August 6, 2006
Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary (see pictures on the Swaziland page of our website)
After I spent most of Saturday sleeping or reading, Rick and I spent Sunday morning “taking care of my hair.” He did an excellent job. We then drove to a local Swazi wildlife preserve, called Mlilwane, about 30 minutes from our house. We had set our expectations pretty low since we had been so amazed with our animal experience in Kruger National Park, South Africa. A few minutes inside the gate, we saw a lonely Zebra, the short, stocky breed whose special name we can’t remember. For the next half hour we saw nothing other than dozens of Impala along both sides of the road (the McDonald’s food for the savannah’s predators).
We parked the car at a rest camp in the preserve, and walked to a low stone wall where we saw people staring at something. THERE was a gigantic hippo the size of my blue Beetle, a foot away from the wall. He looked very forlorn with a runny nose and teary, infected-looking eyes. Then a couple of big warthogs (my favorite) scampered near him. By the time we left an hour or more later, a total of 7 hippos had emerged from the nearby lake and about 6 warthogs from the grasslands, all to stand within just a few feet of this 2 – 3 feet wall, with openings about 15 feet in either direction. There was a baby hippo, and two older but still growing hippos along with parents, including the hippo with the snuffly head-cold. There were several, clearly-male teenage warthogs who were full of themselves. One by one they would get near the sad hippo and kick sand in his face. Though he grunted and turned threateningly, the “boys” just ran away. What a whimsical, wonderful hippo-and-warthog day!
On the way back to Emafini, we stopped by an artisan area which featured Swazi-made candles that were beautiful, and some lovely batiks and carvings outside the candle factory. Definitely to be part of our holiday shopping.
August 3 – 4, 2006
WW’s 1st trip to Johannesburg, South Africa (aka Jo’burg, ZA)
The drive to Jo’burg was quite cold since it had snowed the night before while Swaziland was being blown around—in both cases highly unusual weather. 5 hours later, with quick stops for custom lines at both the Swaziland and South Africa borders then lunch, Leslie (our Country Director and driver today), Atiba, and I reached our first appointment of the day 30 minutes late—and that was with paying a street person to watch our car out front of the building so it wouldn’t be towed. We had a very enlightening meeting for 2 hours with the Managing Director and Programme Director for Junior Achievement in South Africa.
As we headed for the Jo’burg Technoserve office in the Rosebank section of the city, it was impossible not to notice the fortress-like walls and steel gates guarding what seemed to be very high-end homes. We reached the office at about 4:45 p.m with its gate also marked with “Armed Response—Beware!” sign. During our brief visit, we learned that the office had been robbed twice in the previous six weeks so for safety the whole staff must leave on time at 5pm.
We drove the short way to our B & B, Vittoria Villa, also fortress-like. While the inn was quite pretty, it was also freezing cold inside. We immediately turned the rooms’ wall heaters up to max then left for dinner at Leslie’s favorite Jo’burg restaurant, Bukhara Indian. The food was marvelous and the setting was elegant. It opened onto the huge multi-story indoor mall in Sandton Towers that also housed many offices, The Millenium Hotel, and surrounded Nelson Mandela Square. We had arranged to have dinner with two salesmen from an internet tourism portal company they were trying to set up in Asia and Africa to provide Frequent Independent Travelers (FIT) with access to more rural, native, community-based lodgings and adventures. Not only were they incredibly gabby and strange but they constantly spouted 3- and 4-letter totally unfamiliar acronyms like FIT, PPP (not Point to Point Protocol). We left as soon as polite, headed back to Vittoria Villa and each of us bundled up in our beds.
The second day of the business trip had us driving all over Jo’burg after our 2nd appointment to try to reach the main highway. No need for a formal city tour—or even another visit to Jo’burg after that. We stopped for what turned out to be too long a lunch (in another, more suburban-like mall), so hit the road back to Swaziland about 4:00 p.m., much later than intended. Not only was there a lot of traffic, but since it was Friday, there were lots of pedestrians and cars that made the customs lines at both borders very long. Taking about 45 minutes for us to pass, we were then driving in the dark on a very deserted, two-lane road. A car behind and one ahead of us seemed to speed up then slow down to “check us out.” A friend of Leslie’s had been involved in a carjacking in Mozambique recently, so we may have read too much into the cars’ erratic moves. We finally got to the outskirts of Mbabane—crowds and safety--and eventually got home about 8:30 p.m.
August 2 - 3, 2006
Windstorm takes trees, power and water for 3 or more days in central Swaziland
Starting Wednesday night, August 2nd, a storm with high gale force winds--no rain, thunder or lightening--hit central Swaziland. Just as Rick had finished cooking dinner (yes he’s been taking care of me while I’ve been sick) and we were about to sit down to eat, the power went out. The house (made thank heavens mostly from cinder block) withstood the gale, and we were fortunate that the Emafini compound has a powerful generator so the water could pump and lights could go on. When we headed over the hill to the main road, however, two huge trees blocked the way. We drove back to the house and noticed huge limbs of trees and our yard swing were down. Between our and our neighbor’s house a huge tree was uprooted but that had missed our houses. We called the office and they sent Kiki the driver to meet us at the bottom of the hill. Since Wendy was leaving for an overnight trip to Jo’burg that meant lugging a duffle as well as both computer bags. At the office we learned that most of the staff was without water and power. After assessing the difficulty of driving to Jo’burg, Atiba, Leslie, and I got on the road. (See above description of Jo’burg and pictures of wind damage on the Swaziland page of our website).
