Pointless detour

1^st October-4^th October – Days 366-369 – Johannesburg, South Africa and Mbabane, Swaziland

Inna had been talking about coming to Africa for a few months (or even a few years) and various problems meant that she'd nearly have missed us. In the end, we managed to stretch the trip with a bit of inventive budgeting (i.e. creating a state of denial about how little money we had left) and Inna, a friend of M's from Helsinki, would provide company for the last two weeks of the trip. She'd been to South Africa before with her parents and remembered a guided tour of Johannesburg by car, with tinted windows, and strict instructions to not unlock the doors at any point. This would be a slightly different view of the city...

New recruit !

We picked her up from Jo'burg International Airport and asked the info desk how to get a taxi back into town. After a small explanation of our meaning of the word “taxi” (a minibus taxi, rather than a white paranoia private taxi) and an inquisitive look from the info desk guy who probably hadn't heard this kind of request too often, he pointed us to the far end of the airport where we could get a ride to Kempton Park and another one to MTN station downtown. “So this is big bad Johannesburg !” she exclaimed with a hint of possibly surprise. We wandered through town again, bags on backs, to Park Station, Jo'burg's main transport hub. It's a large, confusing place and with the help several helpful standers-around, we wandered through the station, past the KFC, up the staircase and into the chaotic minibus taxi park where we eventually located the minibuses to Swaziland. The Mozambican visa question had caused us a bit of confusion – the price had recently gone up to 80€ although a phone call to the Mozambican embassy in Mbabane confirmed that they were selling it for 85 rand, a mere tenth of the price. We had hence decided to make a little detour through Swaziland in order to pick it up.

Park Station, minibus section. Despite the smallness of the fine, I went for a different option

“You'll see the difference as soon as we cross into Mozambique”, we told Inna. “It'll be the real Africa. South Africa is nice, but everything works. You never get flat tyres, things run on time...”. This, of course, is why we ended up sat on the hard shoulder halfway between Johannesburg and Nelspruit with the driver desperately trying to flag down passing minibuses to replace his flat tyre. A flat tyre for which he didn't have a spare, obviously. Great!! A few other minibuses pulled over for a chat, one of which unloaded a gang of friendly drunken Swazis returning home from a wedding. One of the guys asked if he could have M as a wife but then confided “I already have a wife. She is already too much for me. Anyone who takes a second wife must be crazy!”. The gang piled in again having turned up the radio and given us a rousing demonstration of Swazi dancing and we eventually got going, thanks to a breakdown truck which had brought us a new tyre.

"You won't find this back home" series #3528043

It had been a while...

Mbabane greeted us again under a shroud of darkness and after a bite to eat and a beer at the Phoenix (a regular haunt for us the last time we were here), we headed off to Bombaso's and were greeted like old friends. The previous bunch of Finns had departed and we spent the evening in the company of a new bunch of Finns which gave Inna a soft landing, M a chance to speak Finnish in a group, and me to take stock of how terrible my Finnish had become... Our stopover in Swaziland turned out to be useless, however – it was a public holiday in Mozambique and the embassy was closed and after a bit of headscratching, we hopped into a minibus to Manzini, where we'd connect to a Maputo minibus, trying our luck on the border for a visa.

Good morning Mbabane!

The trip started off well, aside from an Ethiopian-style argument with the ticket man:

- You must pay for the bags.

- No. The Mozambicans are not paying for their bags, so we will not either.

- Yes, you must. (repeat ad nauseam)

Eventually, he got bored of this discussion, shrugged his shoulders and wandered off. However, when he took our money for the tickets along with that of the other passengers, he kept the money that he'd wanted to charge us for the bags and I started to enquire about where the rest of our change was. One woman in the minibus seemed to speak English, translated for the other passengers what our predicament was and under an increasingly loud torrent of abuse in Portuguese, the ticket man returned our change and we hit the road. At the border, however, we turned from heroes to zeroes as the other passengers sailed through the immigration formalities and we got our visas done. It turned out that, unlike the one we got between Malawi and Zimbabwe many months ago, this post gave super hi-tech visas featuring digital photos, digital fingerprints and so on. Unfortunately, it appeared that the border guards were not too familiar with technology and as time ticked on, our visas didn't seem to materialise. One border guard would hold the passport saying one of our names, the other would repeat it with a questioning tone, and there would be a deadlock. It took quite a few repetitions before the passport-holding border guard would decide to spell it for the typist-border-guard who seemed to have been introduced to a keyboard for the first time only that morning. A picture was taken, more details were taken, and the driver would come in telling us that he was leaving in 10 minutes. This happened for all three of us and, after two hours, we emerged in the dark to a riot in the minibus as the other passengers seemed rather unhappy about being made to wait for so long...

EU taxpayers, be reassured - your tax money is not being wasted in Mbabane...

House on fire

27^th August-28^th August – Days 331-332 – Mbabane, Swaziland

Laura had alerted us to a big big night in a nightclub-bar-entertainment complex out in the middle of nowhere – Bholoja was playing!! Never heard of him? Neither had we. Apparently he's the top dog of Swazi music though, and has been nominated for a newcomer award in France for his new album « Swazi Soul ». It was a mixture of Afro-soul, electric-guitars-blaring style African music, and a slightly bizarre rendition of « Knockin' on Heaven's Door ». Much fun was had by all and after the rules and regulations of South Africa, it was nice to see that the country's most famous son could still give a concert where members of the audience just wandered onto the stage to have a word with him and adoring female fans could come and give him a hug between songs.

With these two inside, it certainly will be.

The new James Brown?

We eventually headed home and, at 5am, we retreated to the tent. It was already in a bit of a rough state after being savaged by monkeys in Kenya but it seemed that at some point during the night it had turned into a cage fighting arena for Bombasos' resident dogs and lay prostrate in a rather sorry state with two dogs on top and one inside. Hence, we spent the night on sofas in the lounge and celebrated the next day by doing very little and ordering delivery pizzas, playing Rummikub and so on and so forth.

It was time to leave. After 3 months in South Africa, we expected any escape to have a far more « African » feel, and so Swaziland kind of fitted the bill. It not only had a slightly more rural feel than much of South Africa that we'd been to but also, thankfully, the issue of skin colour was not as all-encompassing here as we'd had it since May. There are a fair amount of white Swazis too, but I suppose that the historical lack of total and complete animosity that Swaziland's larger neighbour went through has contributed to the fact that white kids like us can interact with black Swazis without a second thought, which isn't quite as easy in South Africa. The prime indicator of us being back in « Africa » was at the bus station as we prepared to trek out of Swaziland. We'd decided to go out of the northern border as we were told in Bombasos that it may be easier to get a new 3 month visa there than at the main border in the west. This would require a trip up to Pigg's Peak and a change of transport there to the border post at Matsamo. As we were deciding whether to take the waiting bus or the waiting minibus, a woman walked out of the big bus. « You are better off taking the bus rather than the minibus », she said. « The minibus only leaves when it is full, but the bus leaves according to the clock ». Great, we said, and enquired as to what time the bus would leave. « Ah... » she smiled. « I don't know. » God Bless Africa!

A walk in the parks

26^th & 27^th August – Days 330-331 – Mantenga and Malolotja Natural Reserves, Swaziland

Our first trek out was to Mantenga Natural Reserve in the Ezulwini Valley. We weren't really sure at all what was there aside from a waterfall but it was great to be out in the countryside where we could walk without having to yell over minibuses. Getting there was pretty easy – we got a lift into town with a passing Iranian doctor who lamented the current state of his country for most of the ride (« It used to be beautiful but now this Khomeini business... Gahhh... ») and then a minibus down into the valley. It was a lovely warm day which would have been great otherwise if not for the fact that I'd decided to wear jeans that morning and I was rapidly broiling inside them. We picked up a drink from the Pick N Pay (free advertisement for this ubiquitous supermarket, yet again!) and wandered off into the bushes.

Generic nature reserve picture #8759395.

The scenery from the earth road was nice with mountains on both sides (as one would expect in a valley, I suppose), we were surrounded by the sound of birdsong and the trickling of a small river to the left of us and then, somewhat bizarrely, we turned a corner to be greeted by a large, fluttering Finnish flag. We were so surprised that we went to poke inside and it turned out that it was an art gallery/cafe/honorary Finnish consulate, which I was not particularly expecting to find in the middle of the bushes down a small road in the Ezulwini Valley. We had a freshly squeezed juice from the cafe and a korvapuusti cinnamon roll for M («It tasted just like home! »), and took some obligatory pictures in front of the Finnish flag before going on our way, wondering what we'd encounter around the next corner.

Ta-dah!

Rather than Nelson Mandela or Godzilla or any other surprising find, it was the gate of the Natural Reserve where we paid our 50 rand and trotted off towards the waterfall. It wasn't Victoria Falls and we couldn't get anywhere near it without some sort of canoe (which we stupidly hadn't brought along with us) but it was almost therapeutic to sit there for a bit, forgetting that we are in the 21st Century. Just us, and the sights and sounds of nature. Nothing more. « Excuse me » came a voice from just behind us. « But have you seen an SD memory card? ». Resisting the urge to go back at the guy with something like « Thanks for bringing us back into the 21st Century with your modern technology, asshole », we apologised and said no, and then decided that it may be time to get back to Mbabane. We decided that we were on a roll, and that we'd get going to Malolotja Natural Reserve the next day for more nature and wandering around. The plan was to get up reasonably early and get a bus towards Pigg's Peak.

Not quite Vic Falls but nice all the same.

Surprisingly, we got up reasonably early and got a bus towards Pigg's Peak. Getting dropped off at the gates, we walked in and, once again had a nice and warm day wandering around trying to spot animals and birds and so on but not really succeeding. We were told at the entrance that there was a waterfall (and given a map as well, just in case we couldn't find it) but after walking around 6km we couldn't see or hear any water. It was getting late and we turned back, scaling up to a plateau to have a look down at the dramatic scenery unfolding beneath us. It was quintessential Africa, I thought, and so immediately I expected someone to shatter my illusion in the same style as the memory card boys from yesterday. This duly happened as a minibus pulled up and discharged its cargo of a bunch of birdwatchers from Torquay in the Southwest of England. Lovely. We had a short chat with them and walked back the same way we'd come.

Happy hiker. Until he runs out of breath.

Malolotja rolling hills.

There was no time to waste – we had a big concert to go to.

Visa Run

22^nd August -28^th August - Days 326-333 - Mbabane, Swaziland

With baited breath, we wandered into the immigration building at the Golela border post. The 3-month visa issue was on our mind – not being able to get back into South Africa would be disappointing on many fronts, not least because our flights back to Europe left from Johannesburg and also because we were scared of M's friend Inna murdering us when she landed there to visit us and discovered that we weren't actually in the same country. The large, prehistoric-looking Afrikaner border guard explained to us in no uncertain terms that we would be interviewed when we came back into South Africa, and that in all likelihood this interview would be completely pointless as we'd only be given 7 days on our return. We started mentally penning our apologies to Inna, got back into the car, entered Swaziland and pressed on. The sun had already gone down by this point and it was hard to see anything of rural Swaziland. The only thing I could tell was that the vast majority of the country was on fire as farmers burnt the old crops from their fields.

The guys took us to Bombaso's backpackers where they'd been living for a few months and we got a bed in a dorm with 4 Indian guys who eventually noticed our presence, moved their chins about half a centimetre up and then down in acknowledgement, and got back to what they were doing before, which seemed to be staring at the wall in silence. We left the room, had a few beers with the guys and met Laura, a Helsinki girl who had been living there for a while too, and went with all of them for a very typically Swazi dinner of enchiladas.

At least the weather is better than in Durban.

The fact that we could hear the Indian guys snoring from the main house seemed to indicate that there would be a problem, and Riku emerged from the room laughing nervously. « It smells.... kinda funky in there... ». We walked in to assess the situation and found ourselves in a room where the snores were making the floor vibrate at a strength of about Richter 4. We made a snap decision and, not for the first time, found ourselves setting up the tent in the darkness of night while the guys settled for sleeping on the sofas in the lounge.

Mbabane is one of those towns which is pleasant enough without anything in particular to actually do besides walking around and looking at such exciting things as the City Council and the Swazi Mall. The market, potentially one of the interesting points, seemed to have no-one in it, and we quickly found ourselves having seen absolutely everything. I suppose that's what happens when you go as a visitor to a capital city which has a population of about 90,000. The Finns had mentioned going to a craft market so we went along with them down to the Ezulwini Valley not far from town, where M bought mini masks and salad spoons and I managed to score myself an outrageously loud Swaziland t-shirt. We stood around chatting and admiring our purchases and then headed back.

The sign says it all.

What lovely purchases.

We spent a few days aimlessly wandering, going to Pick N Pay to buy food to cook at the hostel and so on. The walk from the hostel into town was over half an hour so that gave us a bit of time to get some fresh air. When we had nothing to do outside we sat on Bombasos' patio and played Jungle Speed, Scrabble and Rummikub, wondering what else we could do. It was eventually decided that we couldn't really find an answer to this so we decided to head out of town to some Natural Reserves. Swaziland, unlike South Africa, is a small enough place that you can get a minibus from one town to another, get off half way, and find yourself standing at the gates to a National Park or the like. We decided to make use of it.

Oh, the excitement! M, Erno and Laura losing to T at Rummikub.