This morning after breakfast, we check out and depart on our journey to Swaziland. We proceed south to Malalane and then onto Swaziland where this afternoon and will visit a real Chief’s village and have the fantastic opportunity to gain an authentic knowledge of traditional Swazi culture.
Optional Extra - 31/2 Hour 4x4 Game Drive in Hluhluwe
Distance traveled - 261 km's
We started today in a nice leisurely manner, cruised on down to breakfast and had time to nothing but wait, Nathan took a walk with Jim an Aussie that is travelling alone, Jim has an interesting range of lenses for his camera, his photos will be very interesting, anyway while they were out with their cameras they came across a Peacock with his tail on full display, Nathan estimates it was about a three meter span.  We departed at 8, stopped at Malelane, where we discovered they know how to make coffee, finally a coffee we could enjoy, who knows when the next one will be.  While heading into the Wild Frontier, that is what the map says the area is, we came to a halt due to road works, nothing strange about that, except there are some locals taking full advantage of traffic unable to move, when we were able to move guess who was still paying for the yummy fresh salted Macadamia nuts?  I can tell you it was not me but the seat next to me was vacant….

Our next stop was at the border of South Africa, No Man’s Land and Swaziland.  The process to get to Swaziland is interesting, you need to have your passport stamped to acknowledge you have left South Africa, then you walk through No Man’s Land for about 200 meters and go through passport control to enter the Kingdom of Swaziland, while we were in No Man’s land we were treated to a tribal dance and lunch, another experience not to be forgotten, some of the traditions of the Swazi tribe are very interesting, but the tribe has changed some of its traditions as they are aware that with change traditions need to change.  They used to practice Polygamy, which they no longer do, previously if a man wanted to practice polygamy he had to ask the wife, she can agree or not, but it was explained that if the wife agrees the second wife joins the family and is responsible for the cooking the cleaning and looking after the children, so there was benefits to her agreeing. The way children were brought up was also interesting, from birth to 6 the children slept with their mother, from 6 to 13 they slept in their grandmothers hut and from 13 to marriage they slept in another hut with all the girls or all the boys dependent on if you were a girl or boy until marriage.  The single girls wore specific clothing that shows they are single and are in need of a husband, during the tribal dance Nathan was grabbed by one of the single girls for a dance.  We all made it through customs and we proceeded on, around 3 pm an interesting storm hit, strong winds, rain and a thunder and lightning show all the way around us while the storm was raging on outside we went into a glass blowing factory, the glassware was stunning with animals on the stems of glasses.  We got to Lugogo Sun, after dinner Nathan wanted to go back to No Man’s Land,