Settling in at Swaziland

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Wow it has been well over a month since our last entry.  That's partly because we were on the road for most of that time and had little to no internet and partly because we are just keeping busy exploring everywhere we can.  But we are now settled in the Pine Valley area of Mbabane Swaziland and so a blog is due.  If you are asking yourselves how to pronounce Mbabane you are not alone. Even after a month here and asking several people we're still not sure.  We're saying it like this, ba ba nay.  So Swaziland has totally exceeded our expectations....Considering we had done very little research that was easy enough to do. But that is not fair to say because it is an absolutely stunning country.   First off it is vividly green and that we have not seen since we left Nanyuki, Kenya.  Second it is hilly/mountainous (Chris can differentiate that I'm sure but not me) in every direction with huge rock formations rising out of the vegetation.  Chris says that he could not create a more perfect place to run.  For me it is a perfect place to dine outside with the family and enjoy the view.   We're also getting some great practice rock climbing.

We were staying with our Friends Sarah and Armand and have just moved into our own cottage next door to them where we will stay at least through January.  Sarah and I first met as we were preparing to depart for Peace Corps in Kenya in 2002.  We were both struggling with leaving our significant others (now husbands) and we bonded immediately.  12 years, 2 babies (plus one on the way for Sarah) and 3 trips to Africa later, we are enjoying eachothers company once again.   They have been gracious hosts showing us around and introducing us to their large group of friends, many of whom are from the US.  And they have a swimming pool!  Luxury.  As it is just entering spring/summer here we are already feeling the heat so the pool is a great way to cool off.  With Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner it is hard to come to terms with the idea that we are entering summer but Sarah promises that Christmas poolside can feel just as special as Christmas with snow.  And anyone from Seattle knows that Christmas with snow requires a trip to the mountains or a plane ticket anyway so we're just going to embrace it for what it is. 

outdoor dining

This is where we'll be enjoying Christmas.

We had an interesting road trip down from Kenya.  It took us just over a month which may have proved a bit too fast but we were anxious to get down here and explore the southern part of the continent.  I say too fast because all the time in the car wore on us.  To put it mildly, we were driving eachother crazy. I mean we have never spent near constant time together since the boys were just born and from my recollection we were pretty grumpy then too.  So the time in the car was tough and then when we finally got out  the heat was brutal.    From the Malawi border clear through Botswana it was HOT....Africa hot. .. sleepless sweaty nights hot. I was beginning to think it wasn't real after the perfect temperatures we experienced in Kenya but we have seen more bone dry river beds than puddles along the way, Lake Malawi being the exception.  The lake is really lovely, super clean and clear with a sandy bottom (apart from the discarded bricks from a nearby building site).  We welcomed it during the heat of the day.  

Lake Malawi

great swimming temperatures

Our cottage.  I think we paid around 40 US a night for it. Not too bad.

Typical village in Malawi

Transporting charcoal

The wildlife viewing along the way also made up for the heat and allowed us to cool off in the ac of the car for hours at a time.  We know now that the dry season can mean exceptional game viewing as all the wildlife stays in close proximity to waterholes. South Luangwa National Park in Zambia was the perfect example of this where we got up close to a pride of 18 lions and tons of elephants.  We have since been to Kruger National Park as well in South Africa which has much more water, dense vegetation and in turn fewer animal sightings.

This guy is telling us that we should expect the elephants to come into the camp at night and that they will break into cars to get food or water.  I did not sleep well that night.  Our car has a lot of crumbs from the boys.

red sunset. spectacular

These guys are fishing in croc and hippo territory.

"just hold on to my tail for support"

we stumbled upon this lone wildebeest after driving deep into the bush.

Crocs fighting over an impala.

death roll

The "road" from South Luangwa which looked like a nice road on google

baby on the back and bucket on the head = no problem

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Each country has it's own culture and the big bold personalities of east africa faded into more gentle ones as we moved south.   The Swazi people have proved no exception.  They are quiet and gracious and they have seen enough white people in their lives that they hardly take notice of us which is in stark contrast from our experience in East Africa where we were like a circus sideshow.  So here we are rock climbing, running, horse back riding, swimming and participating in all that "Camp Swaziland" has to offer.  With such a large expat population there are group activities happening nearly every day from yoga to hikes to sloshball. We have our choice of ways to keep busy beyond our general tourist activities.  Most people seem to work for The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), Peace Corps, Baylor University or other NGO's whose primary goal is to improve the lives of Swazi’s. They are a great group of people and everyone has been so welcoming.  We're looking forward to a large Thanksgiving celebration with 60 people plus and all the traditional touches.  After that we've got plans to do some fishing for the aptly named tiger fish and spot some loggerhead turtles on the beach.  We're having a blast.

Baby shower for Sarah and Armand

Quick Chris Interruption:

We have so many stories to share, but we need to take care of some blog requirements first. You know explaining where we are and why and with who. I actually told myself no telling stories until I wrote a proper blog thanking the cool people who have helped us along the way. Well, no time for my proper blog, not only am I interrupting Kelly but this place is a stormin’ and electricity is on the death watch.

Okay one of my favorites... So, we are getting ready to cook some dinner at Elephant Sands. Let me tell you about Elephant Sands. This place is 3km and two right turns past the middle of nowhere in Botswana. Even though it was the end of the dry season I can't imagine this place gets any wetter than scorched bone dry earth. The place was over a one hundred degrees (you know, every time I see the temp over 40 C and I am sweating buckets, I get the lyrics in my head "the desert lives and breathes at 45 degrees" bonus points for getting the song and artist.) Anyway, So this place has a year round water hole which the local and substantial elephant population visit for hours daily. Basically enough elephants that at all time there are several elephants at the camp. Oh yeah they built a camp around the water hole. You may have seen photos from Facebook of the place. I am sure Kelly will add some photos as well. Okay back to making dinner. Camp was all set up and we were getting ready for dinner. There was a big wind so we decided to cook at the lodge area next to the watering hole. Not wanting to lug around all the cooking gear I decided to drive over and park behind the cooking area. Already pulled up was a massive overland vehicle, basically a Semi-truck pulling 20 Australians around Africa. We cook our dinner without incident and then get ready to clean up. I grab our washing basin and soap and head out to the cleanup station. On the way out I see our door open and Henry trailing behind me. I turn and tell him very directly and seriously "Close the door and get with your mom." We had a rule at this place and others that the boys must stay close to us and not wander. I get to my dishes (yes, I do dishes very often) and hear a commotion. I turn around and see a giant elephant heading for our car. So when I sent Henry out to shut the door and go to his mom, he only got the door shutting part done and decided to crawl inside. So Henry is in the truck and not with his mom and an elephant has taken a serious interest in our car. Kelly and George and the other guests are inside a wall and watching. I am out in the open with a concrete cleaning station as a shield. All I can figure is, if this elephants starts to get rough with the car I am going to need to run and yell! I was really hoping it would all just go away though. We actually have a little video from someone watching. The elephant is not menacing looking but definitely interested in Bumpy Boy (the name of our Surf.) So at this point Henry opens the door and wants to make a run for it. In my most fatherly firm voice I yell at Henry to get back in the car. I didn't know he was in the car until then and really got worried. Then as quickly as it happened, the bar tender caught notice,walked outside the wall and clapped and yelled and drove off the elephant. I wonder what the job description for this place is like, "are you willing to scare off animals weighing several tons and can you make a greyhound?"

Apparently I parked over the top of a hole the elephants like to dig up for water. When the elephant came over and discovered our car over it's spot, it caught a wiff of the 40 liters of water we kept on the roof rack. The 40 liters seemed like a good idea to the curious elephant, so it was checking out the water and not trying to freak out the little boy inside. In South Luangwa in Zambia the elephants were very aggressive and only after food. At Elephant Sands they were mellow and only interested with water. I can assure you we didn’t even bring full bladders with us into the tent that night.

Henry is in the car freaking out right now.  In South Luangwa the elephants were known to break into cars, luckily that is not the case here.

When it was all over we dug out a scared and crying Henry. His little bit of celebrity status helped him recover a bit. It was a good and needed thing for him to recover because we were camping out in the middle of this place with nothing between us and the elephants except our tent. Actually from a tip an over lander gave us, we sprinkled a whole can of cayenne pepper on the tent and car. We crawled into the tent with Henry and George not even concerned! I was on freaking alert! I had absolutely no idea what I would do, but I knew I wouldn’t be caught sleeping. So the elephants are drinking, spraying, calling each other, thrashing trees and generally partying in the cool of the night. They may have been a 100 meters but it sounded like they were just outside the tent. At about 1 am, I hear some elephants walking around our tent. Kelly pops up and starts to scan through the little plastic window. She did not like what she saw and started to literally shake with fear and ask “WTF are we doing here?” For some reason, seeing the elephants not give us another look, and knowing 20 people a night 365 days a year sleep with no problem… I actually fell asleep and slept the rest of the night. In the morning we could see the massive footprints of the elephants that came through the camp and close to our tent. The reality is that bad things do happen with wild animals, but that is just how they role here.

elephant crossing in Botswana

priceless

cheers to 3 months in africa!

Elephant crossing.

Okay I must continue the interruption. We have power, but we are going on 48 hours without internet. Being a morning person, I am up and waiting for the coffee quietly, whiles everyone else sleeps. The storm last night was epic. Henry described the lightning bolts like the ones you see in comic books, big squiggly lines. The lightning and thunder has stopped but it is still raining, which means the sun is not out, which means I don’t need to hurry out the door to run. So here I am typing and getting an E-fix.

Roof top tent or on the ground tent? After the elephant you may think it would be a no brainer and we would go for the roof top tent. Guess what? We still prefer the ground deal. Before we left we really stressed over which tent to buy. The decision was made easy by the fact that is nearly impossible to find a roof top tent in East Africa where are trip started. Even had the tent be available we were leaning to the larger more comfortable land deal. Imagine the four people including two mobile and agile kids sleeping on a footprint the size of a truck canopy top! At the equator where it was pitch dark at 6:30 we spent some awake time in the tent. So our land based operation has been great. With the big tent we can move around in, bring our bags into, and hang out. But what about elephants? Let me assure you that being 7 feet off the ground doesn’t make you feel any better when the animals is 10 feet tall and looking right into the tent. We spoke with our camping neighbors who were perched above the car and they slept no better. What about shorter animals? So far so good. I think our big bright tent looks to animals like an UFO would look to us. We are just careful not to leave hamburgers in the tent with us.

Travelling through Africa, big surprise coming… It is not easy. It is not easy in many ways that we didn’t imagine. A lot of the frustrations that we write about like borders and police, we may not have understood the details, but we expected those things to be difficult. I guess a lot of the difficulties that we didn’t expect and don’t write about are the little events that throw you off balance. Like no toilets anywhere and travelling with kids who not only have trouble planning and holding, but are more often with the “trots.” So, at first we feared the road and so we had to get comfortable with just stopping on the side of the road. Then we needed to teach George how to poop on the side of the road, and then repeat both fear inducing events five times every two hours. Once on our first day driving in the heart of traffic filled lawlessness of Nairobi, we literally had George trying to poop in a bag while Kelly held him up in the back seat. I was white knuckling through roundabouts trying to follow our GPS. We are now great at stopping even in the city, George is better at holding it, and I learned on the hard streets of Nairobi how to drive in Africa. I actually feel like a New Yorker moving to Seattle after learning to drive in Nairobi and now driving in Swaziland.

Actually so far the Southern Africa countries have been much easier than East Africa. Swaziland and Kenya are worlds apart. We have a soft spot for Kenya, but damn it is hard living compared to Swaziland. Only having been in East Africa, we assumed all of Africa was like Kenya. It will take another long blog post, but I need to write about the level of corruption in East Africa. It is literally two to three times more expensive to do anything in East Africa compared with the South, and it is three times slower and more frustrating. What is most frustrating is that in East Africa the roads are horrible and dangerous, the borders are like a scene from Thunder Dome, and the police are crooks and it cost you more money. We talk about this subject a lot and we are convinced it is because of the amazing extent of corruption.

I know I should save it for another blog and Kelly may move this to another blog. But I need to give my ultimate example. On Kilimanjaro I spent $600 USD on park fees. I was on one of five trails and started off with about 30 to 50 people. I imagine about 100 people a day pay $600 on the whole mountain most days of the year. $60,000 USD a DAY! When the average porter makes about $5 to $7 dollars a day. You think the park could afford a laborer or two at $3 or $4 dollars a day. With about 50 guests and 100 porters and guides a day at each camp, we had only 3 or 4 ramshackle outhouses. Most outhouses were gag worthy, so most people; me included waded the mine field and hung our bums out in nature. All the money was going to somebody somewhere and very few pennies were going back to this National Treasure. Side note I saw people, guests included drinking water straight from the streams! Talk about the trots.

What a topic to end on. Oh well. Cheers! We miss you all.  Here are some more photos from the road.

Pretoria, South Africa

We told the boys that if we ever came across a McDonalds we would stop.  We thought they did not exist in Africa.  Henry and George were all too happy to prove us wrong.  Big Mac please!

Voortrekkers monument in Pretoria