Tuesday, March 21
Off to Swaziland. We
hit the border around noon, and the boys had their first experience exiting one
country, travelling through no man’s land for a couple of hundred meters, and
then having to enter the next country.
Swaziland is not very big, but they make the distances large by having
60 km speed limits everywhere. And there
is a need for caution while driving, as the speed bumps are large and
often. Much better in the van than in
the mini I dragged the length of the transmission over the speed bumps 27 years
ago in Swaziland. After finally arriving
at Miliwani Game Park, after many wrong turns of course, we drove down 7 km of
some very rough gravel roads, and as we are travelling over a land bridge next
to a small lake, notice a big croc in the water. We then entertained us by going onto shore
were some large turtles were, pushing one into the water as it was in the
way. Getting into camp found us in the
midst of zebra, wart hogs, and impala.
The boys were thrilled with a huge swimming pool with a big log dividing
the shallow from the deep end. And the
vista from our camp site and pool were amazing.
Wednesday, March 22
Luke eating breakfast in the morning had an impala come
right behind him, and he was able to pat its’ back. Nate was also getting very close to feeding
them as well in the grounds. We headed
into town to check out the markets, and the boys did some bargaining for some
various items. The common starting cost
was always 150 rand, but I give you a special price of 100 rand as you are my
friend. The boys also found out rule
number 1, if you walk away the price goes down yet again. Levi’s cockiness comes in useful in
negotiations.
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| The ancient tree |
Thursday, March 23
We did a walk around the Hippo Pond in the morning. Saw some big crocs, and ended up above
several hippos that sparked some fear in the crowd. As the number one killer of people in Africa,
there snorts were enough to send us prairie folk scrambling. We then travelled to town and checked out the
House of Fire and the old market. Buying
rule number 2, the price is always more on the second day. Our return to camp that afternoon had the crocs
with dinner, some type of animal bloated in the water with lots of crocs
circling. A family showed up and were
all outside, much to Cindy’s horror.
When the crocs started to approach shore, the young kids scrambled to
the vehicle. Our one tent ended up with
a broken fibre glass pool. Fortunately,
I brought some spare parts. With the
boys swimming, Cindy and I were able to replace the broken pole and restring
the poles. With that successfully
completed and the tent back together, we started to look at the map for
tomorrow. The ugly snap sound quickly
changed the tent back into an odd shape.
After a couple of more hours of work, the second repair was completed
and will hopefully hold. That evening a
tour bus came in and the locals put on a singing and dancing traditional show
that we watched for a while.
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| Morning view from our campsite |
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