditional villages and learn really a lot about the culture. Villages are very well organised and everything has a reason there. The most important person in the village is the mother of the  tribe leader. 

Why? She knows about everything, she is the source of information. So whenever somebody is returning to the village after a longer absence, spending the first night in the house of the "mother". 

An other interesting detail, that the house of the girls and unmarried women is right at the entrance of the village. The reason is that tribes even if fighting against each other, never kill girls and women. So when there is an attack on a village, warriors are kept "busy" right at the entrance and the man can prepare for the fight.

Man can have several wifes, depending on their financial circumstances. For a virgin you have to put on the table around 25 goats or today money, equal to 700EURs.

On the hunting trails with a Swazi tribal leader.

From Swaziland it is only around 150kms back to South Africas biggest NP the Kruger. You can follow my route on the map below.



Late in the afternoon I arrived in the NP and almost hit a giraffe right at the entrance. I booked for this night a Safari tent facing the river. Hopefully tomorrow I can shoot the "Big 5" as they call it here and will give you more information about the park and Africas wildlife.

For all pics:
https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/SouthAfrica

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.

As usual you can see all the pics:

https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/SouthAfrica