In late July/early August, Wendy and I took a brief holiday into South Africa and Swaziland. It was a relaxing, though at times challenging, ten days. For those interested, here are a few pictures and a day by day account of our travels.
Day 1: It is winter, the dry season here, in this part of southern Africa. Everything is brown and dusty. Rain has not fallen for over two months. Fire in the veld is a constant threat, and beautiful views are marred or obscured by the ever present smoke. Smoke from farmers and homeowners burning fire breaks; smoke from the widefires that often appear to have consumed whole mountains; and smoke brought on the wind from further east where the sugar cane fields are burnt in preparation for harvet.
At the end of our first day we stayed at a guest house in the shadow of the Drakensburg. We hiked on the high veld, and enjoyed the vistas of the mountains. In this area a few wild animals still roam free including the Africa's largest antelope, the elusive eland. Our host was a gentle farmer, and the eland must have known this as one has taken to browsing on his trees. We were treated to the presense of a bull eland, not twenty metres away. The fuel that feeds the fires.
Day 2 & 3: A bit of a break in the smoke and a beautiful morning view of the high veld. It was the last time we saw the horizon clearly on our trip.
Morning sun on the Drakensburg.
The second day we traveled east and north through beautiful and sometimes not so beautiful landscapes. The big hills of the high veld covered in grass, I though beautiful; the hills strewn with rocks and acacia trees, or covered in bush veld, I recoiled from.
Wendy had chosen a guest house just into Mpumalanga province to stay for out second night. The owner was an artist and teacher who works in warmed glass. Wendy's intent was to take a class the next day and since two warm bodies were required I found myself learning about working in warm glass. (Despite all the reference to warm it was quite cool there on the high veld.)
The next day, after a wonderful hike in the surrounding hills, was spent in a chilly, warm glass studio. I managed to squeeze a few creative juices out of my cranium and came up with what looks like a child's drawing. Wendy on the other hand was captivated by the possibilities of the medium. Before we left, she had booked us back in for another two days on the return trip.
An example of warm glass artistry.
Day 4: Day four took us though mountain plantation tree farms, mostly pine forests on our way to Swaziland. Miles and miles and miles of plantation forest. We stopped at one private plantation (there was an art studio there that Wendy wanted to check out), and I spent some time chatting with the owner. A pine tree comes to harvest maturity in 40 years, about half the time as in Canada. Tree farming (he called himself "just a farmer") is a long term prospect.
His family were harvesting about 240 hectors per year. Somewhere back 40-45 years ago someone in the family - father or grandfather - decided on tree farming and began the transformation of what was maybe marginal pasture/ranch land, into forest. Forty years at 240 hectors a year is nearly 10,000 hectars or 100 square kilometers of plantation forest.
By far the biggest players are the forest company plantations and like the smaller private plantations, what they fear during the dry season is fire, fire that can wipe out years of planting and nurturing and investing in a harvest 40 years in the making. In 2007 one wild fire destroyed something in the range of 23,000 hectares just across the border in Swaziland.
Swaziland was a most interesting contrast with Lesotho. We arrived in the mountainous western part of the country, leaving the plantation forests of South Africa for the plantation forests in Swaziland; forests that provide industry, jobs, and income; forests that are conspicuously absent from the mountains of Lesotho other than a few small, small lots.
That night we spent in a novel abode, a traditional bee hive hut upgraded for us tourists with a cement floor and modern bath room facilities attached. Part of the enjoyment was watching a group of Swazi women completing the rethatching of one of the huts. The traditional family hut was apparently much small than the tourist version where we spent a night.
A bee hive hut under renovation.
Another delight at this stop was seeing some different widelife. Wendy had a tough time believing a crocodile was not a plactic or cement creation. It lay absolutely still, nary blinking an eye, blending into the grass.
A still life??
We also had a view of one of the most dangerous animals in Africa1. Boring they are, lounging in a pool with maybe their eyes and ears joining their noses above the water line. But when agitated, hippos apparently "can outrun a human" and "the bellowing of the bull hippo measures an ear-splitting 115 decibels, sounding like the roar of a lion."2
Hippos: exciting, they were not.
Day 5: The plantation forests were not the only notable difference between the Kingdom of Swaziland and Lesotho. The tourist and craft industry is much more highly developed in Swaziland. I especially enjoyed the locations where a number of crafts were highlighted at a single location with artisans on site showcasing their craftsmanship. Baobab Batik and Swazi Candles were highlights in terms of watching the artists demonstrate their craft. Then there were the carvers and their giraffes.
The carved giraffes are ubiquitous in craft markets here in Africa, but in Swaziland I had opportunity to watch the men who craft them. I marveled as, with just a hatchet, the craftsman hewed out the one on the left in the picture below. A single chisel takes the giraffe to the next level (on the right). Then it is sandpaper, and more sandpaper, next painting each spot on by hand, and then polishing with what I think was floor wax.
Simple tools of the trade.
The finished product.
Day 6: Day 5 had ended with Wendy taking me on a drive on the wild side. She had booked our accommodation deep within one of the Swazi game parks in the east of the kingdom. When driving in game parks and watching for animals their comes a time when one start seeing animals in odd rocks and tree stumps. On the way in I was seeing rhinos in the rocks. On our way out a glance to our left and I thought, "Oh, more rhino rocks." But we stopped anyways, and backed up for a closer look.
Rhino rocks, they had both been lying down when we first saw them.
Up close and personal with a rhino rock.
Day 6 continued through more of eastern Swaziland and I was again impressed with the diversification. In the west were forest plantations. Then we had passed though fields of pineapples, and now in the east we were passing though miles of sugar cane plantations; commercial farming on a big scale. The contrast with Lesotho continued to be so evident. Unlike Lesotho, Swaziland appears to have an economy built on more than government services, and subsistance farming. Yes it is still a poor country, but there is a vibrancy I sensed that Lesotho does not have. It seems that the forestry, tourism and craft industries, as well as the commercial farming add enough to the economy to bring a bit more optimism and joy, ... and money, the Swazi GDP per capita at $4400 USD is more than twice the Lesotho per capita GDP of $1700.3
KFC is another ubiquitous icon in Southern Africa, and the Swazis show some of their zest in their advertizing for the Colonel's chicken.
A unique and eye catching bill board.
While we enjoyed out morning motoring through Swaziland, I found the afternoon in South Africa dispiriting. Yes, we travelled through prosperous plantations of oranges, avocadoes, bananas, nuts and sugar cane, but the lingering image was the endless miles of housing in what was an apartheid era homeland.
I don't know why the bananas are bagged on the tree.
The map showed a few towns scattered along our route but the reality was miles of housing, endlessly strung out over marginal land. Some of the homes were quite nice, but after traversing the lush plantations I could not help thinking about the past when people were forced to move from their land, land that offered at least subsistance farming, to this distant, heavily populated, and seemingly inhospitable tract that seemed to go on and on and on.
We spent the night just beyond the homelands area. It was reinvigorating to be away from the congestion. We were high on a hill side, away from the lights and housing, though our view was obscured by the smoke. The stars were bright in the dark sky and in our host I found some one who was finally able to point out the southern cross constellation and how to use it to approximate the direction south.
Which came first, the termite or the tree?
Day 7: The next morning we were heading back the direction we had come but some distance to the west. What a difference thirty kilometres can make.
The former homelands are located in the low veld on the edge of the northermost reach of the Drakensburg escarpment. The return drive was up on the escarpment. Here the land had more value. The endless miles of housing were replaced by endless miles of plantation pine forest interspersed with small settlements. At times I could have imagined myself driving through the lodgepole pine forests of the Alberta foothills. The imagery was reinforced later when the wiff of a pulp mill, (as in Hinton, AB) assailed our nostrils.
High on the escarpment.
The low veld is obscured in the haze.
Alberta's foothills??
We ended that day in the area of Nelspuit, the provincial capital of Mpumalanga. We spent the night at a delightful guest house on a small private game reserve. where we had kudo, nyala, and wildebeast wandering near our cabin. The owner has a most remarkable house. He chose to build his house around the granite boulders on his property rather than blast or bulldoze them away. These were massive boulders, up to two stories high, incorporated into the architecture of the house. The main entry opened into a narrow corridor between two massive granite megaliths. He was a game guide and hunter. The corridor opened, and his hunting trophies, mounted on a massive granite wall, left a spectacular impression - notwithstanding one's view of game hunting.
Day 8: By this time I was getting a bit weary of travel, so Day 8 involved a short trip into Nelspuit. I had picked up a side wall puncture somewhere along the way. It was a slow leak, but the tire needed replacing. So, while Wendy did some shopping at a modern, upscale mall, I hung out at a tire shop. I confess. Between getting the tire fixed and joining Wendy at our prearranged meeting spot I managed to hit the mall's South African equivalent to Mountain Equipment Co-op.
The afternoon was spent at Sudwala caves, apparently the oldest know cave system in the world. Our guide led us 600 meters undergrown into a cave system that once held 3000 (yes, three thousand) Swazi men, women and children AND their 500 cattle. They had used the caverns as a safe refuge during an ongoing conflict between two brothers vying for the kingship of the Swazi people. Our guide showing the ingenious torch used by the cave refugees.
The branches of a certain bush were pounded to form a tuft
which when dipped in beeswax or animal fat made a great torch.
The Scream??
In the cave we met Dr. Adam Sheeva, a family physician from High River, Alberta. He had left South Africa many years ago, and while back to visit family he came upon us fellow Albertans ... in a cave. And, we with a little luck we could have met another Albertan. Upon arriving back home we learned that a friend from Red Deer had traveled almost the same route as us through Swaziland and Mpumalanga a few days earlier than us.
That evening it was back to the cabin with the kudo, nyala and wildebeest.
Day 9 & 10: Wendy was in her element the next two days as we were back, surrounded by quiet hills, in an tranquil valley, with a nearby warm-glass art studio to indulge her creative energies. She thinks maybe she has found her calling for her retirement years, whenever that might be.
Day 11: A long day of driving, but we arrived safely back home, grateful that the actual driving part of our trip was uneventful but for the slow leaking side wall puncture. As for me, I have had enough driving for a while. Yes, to see and experience all the things we did requires putting on many miles, but after this trip and the earlier trip to Katse, I was ready to put up my feet and leave the roads to others.
~ Benno ~
1 http://goafrica.about.com/od/africasafariguide/tp/dangerousanimals.htm
2 http://didyouknow.org/animals/hippo/
3 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
