Break Part Two: Swaziland

Ready for more?  Then read on my friends.

We left Maputo bright and early Thursday morning to head to Swaziland.  Swaziland is a small country sandwiched in between South Africa and Mozambique.  The cool part is it's still a monarchy, ruled by King Mswati III.  The whole time we were traveling by Cumbies, which are like little vans they cram a bunch of people in at once.  They're very cheap but not very comfortable.  We got across the boarder just find and made it to our backpackers.  Now, there's not a whole lot in Swaziland, and we had originally intended to use it as a stop over point and a new stamp on our passports, but once we got to the backpackers and saw all the things they were offering, we decided to stay for a full day.  We signed up for a safari in the Hlane Royal National game park for the next day and then went exploring around the hills.  We ended up at an art gallery that is owned by the honorary Finnish representatives to Swaziland.  I personally believe that A) those are the two most random countries to be connected to each other and B) the Finnish people probably gave themselves that title because they are they only Finns in the country.  In any case the gallery had a bunch of cool Swazi art that we bought and the fattest lump of a dog that would just walk up to you, roll on her back and stay like that.  Partly because she wanted to be petted and partly because she couldn't roll back over:

We went back to our hostel and hung out with a few people we met there, then went to bed to get ready for the safari.

Let me tell you something, safaris are AWESOME!  We got picked up and driven to the game park where we first had a 2 hour walking tour, just the three of us and a guide.  You walk along in a single file line really quietly and you basically sneak up on animals and get really close to them.  Seriously, this is how close I got to rhinos:

Amazing!  The first time we got that close to about 6 lazy rhinos and I really didn't feel nervous around them until we came to a mama rhino and her baby and she seemed like she might like to do some trampling if we got to close.  Our guide explained the difference between black and white rhinos by saying that, among other things, black rhinos walk with their babies behind them, like black people, and white rhinos walk with their babies in front of them, like white people.  Then he asked why white people do this, and he actually wanted a legitimate answer.  He was kind of a jerk now that I think about it.  On foot we saw rhinos, hippos, impala, springbok, crocodiles, warthogs, a bunch of bugs and giraffes!

At one point we were walking through the bush and heard a low moaning like sound.  Our guide immediately stopped.  Laura asked him what made that noise and he paused for a while then said "A lion...a male one" and kept walking IN THE DIRECTION OF THE NOISE.  At least being killed by a lion would make a cool story....

Next we had lunch and then headed out for our game drive.  On the game drive we saw what the guide described as "naughty" elephants.  These elephants were "naughty" because they did things like roll over ranger rovers with 10 Dutch tourists in them killing them all.  Very naughty indeed.  Ooh and they had a baby elephant!  After a short drive we went into the locked portion of the reserve that houses the lions.  This is the biggest part of the reserve because the lions just live there with impala and they feed themselves but hunting.  Almost immediately after going inside we pull up right next to a male lion and a lioness and we were REALLY close:

It was pretty incredible to see wild lions just chilling on the side of the road.  Although it made it slightly less dramatic that they were hanging out by the fence.

After the Safari we were really tired, but I was definitely in touch with my inner animal:

On our way home I asked the guy driving the van if he knew how we could get to eShowe in Zululand South Africa, which was where we were going the next day.  This was the beginning of the experience that leads me to conclude that Swazi people are the nicest people I've ever met.  He told us he had a cab and would pick us up from our hostel at 5:45am to take us to the bus depot.  Once we got there he asked around to find the right bus for us and waited until he was sure we were ok.  Then the bus driver I spoke to told me the right bus to use and where to get off to get to eShowe and told THAT bus driver what we needed.  Then when we were at a rest stop in South Africa that driver told us he knew a better way to get to eShowe, drove out of his way to take us to a taxi stop and made sure someone called a taxi for us to get where we needed to be.  The eShowe stories will have to wait as I don't think I can write anymore tonight.  The strangest thing is, the people in Swaziland were so nice, yet there was this billboard at the bus depot:

I just leave you guys with the knowledge that such a billboard exists in the world.  Goodnight.