November 7th
We arrived at Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) which is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by Mozambique to its northeast and South Africa to its north, west, south, and southeast. At no more than 200 km north to south and 130 km east to west, Eswatini is one of the smallest countries in Africa; despite this, its climate and topography are diverse, ranging from a cool and mountainous highveld to a hot and dry lowveld.
The population is composed primarily of ethnic Swazis.The Swazis established their kingdom in the mid-18th century under the leadership of Ngwane III. The country and the Swazi take their names from Mswati II, the 19th-century king under whose rule the country was expanded and unified; its boundaries were drawn up in 1881 in the midst of the Scramble for Africa. After the Second Boer War, the kingdom, under the name of Swaziland, was a British high commission territory from 1903 until it regained its full independence on 6 September 1968.In 2018, the official name was changed from Kingdom of Swaziland to Kingdom of Eswatini, mirroring the name commonly used in Swazi.
The government is an absolute monarchy, the last of its kind in Africa and has been ruled by King Mswati III since 1986.Elections are held every five years to determine the House of Assembly and the Senate majority.
The service at breakfast was reasonable. Disembarked , and boarded a bus for a candle factory just over an hours drive away. We were given over an hour to shop which we thought was a bit too much, but then I was biased by the fact that I couldn’t see the candles!.
We then drove to a culture centre where we sat through a show of about 30 minutes which was quite reasonable. Amusingly the dancers "seeded" a tips box with a 200 rand note (about 10 pounds sterling) which is a lot of money in these parts, and also the audience had pain already to attend.. This was followed by a tour of Swazi typical village which was interesting.
Then on to lunch. By this time, it was raining quite heavily. The food was very good .There was no chance of having a swim , but we got Wi-Fi for the tablets and phone.
We were back aboard the train by 3.30 pm where we discovered a leak in our cabin which was quickly fixed with the promise that the chambermaid would change the now wet bed. We had tea and a drink in the observation lounge, then a shower and into dinner. After dinner we found my bed have been made up still very damp so we had to search for Elizabeth to get her to organise a dry Mattress, then a very early night as we were going to have to get up at 5 am for a game drive.
Click on any of the thumbnail photos for a larger version
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On to Kapama Game Reserve followed by the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre.