December 2010

On the previous Friday, my dad had been admitted to hospital with dehydration problems. I had just started to try and organise his spontaneous decision to visit India and Oman in late January. The weekend was a non stop blur of researching this, visiting him in hospital with results and decisions to be made, as well as attending Wendy’s family Xmas breakfast and having Xmas dinner with my mum on the Sunday night. I was so glad I had packed the week before.

Over the weekend, heavy snow and an arctic wind had forced airports to close. London Heathrow had pretty much shut down for three days but a handful of flights were scheduled to take off. When I checked the internet at 5.30am, our flight was on the list.

It was –9’C when we set off for Norwich to get the 07:40 bus to London Victoria. Absolutely freezing. England had been covered in snow for a couple of weeks. There was a ‘Airplane’ movie scene when we reached London and I went for a pee in the toilet. As the bus went around a couple of corners, I was slammed against the walls and door which opened, revealing me hanging on to prevent being thrown into the aisle while still having a pee. I forgot that the underground was at Victoria railway station, which meant dragging our heavy suitcases down the icy streets.

When we got off the underground at Heathrow Terminal 3 around 13:15, it was like a refugee camp with hundreds of people sitting or sleeping against cold walls in the corridors to the terminal. They were stranded with nowhere to go until flights were re-scheduled. Outside the terminal was even worst with hundreds more passengers trying to get inside. You could only get inside if you had a ticket for a flight that was scheduled to leave and they were few and far between. Marshalls would ask you for your tickets and check a flight list. Meanwhile, foreign travellers who either did not understand that their flight had been cancelled or had been told by their flight carrier to get a rescheduled flight, both with piles of luggage, would refuse to move which meant no one could get through. It was like a scene from ‘2012’ where the last planes to safety were leaving and only VIPs could get on. In the freezing weather, there were ugly undercurrents as passengers were physically dragged (including ourselves) through the bottlenecks of people and into the terminal which was just as bad.

There were disorganised queues everywhere. Queues for people checking onto flights leaving today, queues of people waiting to get rescheduled flights and people just milling around not sure what queue to join. We tried to join one, only to be told to join another which meant getting through/around what I described as ‘human carnage’ and then told to re-join the original queue. When we entered, I had happened to ask an Egyptian First Class hostess “Are you having a good day?” I ended going back to her totally confused. She led us to the front of the queues and we were checked in straight away. Result.

Amazed that I could not take duty free alcohol to Cairo, there was then a period of suspense, when various flights which had been scheduled to leave – Edmonton, Beijing, Oslo, Helsinki suddenly came up as ‘cancelled’. Our flight said ‘Please Wait’. I was still waiting 30 mins later. There seemed to be no pattern. Lisbon cancelled, but not Madrid, New York but not New Jersey. Maybe the ice was returning. Then our gate number appeared.

Once boarded, we still sat on the runway for an extra 45 minutes but when the plane took off at 17:30, over two hours late, we still thought of ourselves as the lucky ones that day. The next problem was that our transit time in Cairo had been wiped out by the delay. We would land after the connecting flight had taken off. Even worst was the state of Egyptian Air! No alcohol on board, no personal entertainment centre and my seat wouldn’t stay upright. It was like a throw back to the 80s when a movie would be screened on a wall in front and everyone was given earplugs, except that we weren’t. So ‘Robin Hood’ came and went in complete silence. I glanced at the ‘Egypt Times’ amazed to see a photo of the ‘Wikileaks’ founder and an ‘Ellingham’ byline. Ellingham was a tiny hamlet half a mile from house where he was holed up after getting bail. I had gone to see him arrive from London, while the world’s media waiting in freezing snow in the middle of nowhere in Norfolk.

Arriving in Cairo at 23:45, it was 16’c outside. Apparently, the connecting flight had been held back, but there were vast queues in transit, no-one to ask and nothing on the TV screens. What a Mickey Mouse airport. We followed the crowds and eventually found an unmarked gate where we sat around until boarding at 01:00 to be told by the pilot that we will now wait for other connecting flights to land. Doh! A text came through to say my dad was back home recovering. With no movies to watch, I slept through most of the long flight.

Tuesday December 21st – South Africa/Swaziland

We arrived in Johannesburg at 10:00 local time, a couple of hours late. Efficient passport control. Multiple visa issued. ATM upstairs to top up with South African Rand. The airport was familiar after my trip 16 months ago. We found the Hertz car rental where a rather inefficient girl seemed oblivious to my third party reservation. First she tried to charge me for two border crossings at #&163;100 each when the agreement had all our border crossings together under one cost of #&163;100. Then she claimed to know nothing about the spare red triangle we needed for Mozambique, even though I had a printed email from the week before to say that Hertz would have it ready.

We pushed our luggage up to the card deck to find a rather small car – a Chevolet Spark. 0.8 litre, 2729km on the clock and no air conditioning. Whatever. We had unlimited mileage, no excess and we could drive it on gravel roads. the boot could hold Wendy’s case and mine had to be squeezed behind the driver’s seat. Just before we left, the attendant asked if we had our ‘letter of authority’ to get into the other countries with the car. I checked the documentation. It wasn’t there, so I had to trawl back to the office and get one issued. The dozy woman was missing. Someone else scrawled out the document. Hertz in Johannesburg Airport – Not Recommended.

We were three hours behind schedule, but we were away. I expected traffic signs outside the airport to give us an idea of finding our route, but there was nothing. I followed the signs to Johannesburg – going west, in the wrong direction, but turned off the highway to head west and accidentally came across the N12 highway which was what we were looking for. We were headed to Swaziland. I had originally estimated a 5 hour drive to arrive at our reservation, mid afternoon. But with all the delay, by the time we got going, it was already 1pm.

Westwards on the N12 we then headed south on the N11 to Hendrina. There were nice straight roads and Gauteng Provinces endless cultivated horizons. Outside Hendrina, there was a massive smoke cloud on the horizon. It looked like a forest fire but as we approached it turned out to be dust from an explosion at an open cast mine. On the lookout for a red triangle and to stock up on suuplies, we eventually stopped at a small black town called Carolina. The small ‘Pay and Save’ supermarket was awash with aisles full of a recently unloaded delivery. It was difficult to move. At a local store (my third attempt), I finally found the red warning triangle.

Cutting across country, the N17 took us to the Oshoek border with Swaziland. We were stamped out of South Africa, a few hours after arriving and filled in a SARS form to export the car. At the Swaziland border next door, we had a simple procedure of getting stamped in wih a free entry visa and paying a 20Rand Road Tax. We didn’t bother with the Lilangeli currency since South African Rand was accepted. By now it was getting dark. We had a reservation at the Sondzela Backpackers near Lombamba and bypassed the small capital of Mbabane along a decent road, turning off for the Lombamba valley where many tourist lodges and attractions such as ‘Bunny Land’ are based. In the dark, it seemed to take forever to reach the turn off for the Mliwane Wildlife Sanctuary. Unmarked speed bumps in the dark appeared without warning on the road and the car crashed over them.

A sandy road in pitch black darkness led us to the park gate, where a guard, rather shocked to find us arriving so late, called the hostel on walkie talkie to check our reservation. We had arrived at 20:30, about 5 hours after planned arrival. It was a slow drive through the park along a bumpy gravel road with sightings of springbok and impala grazing, thanks to our headlights.

At the Sondzela Backpackers which advertised itself as Africa’s Rolls Royce of Backpacker Hostels, we were shown to our Rondavel (tradtional round hut with thatched roof - £24 a Rondavel). I had to carry the luggage 200ft across grass to reach it. Inside, the spacious room had a large double bed and behind a partition was a sink. The toilets and showers were a further 200m in the darkness behind some bushes. It was a little disorientating to arrive in darkness and not really understand the layout. Wendy pretty much crashed out straight away, too worried about ‘creepy crawlies’ to venture up to the toilets. We had been travelling non-stop for 2 days and were both shattered.

Wednesday December 22nd – Swaziland/Mozambique

It was a lovely sunny morning. I awoke early to find half a dozen rondavels in a row and went for a stroll. Sondzela means Welcome! Sondzela Backpackers advertised itself on the internet as “the perfect place to recharge your batteries Located in the beautiful Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary, Sondzela offers backpackers comfortable accommodation set in scenic gardens and perfectly situated with access to the numerous activities and site-seeing opportunities that Swaziland presents you. Sondzela is on a private road and can only be accessed by Sondzela’s backpacker visitors. The lodge is approximately 15 minutes walk from the Mlilwane Rest Camp and consists of two houses with ample safe parking, Rondavels and a large garden and camping area, swimming pool and games area Sondzela is located on the sanctuary’s southern boundary overlooking the Mhlambanyatsi Valley, offering a stunning view of the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary and the distant mountains whilst impala, zebra and warthog graze in the beautiful gardens below the canopy of trees that are visited by an abundance of birds”. It all sounded fantastic. There was only one problem. We didn’t have any time to enjoy it. I had assumed we would do that on the previous afternoon. We joined a French group for breakfast outside. The fried eggs and toast were cooked on open fire (braai)outside. We sat at tables with a view across the valley enjoying the tranquillity.

But we had a long drive within Mozambique and by 0845 we were in the car and following the sandy road thorugh the yellow grasslands, back out of the park, past herds of hartbeese, impala and zebra. At the rest camp, there was a herd of zebra by the petrol pump that were almost tame. Neither of us wanted to leave. But that is the problem when you book accommodation in advance. There is no flexibility.

Swaziland Background: The CIA website says that the “Autonomy for the Swazis of southern Africa was guaranteed by the British in the late 19th century and independence was granted in 1968. Student and labour unrest during the 1990s pressured King MSWATI III, the world's last absolute monarch, to grudgingly allow political reform and greater democracy, although he has backslid on these promises in recent years. A constitution came into effect in 2006, but political parties remain banned.” It is a tiny poor country - slightly smaller than New Jersey with a population of 1.4m, of which 40% are unemployed, 69% live below the poverty line and life expectancy is under 50. Swaziland recently surpassed Botswana as the country with the world's highest known HIV/AIDS prevalence rate. and more than one-quarter of the adult population has been infected by HIV/AIDS. The main religion is Zionist (40%), a blend of Christianity and indigenous ancestral worship. Average annual income is around US$4,200.

In this small, landlocked economy, subsistence agriculture occupies approximately 70% of the population. Agriculture includes: sugarcane, cotton, corn, tobacco, rice, citrus, pineapples, sorghum, peanuts; cattle, goats, sheep but only 10% of the land is used for arable crops. Industry: coal, wood pulp, sugar, soft drink concentrates, textiles and apparel. Surrounded by South Africa, except for a short border with Mozambique, Swaziland is heavily dependent on South Africa from which it receives more than nine-tenths of its imports and to which it sends 60% of its exports. Swaziland's currency is pegged to the South African Rand.. More than one-fourth of the population needed emergency food aid in 2006-07 because of drought

The Lonely Person’s guide summed up “Embedded between Mozambique and South Africa, the kingdom of Swaziland is one of the smallest countries in Africa. What the country lacks in size it makes up for in its rich culture and heritage and relaxed ambience. With its laid back, friendly people and relative lack of racial animosity, it’s a complete change of pace from its larger neighbours”.

Back on the road in the Lombardi valley, we rejoined the M3 highway through small hamlets and towns such as Manzini and Mpaka. It was poor but not deprived. A sign read ‘Be Happy Bottle Shop.’ There was a tourist infrastructure ready but the tourists hadn’t come. The scenery of green hills was wonderful. It took less than an hour to drive through Swaziland and I can’t claim to know the place or its people. I feel as if I cheated Swaziland by not staying longer, but it was just a way to cross into Mozambique using a quieter border crossing and an excuse to say I had visited another country. If I ever go back to South Africa, I would give it more time, no matter how small it is.

No roadkill spotted

Travel - £0
Accommodation - £12.66 (1 night)
Food - £10.10 (includes some supplies bought in South Africa en route)
Other - £12.05
Total - £34.81