My Trip to Swaziland and Mozambique

Sawubona and Bom Dia! (‘hello’ in Swazi and Portuguese)

Life has been hectic since I returned from my magnificent trip to Swaziland and Mozambique a little over a week ago. Last week, I had tests in both Afrikaans and Xhosa, plus two term papers due. However, I have now finished all my assignments to be turned in at UCT – and finals don’t even start for me until June 3rd! I look forward to enjoying my last couple of weeks in Cape Town without having classes – lectures officially finish next Wednesday :-). But onto my trip since I am still trying to hang onto my memories of the beach in order to cope with the terrible weather that has moved into Cape Town (60s, rainy, windy, and foggy – lucky for me, I get summer AGAIN in a few weeks – hopefully I can hold onto my Mozambican tan until then!).

On April 25th, a couple hours before sunrise, Samantha, Cydnee, and I headed to Cape Town International Airport to catch an early flight to Johannesburg. Having gained a bit more sleep from the 2-hour flight, we arrived ready to embark on our adventure. After negotiating a price with an unofficial taxi driver at the airport, which made me a bit uneasy knowing the ‘dangers’ of Jo’burg, we were safely driven to Park Station to find a minibus headed to Swaziland. Reading the ‘Lonely Planet’ guide made me nervous about navigating through the busy and poorly-marked garages of the station – I hid my passport and money and prepared my wallet with a couple bucks in the event that we were mugged. Luckily we weren’t, and within minutes we were handing our passports to an old woman running the Swaziland-bound minibus operation from the back of a car. Soon we were shoved into the bus (literally). As I wiggled my way into the 4-inch space, I knew that surviving the 6-hour ride in a crowded, hot minibus would be a struggle – somehow, I managed to sleep for the majority of the ride. South Africa is fairly empty with kilometers and kilometers of farmland, and it wasn’t until we neared Swaziland that the rolling and mountainous terrain returned. “Welcome to the Kingdom of Swaziland” and pictures of King Mswati III greeted us at the border. We had to sit at the border for an hour while our bags got searched and while one man on our bus got detained for his cargo – we never really figured out what happened, just that we had to leave him and his carpets at the border. Everyone wanted to assist the three American girls traveling to their country. This proved extremely helpful, for when we got off the bus in the clutters of Manzini, taxi drivers swarmed us. Cydnee managed to find us the driver with the lowest price, and we headed off to our hostel without having any prior reservations or even the correct address. Luckily, everything worked out and we found shelter at the quiet and cozy Swaziland Backpackers in the Ezulweni Valley, the royal heartland of Swaziland.

The next day, we rented a car to take advantage of our only day in Swaziland. Swaziland is not an overly exciting place – it is rather quiet with many rural villages and a couple of small “cities.” The Ezulweni Valley was beautiful with its rolling hills stretching into the horizon. Mbanane (the capital) and Manzini were dirty with very few, if any attractions – we didn’t spend time in either place. Swaziland is extremely poor due to the greedy, and hence wealthy King, who has banned any opposition parties – unemployment is over 40% and the country now has the world’s highest AIDS rate at around 39%! We thoroughly enjoyed our day, which included attending a cultural tour and dance from a local village, eating lunch by a beautiful waterfall, spending hours at a craft market that extended for at least a mile (countless vendors with very few buyers), a disappointing trip to the ‘Hot Springs,’ which turned out to be a swimming pool, a traffic jam when Samantha tried to drive our stick-shift car into town, and finally a accidental drive into the busy minibus/bus rink in Manzini, where we were greeted with constant honking, gridlock, and a man on the hood of our car. At the hostel, we played games with the employees and had major fallout with the rent-a-car lady. After having worried about not having enough time in Swaziland, one day proved to be plenty...

And once again we found ourselves piled into a minibus heading for Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Since we did not get our Mozambican visas ahead of time, we knew we needed to be as quick as possible at the border so that the minibus would not leave us (and take all of our belongings with it). Luckily, it waited – I imagine the other travelers were fairly annoyed for it took longer than expected for simply having to slap a sticker on a page. We arrived in Maputo in the afternoon (only 2 ½ hours after leaving Manzini), and we settled in at Fatima’s Backpackers (the only reservations we had and could make for the trip – thank goodness, since it was full!). Maputo appeared to be in ruins. For a brief history, when Portugal pulled out of Mozambique, it literally destroyed its entire infrastructure, and left the country to fight a terrible civil war for years. Maputo is clear evidence of that destruction. A little uneasy with the new surroundings, especially with the language barrier (everyone speaks Portuguese, very few speak English) and the policemen dressed as soldiers ready for combat, we took a taxi to the fish market, which a friend had recommended to me. This was our first view of a much nicer part of town with beautiful European-style buildings. When we got out of the car, sellers immediately bombarded us and we tried to get away as soon as possible by walking into the much-tinier-than-expected market with just a couple tables of fish covered in flies. However, the waitresses from the restaurants behind the market followed us everywhere, trying to get us into their restaurant, and not understanding that we had no clue what they were saying in Portuguese. The three of us were so confused and so overwhelmed, but eventually figured out that we had to pick from one of seven or so restaurants behind the market that would cook the fish we chose. We finally picked an extremely sweet (and patient) waitress who helped us buy our fish with the help of a translator. We had no idea what to expect as we didn’t specify how the fish was to be cooked – she simply took it from the market – and we hoped for the best. We sat outside in the market square enjoying being surrounded by locals eating dinner and live music. Here, in this very unassuming place, we had the best meal of our entire trip – possible of my entire life. That night, I had my first experience of sleeping under a mosquito net (which I found out was extremely necessary after trying to sleep without it a couple nights later and waking up with mosquito bites all over my face).

We left before sunrise the next morning for Tofo Beach – this time on a slightly more comfortable shuttle arranged by the hostel. However, since it did not fill up to capacity at the hostel, we found ourselves waiting (once again) for 2 hours at the taxi-rink until full. Despite this, our driver made remarkable time – I’m not sure how we didn’t kill a couple of children on the way, for when we passed through villages, the driver simply laid on the horn and sped by – also remarkable is the fact that we didn’t get a flat tire from the poor quality of roads. Anyhow, we arrived late afternoon, and literally ran off the bus to take a swim in the warm Indian Ocean! The temperature of the Indian Ocean was similar to that of bathwater and its saltiness made it really easy to float. We stayed in a private bungalow (somehow cheaper for the 3 of us than the dorm) on top of a dune overlooking the ocean at the Fatima’s branch in Tofo. For under $12 per night, it doesn’t get any better than this. The hostel was full of people on holiday, which made it particularly fun when we ran into other students we knew. Each day, I woke up at 5:45 am to watch the gorgeous sunrise over the Indian Ocean, which was followed by an early swim in the ocean, and breakfast in the sand above the water at the hostel bar. The rest of the day was spent swimming in the beautiful blue waters or lying on the white sand. By later in the day, boys between the ages of 9 and 15 would move onto the beach to try to sell the woven bracelets they made – one in particular, who called himself Johnny Cash after hearing the name on TV, managed to get me to buy a couple – kids should never be allowed to sell anything – it’s so hard to turn them down, plus they were actually brilliant salesmen! We enjoyed ourselves so much that we stayed a day longer than we had planned, which turned out to be the most beautiful day of the entire trip. My adventure-loving and thrill-seeking self thoroughly enjoyed my activity of choice at Tofo: snorkeling in the ocean with the Whale Sharks. It was absolutely incredible – here we were in middle of the Indian Ocean swimming alongside creatures in the wild that are 100x our size, and staying a distance of only a few meters – luckily, they don’t have any teeth! Excitement continued into our last night, as a major thunderstorm rolled into Tofo. I feared for my life as I sat with Cydnee in our bungalow at the highest point of the dune, 50-100 feet from the water, with continuous lightning flashes and a major puddle collecting under our door - our only plan of action being to seek shelter in the bottom bunk. We debated running down to the bathrooms, but the storm was so bad that I honestly feared we might get struck – after all, Swaziland has one of the highest rates of people being struck by lightning in the world, and it was close by. Luckily, we survived through the night.

After only an hour or two of sleep, we were back on the shuttle at 4am to Maputo. With only a half-day in the city, we were determined to see more of it than the first time passing through. We spent our afternoon walking around the streets, and concluded with a dinner along the water. I found Maputo particularly intriguing – maybe it is because everyone I talked to before leaving on this trip told me that they disliked it, and so I planned for the worst. Maybe it is because this was my first real look at a third world city. But I think it is because of its subtle charm. It is true that the sidewalks contained gapping holes that could do some serious damage, and that garbage piled up all over the streets, and that our hostel ran out of water and had to pump more, and that poverty was visible everywhere. But looking beyond those evident problems was a city with great potential – with interesting European architecture, and a beautiful coastline, Maputo has potential that isn’t able to be fulfilled due to the problems still surfacing from its past. Unfortunately, it is a frustrating, yet common aspect of life that affects the people and places of many African nations.

We spent our final day on a 9-hour Greyhound ride from Maputo to Jo’burg – the buses are actually comfy here, and the movie selection was, well, interesting (I had the pleasure of watching Hotel Rwanda and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen... twice). This was followed by a flight back to Cape Town, where we arrived safely at home. I couldn’t believe how smoothly the trip worked out with such a lack of planning, but it left within me a burning desire to travel and see more of what Africa has to offer. Cheers!