Swaziland

I like traveling to obscure countries that very few people back home know anything about. Myanmar was somewhat obscure until the US media had a field day recently broadcasting the atrocities committed by the military regime there and the devestation caused last May by Cyclone Nargis. Bhutan is a little more obscure, but even that country draws quite a lot of attention from travel publications. I wanted to go to a place that would be the grand-daddy of all the obscure places that I've traveled to. Swaziland is only an hour's drive from the Southern border of Kruger National Park and when I woke up this morning I had a rented car at my disposal and an entire day to burn before I had to be back at the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. It wouldn't have made any sense not to go to Swaziland.

As I drove through the dry, grassy foothills between the Northern border of Swaziland and Mbabane, the nation's capitol city, I thought through the possibilities for the day and what would be a reasonable amount of things to do before hauling back to Johannesburg. There was also another issue; I had no idea what there is to do in Swaziland. Just driving through a country is fine, and to be honest, cruising through the windy, hilly roads in the Swaziland was a lot of fun and reminded me of arcade games that I used to pay fifty cents for back in my younger years. At the same time though, I once took a train from Paris to Amsterdam and crossed through Belgium on the way. I saw a lot of the countryside and even stepped out of the train at one of the stations, but I still don't count Belgium as one of the countries I've visited. I needed a few real Swazi experiences to make my visit to the country legitimate.I had browsed through a few Southern Africa guide books to get ideas for Swaziland and there wasn't very much useful information in any of them, but they all recommended two places: Piggs Peak and Ezulwini Valley. Both were within a reasonable driving distance for me today. About a half-hour into Swaziland I finished a mild climb to the top of one of the foothills and found Piggs Peak at the top. There were a few small resorts and a casino up there, but as far as I'm concerned, that stuff is all pretty lame. There are resorts and casinos back home, wherever home is for anyone, so what good does it do to visit them in Swaziland? If I'm going to travel to an obscure place halfway around the world it doesn't make any sense to seek out all the same stuff I can get back home and have a completely sterile travel experience. I stopped the car anyway at a kitchy handicraft market and walked to the edge of a nearby garden where there was a great view of the valley below. That's what I came to Piggs Peak for - I had no idea what would actually be there, but at the top of any peak there should at least be a view. The view of the surrounding foothills was well worth a ten minute stop while passing through on my way to Mbabane.

A few minutes down the road I saw a sign with an arrow and text that read “Phophonyane Falls”. Again, I had no idea what the falls were about, but going to the falls was better than my other plans, which were to do nothing, so I made a quick right onto a dirt road and followed it about five miles down to a small nature reserve. Thirty South African rand and a five minute walk later I stood at a wide hill made completely of red rock and watched Phophonyane Falls tumble down the side. The red rock and the surrounding landscape reminded me so much of Southern Utah, but the falls were still so unlike anything I've seen before. The water didn't even really fall, it just streamed down the sides of the rocky hill and spread out until it splashed into a small river at the bottom. I don't know what I thought Swaziland would be like before driving in today, but it really surprised me that in a lot of ways it was very similar to what I'm used to back home.While at the handicraft market at Piggs Peak I noticed a map of Swaziland on the wall, and as I looked over it I saw some small text that read “Bushman Rock Art” next a road that would be a short detour on the way to Mbabane. The detour was well worth taking.

Visiting the Nsangwini Rock Paintings was by far the most worthwhile thing I did in Swaziland today. Another bumpy dirt road caked the Toyota with red dust and led me to a tiny hut that was the reception for the archeological site. A Swazi girl named Zinhle led me to the paintings and told me on the way that I was the first to visit today and might be the only one to visit. Zinhle took me inside a crude stick fence surrounding the rocky overhang where the paintings were found and and began to describe the ancient artwork. Four thousand years ago African bushman made paintings like those at Nsangwini all over Swaziland. Some paintings still remain, but only the Nsangwini paintings are in such pristine condition. Ancient bushmen believed that a wise man in each community, called a sharman, could see into an afterlife the “power world”. The sharman looked into the power world to seek advice for relatives of those who had deceased, and if he could not interpret what he saw, he would paint it on nearby rocks. Some of the sharman's paintings found at Nsangwini include depictions of African hunters, wildebeast, elephants, and possibly lions.On my way to Ezulwini Valley I passed through Mbabane and got a quick look at everyday life for Swazis. I was blown away by how well developed Swaziland feels. Before driving in this morning I pictured ill-maintained dirt roads at the border and tiny African villages made of adobe huts with straw roofs. That image is about as true of Mbabane as it is of Salt Lake City. Swaziland actually has a legitimate freeway, which is an incredible accomplishment when compared to other African countries. Mbabane looks every bit as developed as most American cities and shopping malls, billboards, and KFC restaurants are everywhere. If a visitor to Swaziland were to drive in from the Western border and just spent a day or two in Mbabane, Swaziland would feel almost as developed to him as Switzerland.

Ezulwini Valley was a bit of a disappointment. It's possible that I just didn't visit the right places there, but like Piggs Peak, it felt like another ridiculous collection of sterotypical resorts and casinos. Determined to have at least one semi-legitimate cultural experience before leaving the country, I pulled over to a cheap African souvenier market and browsed around in a few of the stalls. The souveniers were interesting and most of them were hand-made, but like I've said before, whenever I buy anything while traveling it always just ends up shoved in my closet back home, so I prefer to look rather than to buy. Most of the souveniers available at the market, such as wood and stone carvings of wild African game and exotic tribal masks, are the same that I've seen in several other markets in Africa, but there were a few Swazi paintings that were nice.The South African road trip has been a blast and I look forward to more of them in the future. As I listened to “Five FM” radio along the way I wrote down the names of several of the South African artists so I can look for them on iTunes when I get back home. Hopefully when I'm crusing down to Provo on my way to grad school in ten days I'll be listening to the same South African techno/hip-hop hybrid music that has kept me company in the Toyota Yaris. Years from now I'll fly back to South Africa and road trip for five or six weeks instead of five or six days. I'll head down to Cape Town, drive the Garden Route, hit a few game reserves on my way to Namibia and Botswana, come back down through Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and pay one more visit to Kruger before heading back to Johannesburg.