After spending one day in Pretoria and going on a guided tour of Soweto, we headed for Swaziland. We stayed two days at the orphanage in Nhlangano before travelling by kombi to Mbabane. From there we arranged a hiking tour in the Komati Valley. It was a really beautiful place, although our crazy guide turned out to be slightly disorganised.

November 26, Sunday

I woke up a little before 07.00. For breakfast we ordered the usual breakfast rolls, but apparently there was a misunderstanding since we got something else. However, we didn't complain because this stuff was pretty good anyway.

Today we were going to visit the world's most famous township - Soweto. Precisely at 08.00 we were picked up by the guide. The tour vehicle was just a normal car and since there were six of us in the group, it became quite crowded.

To get to Soweto we had to drive through downtown Johannesburg, which in itself was pretty interesting. Being Sunday morning it was completely empty, totally deserted and very different from the bustling city we had seen on our last trip. Coming out of Johannesburg it was not long before we entered Soweto. We first saw the crummy sheds where the poor people lived, but later we also got to see a side of Soweto not many people know about. Many rich black people also live there in nice big houses in pretty streets.

After a while the guide stopped the car in a place called Mandela Village and let us out. A local guide then took over and showed us around in the poor area where he lived. Many of the small children in the area came running to hold our hands and beg for things. I overheard some of the ladies in our group talk about how embarrassed they felt about everything they had. However, it was obvious that the guide received a lot of tip from people feeling guilty about their wealth, because he was dressed in the latest fashion, so personally I was not too concerned about him. By coming to South Africa as a tourist you contribute to the local economy, which I think is a good way of helping and a more longterm solution than just giving some money out of guilt.

The guide took us inside one of the sheds so that we could see what it looked like inside. There was certainly not a lot of room for the four people living there, but it was quite clean and well organized.

After a little more driving we passed the house of Winnie Mandela. We didn't see her, but some of her bodyguards were inside the garden. Then we stopped outside the former house of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, which had now been turned into a museum. We decided to skip the museum and instead buy an ice cream and look around outside in the souvenir markets. While we were enjoying our ice cream, a black limousine and another vehicle stopped outside. Inside was Winnie Mandela and about six security guards. She only stayed for a few minutes, though, while one of her guards were inside, probably sorting something out for her. It was strange to see such a "celebrity" for real.

Before going back we stopped for lunch at a small Soweto cafe. It was interesting to see how Soweto was almost purely a residential area, hardly any shops or restaurants were located there as far as I could see. The guide confirmed that one had to visit Johannesburg to spend money, because there was not much in Soweto to spend money on. With over five million people living in the area, and not all of them being that poor, there certainly should be a market for more shops in Soweto.

Around 12.30 we were dropped off outside Kia-Ora again. I enjoyed the tour, but the trip to the townships of Cape Town last year was better.

We had a quick lunch at Kia Ora and discussed what to do for the remainder of the day. Being Sunday, we were a little uncertain about how safe it would be to walk around in the streets. Most of the shops were closed and there was bound to be fewer people around. On coming out, we didn't see too many other people (although it was by no means a ghost town such as Johannesburg this morning), but we decided to take the chance and walk down to the cinema. We first checked out the cinema near Sammy Marks Square, but decided that none of the movies were of much interest, and decided to walk back a few blocks to Ster Kinekor.

On coming out of the cinema, we noticed that a black guy who had been "hanging around" outside the entrance when we entered, suddenly started walking right behind us up the street. This could, of course, be a complete coincidence, but just to be on the safe side we started walking very fast and soon the guy was far behind. Paranoid us? Surely not :-) At Ster Kinekor we saw "Charlie's Angels", not a very impressive film, but okay to pass the time with. After the movie we walked straight back to Kia-Ora without encountering any trouble.

Back at Kia-Ora we tried calling Mbabane Backpackers to obtain more information on some of the tours listed in their brochure, but unfortunately nobody answered the phone. We also used the Internet for a while and later called home to ensure that our parents had returned from Denmark and everything was okay.

For dinner we wanted to try something new from the menu and we were not disappointed. We got so much food we couldn't eat it all, but as usual it tasted very well. We gave lots of tip and made the chef very happy.

Later we packed most of our stuff, but decided to keep the safety box with our flight tickets and other stuff we had no immediateneed for. We went to bed early but I woke up several times during the night having to visit the bathroom.

November 27, Monday

When the alarm rang at 05.10, we got up and were ready to leave at 05.30. Kia-Ora does pick ups and drop offs at the bus station for free, so at 05.50 we were driven the short distance to the Greyhound terminal by the owner. He chose a creative route (some of it was actually on the side walk), but we got there alive and with lots of time to spare. On coming back to Pretoria we would arrive rather late at night, so he made us promise to call them immediately when we arrived, so we wouldn't have to walk there through the streets.

The bus left on time (06.45) but because of a huge traffic jam it took two hours to get to Johannesburg. There we had to change over to a new bus which fortunately was waiting for us. This bus was very modern and the "bus waitress" was very nice, coming around several times to ask if everything was fine.

The scenery on the way to Piet Retief was not too interesting, being mostly flat farmland everywhere. We made a stop in Ermelo, where we could get out and stretch our legs for a while, before arriving in Piet Retief around 13.30, only 15 minutes late.

Borgny had been unable to pick us up herself because she was in Richards Bay, South Africa to see an eye specialist that day. After I had left she had discovered a black spot in her vision, which was giving her some problems. Instead Bente Jørgensen was there waiting for us. She is married to Gunnar and they are Danish missionaries who also live in Nhlangano, Swaziland. It was good to see her again.

After Bente having done some small errands, we headed for Swaziland. Crossing the border went quickly and soon we arrived in Nhlangano. Bente invited us for dinner at their house, and knowing her cooking skills, this was something we didn't want to miss. Gunnar had been very sick from Hepatitis when I left Swaziland, but was now feeling much better. They both are expert story tellers and since they have an amazing collection of stories from their time in Africa, we laughed a lot during dinner. Not many people have experienced as much as them, and I really admire all they have done for other people.

Around 18.00 Bente drove us to Borgny's house and the orphanage at Ekuthuleni, about 10 kilometers outside Nhlangano. It was good to be back, but a little strange without Borgny there. She would however return tomorrow. We said hello to everybody and got organized in the house before going out to find two puppies which had been born the first week I was there. When I left for South Africa, they were just starting to walk, but now they had grown a lot and were running around all over the place. They were so cute that words can not express it! The brown one was very outgoing and curious whereas the blond one was a little shy and wanted to keep some distance. We played for a long time with them before going back inside.

We talked and relaxed in the living room for a while until all the kids came to watch TV. It was strange to see how polite they suddenly had become, asking me if they could do this and that. I was obviously considered the boss now that Borgny was away :-) The smaller children went around 20.30, but then some of the older boys came to watch football. They didn't leave until 21.30 when I was so tired I went straight to bed.

November 28, Tuesday

I got up at 07.30 to make some breakfast for us. We had a lot of dirty clothes now and I was planning to do the laundry while Jan Arild studied for his upcoming exam in "Game Theory". (He is finished with his education but he usually takes an exam at the university each term, just for fun). The laundry took a few hours but I didn't mind because I like doing it. I also like to fold the laundry :-)

Later we went to find the puppies again :-) The little blonde one was much tougher today, letting us hold it and play with it. The brown one, which I named "the lion" since she was so brave and had the right colour, was mostly interested in biting and chewing. She was more or less stuck to our shoes the whole time we were there. She was not a good influence on her sister, which soon took after her. Later it seemed they associated us with chewing because every time we came out they immediately came running and hooked on to our shoes or feet!

Without anyone to drive us around, we were a bit isolated at Ekuthuleni. We didn't feel like hitching into town, so we just stayed around the area. However, we tried to make some arrangements for the next days. As we were planning to visit Mbabane tomorrow, we called Mbabane Backpackers to reserve a room and get more information on some tours they were offering. According to the guy answering the phone, we didn't need to reserve anything, though, we could just come by. We also phoned a company called Swazi Trails to book a bicycle safari for Friday.

Around 17.00 we started making dinner and soon aunt Borgny returned as well. She had a lot to tell about everything that had happened while I was away. The most important thing, however, was that her eye would become better and she was feeling fine now.

Borgny went to bed early and we did some packing since before going to bed at 21.30. For some reason I was itching all over my body and had problems falling asleep, even though I was very tired.

November 29, Wednesday

It was 08.00 before I woke up today. My hair looked like it had been abused during the night, so I had to shower before I could meet someone else. We had breakfast and packed the last of our stuff before saying goodbye to the puppies. They were happy to see us, probably because we were so good to chew on :-)

At 10.00 Borgny drove us to Nhlangano, where our plan was to catch the bus to Mbabane. She didn't like the idea of us using public transport, but we insisted since we knew she had more important things to do than drive us around.

At first glance the bus station looked very chaotic, but on closer inspection it was actually quite well organized. The destination of each bus was indicated on signs hanging from the roof, which made it relatively easy to find the right one. However, the Mbabane bus turned out to be full already, and not wanting to stand the whole way (2 hours), we decided to take a Kombi instead. A Kombi (or a "minibus taxi" as the Lonely Planet calls them) is a van with 10 or 11 seats that drives between cities and smaller places, stopping just about anywhere to pick up passengers. They have a reputation for reckless driving, though most of them aren't too bad, we would find out.

It was very easy to find the right combi because all the drivers stood outside their vehicles shouting their destination, so we just headed for the driver yelling "Mbabane! Mbabane! Mbabane!......" The car wasn't full yet so we found a good double seat in the middle of the vehicle. Soon a ticket seller came collecting the fare of R15 p.p., and in return giving us a ticket with the destination written on it. We were surprised it was so well organised that they even issued tickets.

The thing about Kombies is that they don't leave until they are full, so there might be a bit of waiting. In our case, we had to wait for around 35 minutes, which we didn't mind since it was so interesting to watch everything that happened around us. To let the potential passengers know the Kombi was about to leave, the drivers constantly honked their horns and yelled out their destinations. It was loud, but efficient! People selling food and fruits went around to all the cars hoping to sell something. This was the real genuine Africa! Not a single tourist in sight, and in fact we didn't see any other whites at all. It was obviously not common for white people to use the Kombis because we got many curious looks :-)

A good advice about Kombis is to avoid the back row of seats, or the row behind the driver, because this is were they always put in four people instead of just three, which can get very uncomfortable on long journeys. Our trip to Mbabane went well, though. The driver drove quite acceptable and the Kombi was full but not overcrowded. In the Ezulwini Valley there was a police roadblock and the Kombi was stopped. I don't know what the police were looking for, but everybody had to get out of the car and the police checked our bags. It probably had something to do with the recent demonstrations in favour of implementation of democratic reform.

Around 12.50 we arrived in Mbabane. It was now raining heavily, so we just ran to the nearest shelter we could find and stood there for a while hoping the rain would subside. It eventually got a little better and we went out into the rain towards Mbabane Backpackers, which was located only a few hundred meters from the bus station. They only had dorm rooms, which was okay by us since we got a large room to ourselves, at least for the moment. The room was nice and big with 8 bunk beds, so there were many to chose from. We told Bruno, the guy in charge, that we wanted to do their Komati Valley tour tomorrow, which he said would be arranged.

We were both hungry and went down to "The Mall" to find somewhere to eat. We ended up sharing a pizza at a place called Pizzapasta. After that we walked around looking for the National Parks office that we both thought we had seen there last year, but it wasn't there today. It turned out to have been closed a few months ago, as Bruno at Mbabane Backpackers told us later. The same had happened with the two cinemas in town!

We also looked in some shops for Christmas presents to the kids, but decided to leave it for the last day. Our flight tickets home needed to be reconfirmed, so we looked for a travel agency where this could be accomplished. On Allister Miller Street we found one. They wanted a commission of R25 to reconfirm each ticket, so we were given the phone numbers to make the calls ourselves. However, on calling the airlines, the number either didn't work, or we were put on hold, and in the end we decided it was cheaper to have it all arranged at the travel agency. The man made the phone calls for a discount price of R30 and everything was fine.

At an Internet café (R10 for 30 minutes) in the Mall we sent some e-mails to family and friends, before buying some bread, cheese and jam at Spar for the evening meal and breakfast, and returning to Mbabane Backpackers for the night. Fortunately, no other people had arrived in our room! Unfortunately, some cockroaches had arrived in the bathroom, but I decided not to care about them. We had some yoghurt (they make the best yoghurt in the world in South Africa!) and bread for our evening meal at 20.00. For the rest of the evening we relaxed in our room before going to bed pretty early.

November 30, Thursday

We got up at 08.10 and had breakfast. We had been told yesterdat that the Komati Valley hike would start at 09.30 so we were ready in due time. However, it turned out that we needn't have bothered because our guide was still asleep. Apparently a guy called Mthunzi, who we had met briefly yesterday, and who had seemed a bit weird, was going to be our guide. When he eventually appeared, he said he wasn't quite ready yet, so we wouldn't leave until around 10.30.

There wasn't much to do about that, so we just went down to the shop and bought something to drink while we waited. Two other boys, from Ireland and England, were also going on the hike, but one of them had to organize a visa for Mozambique first, which we also had to wait for. Little information was given about anything, so we were a bit confused about what was going to happen next.

We ended up going down to the city centre while waiting for the guys who went to the embassy. After walking around in a handicraft market for a while, we sat down outside and talked to Mthunzi. It took so long that in the end Jan Arild and I decided to buy a wooden mask in the market, store it at the hostel and then return to Mthunzi. We had waited so long for the other guys that they could certainly wait for us if they came back before us.

However, when we came back, they still had not returned, and I was now getting tired of this mess. I also thought Mthunzi was very strange and wasn't sure whether I wanted to go hiking with him after all. Jan Arild and I talked about backing out and just do something on our own that day, but suddenly the two guys finally returned and we decided to go along with the tour. We all went down to the bus station to catch a Kombi to the Komati Valley.

We got a good seat in this car as well, the driver drove quite nicely and things were starting to look a bit brighter. It took about an hour to reach Komati and we were dropped of in the bottom of the valley around 13.10. The scenery was certainly very beautiful with green hills all around us. I remembered this valley from the tour with Drifters last year, when we had come in the other direction and stopped at the top to see the magnificent view. However, back then, the vegetation had been all dry and yellow, whereas now it was lush and green.

Looking around us, we were almost in the middle of nowhere. There were a few houses scattered around, a very small shop and that was about it. The hike started and we walked up, up and up! I found it was quite hard and wished we could have slowed down a little, but I managed to keep up with the others somehow. We made some short breaks to watch the view and it was indescribably beautiful! Green hills as far as the eye cold see!

Eventually we reached the top and could walk some other way than up, which made things much easier for me. I still didn't like the guide, actually I was starting to like him less and less, but there was not much to do about that at the moment. We needed him to get back down again, something I was looking forward to more and more.

After a while we walked through a plantation of some sort and the two other guys seemed very ecstatic about it. At first I didn't understand why, but I soon realized we had walked through a marihuana field. The rest of the walk they kept discussing the prices of marihuana in Britain, comparing it to Swaziland and so forth. Truly a fascinating topic!!

After about three hours of walking, we finally reached the destination of our hike, the kraal where Mthunzi's family lived. We were introduced to his mother and some of his brothers and sisters. The place had a wonderful view, but I didn't envy them the long walk down to "civilisation", not to mention the way home when you would have to carry groceries uphill.

The two other guys didn't seem to show much interest in the scenery, though, as they immediately went inside to dig into Mthunzi's family's stash of marihuana, of which they apparently were free to smoke as much as they wanted. The free marihuana might possibly also have had an impact on their sudden decision to stay around for several days, instead of going back to Mbabane tonight. Personally, I didn't care what they did just as long as Jan Arild and me got back today - preferably as soon as possible. At that time I would gladly have paid money not to sleep there because it was a dump (in my eyes). Mthunzi promised to take us back as soon as he had eaten, which made me happy!

We followed a shorter route on the way down. It still took almost two hours, but that was okay and I actually enjoyed the walk. I asked Mthunzi a lot of questions about his business, how he had started and what he was going to do in the future etc. This must have been his favourite subject because it started a monologue about himself and how smart he was, that lasted almost all the way down. We didn't understand everything because his English wasn't that good, but we got some of it. Amongst other things he told us he had had some problems in the beginning coordinating everything, but today everything had run smoothly. "Yeah, right!" I thought, without saying anything.

Jan Arild commented that he might end up rich if his business really took off. This prompted a strange response, something along the lines of "No! No! Rich no good! No good! More important to be happy!" While we certainly agreed that being happy is the most important thing, we failed to see how being rich would prevent anybody from being happy. On the other hand, the Swazis always smile a lot and look quite happy, which I guess could have to do with them being poor, then :-)

When we finally reached the bottom of the valley, it suddenly occurred to Mthunzi that the last bus back to Mbabane had already left some time ago. It was getting dark and I was getting tired. Our hope was that a Kombi would come by and pick us up. Since we were in the middle of two towns (Piggs Peak and Mbabane) I was worried that any Kombi would be full already and there would be no room for us.

However, luck turned out to be on our side, as we hadn't waited for more then 15 minutes (just enough time to drink a Coke we had bought in one of the local stores) before a big Kombi came by and stopped. We ran over to it, hoping for a seat and it wasn't full at all. I was so happy when I could finally sit down in the seat and knew we were going to Mbabane again!

The weather had been relatively cloudy today and on reaching the top of the hill, we were right inside the clouds and visibility was almost zero. However, we still made it back to Mbabane by 18.45, where we headed straight for the shop to buy food and drinks for the night.

On returning to the hostel, we found our room full of people and almost all the beds were taken. It was of course something you have to expect in a dorm, but it came as a little of a surprise to us, since yesterday had been so quiet. It would have been so great to have the room to ourselves after this trip. No showers were working, so we just had to wash ourselves in the sink as best we could. This was not easy, but it would have to do for now. Since our room was so crowded we discussed going back to Nhlangano already the next day and just hang out there.

For dinner (we hadn't eaten properly the whole day) we made bacon and eggs in the kitchen. We had to eat standing up since there were no chairs in the kitchen. Someone was already asleep in our room, so to avoid disturbing them, we went to the TV room, which was basically another dorm room with a TV in. One of the guys in there was from Angola and was the first African backpacker we had ever met. It could have been interesting to talk to him, but he didn't turn out to be very informative. When Jan Arild asked him about the situation in Angola, he just replied that it was not as cold as in Norway. And that was it -- Never mind the civil war the country had been struggling with.

With rain pouring down outside, there was not much to do, so we just went to bed early. People were coming and going throughout the night, which was quite disturbing, but is to be expected when you're sleeping in a dorm. On the whole I didn't sleep very well that night.