Johannesburg
Inspite of Toni’s best efforts, the business class upgrade on Emirates flight EK4 fails to materialise, but the courtesy of a splendid new A380 Airbus, the journey from London to Jo’burg is as pleasant as a long haul economy can be. The landing is rough as the storm clouds are gathering, but in no time I’m off the plane, through immigration, changing money then heading over to the domestic terminal where my hostel shuttle bus is waiting. Stepping outside the skies open and I’m drenched by a deluge which marks the start of the rainy season. Bodes well for seeing Swaziland awash with bright flowers, green grass and blossoming trees. The rain is torrential and the lightening spectacular – it’s a welcome tonic from the stuffy flight.
We don’t normally have teams staying in Jo’burg – parts of the city aren’t suitable – but the hostel I’ve found is about 25km outside of the centre, in a peaceful rural feeling suburb. It’s a large secure homestead with a great campsite, bathrooms, camp kitchen, braai (barbecue) pits, dorms, a TV lounge and very tasty home cooked meals. Perfect for teams. The owners can organise safaris and transport – we spend some time discussing prices. Turns out that there’s also a supermarket 2km walk away, and just next to that is a friendly little orphanage which welcomes volunteers – an unexpected potential project. After a night and a morning in Jo’burg confirming costings and logistics it’s time to jump on the bus east to Swaziland, and the exciting bit of recce begins…
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Into Swaziland
Swaziland
Including the border crossing it’s just 4 hours across the rolling midvelt from Jo’burg to Mbabane. This is the capital of Swaziland – the smallest country in the southern hemisphere and home Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III. I don’t know anyone who’s been to Swaziland, and I’d naively assumed that this is because there’s not much there. After all, how much could you fit in a country that takes 3 hours to drive from one end to the next? Well, lots, its turns out. Swaziland is a hidden gem. I spend the first 2 days in the Ezulwini Valley – Swaziland’s aptly ‘Valley of Heaven’. It’s gorgeous: big towering cliffs enclosing a lush wide valley, and it’s easy to see why the Swazi Royal family choose to live here.
Places to go, things to do: first up is checking out the Ezulwini Valley’s 3 main hostels to look at whether they’d be suitable for teams. One of them is awesome – set on a steeply terraced slope with a beautiful shady camping area, a great backpacker’s kitchen, 3 hiking trails up the mountains behind the hostel, and a stream babbling through the garden. Lots of vervet monkeys jumping around the trees too – they look sweet, but actually they are food-thieving menaces – note to teams: lock up your beanfeast! The other hostel is frankly a dump. I’m also alarmed to hear later that there was a robbery there a few months ago. This is why recces are so valuable – you can’t get this sort of info from the Lonely Planet. And the third hostel is no-where to be found – contrary to what the brand new edition of my guidebook says it apparently shut down several years ago. Never mind – hostel number one is a winner.
Next stop is Swaziland’s premiere activity provider: with ‘the best white water rafting south of the Zambezi’, treks, safaris and more, they’re a great company to make contact with. The manager is very patient as I go through all of the safety checks and BS8848 question – it usually takes some time to explain why we are so interested in taking safety seriously, but she gets it straight away and sends me on my way with a clutch of certificates and safety questions completed. Mission accomplished.
Then it’s on to meet an organisation who co-ordinates volunteer projects all over Swaziland and Mozambique, who are also the ground handlers for Realgap and i-to-i’s projects. It’s an impressive organisation, and their projects sound excellent. We chat for some time about how we could work together. They also do safaris and have a very smart bus with seatbelts that we could use to transport the teams around – a good find – and before I head off they furnish me with two superb topographical maps (just about to go out of print) of the two main trekking areas in Swaziland – gold dust! They’re going to get back to me with some project ideas and we’ll take it from there. In-country agent material – got a good feeling about these guys…
After 2 nights in the Ezulwini Valley, I’ve ticked off everything that I’d planned to and more, so I’ve got 2 days to go exploring… Thanks to the combined effect of 2 nights of camping and self catering with a decent exchange rate, I can afford to splash out on a taxi to whisk me round the country. So I phone Walter, a taxi driver I met on arrival in Mbabane, and we agree a good itinerary and a decent rate. The next morning Walter picks me up at 8am and we drive north for an hour to Malolotja Nature Reserve. Malolotja is currently the only area of Swaziland that our teams visit – it is used as an acclimatisation area for the South Africa teams – and I’d always assumed it was a fairly unremarkable area with rolling hills, a central campsite and a few trails. Couldn’t be further from the truth: Malolotja is truly beautiful: highvelt mountain scenery, big panoramic views, green hills carpeted with wild flowers thanks to the rain a few days ago, herds of eland, zebra and antelope, and over 200km of beautifully maintained way marked trails. You can trek for 8 days within the Reserve without seeing a soul – how have we not realised the potential here earlier?! Walter drops me at the Park HQ and agrees too pick me up at 2pm. This leaves me with enough time to do a 12km 3 hour trek with one of the Reserves friendly and knowledgeable guides.
The sky is bright blue and cloudless, and the scenery is utterly enchanting. I ask my guide when the best time to come is, and he says it is great in the sunny dry winter season (July, August for UK and US teams – tick) but his favourite time is November or early December because of the amazing wild flowers (Australian teams – tick). It’s amazing trekking so close to massive eland (a sort of antelope about the size of a large cow) and skittish zebra – a free safari!
Back at the Park HQ I confirm all of the costings for camping, park entry, guides and food. Then after a swift lunch there’s just about time to check out Malolotja’s newest attraction – a hair-raising zip wire canopy tour… Now the quality of these things varies a lot. I’ve done the excellent original canopy tour in Costa Rica, but seen a fair few shoddy alternatives too. This is one of the best I’ve seen though. The guide talks me through the safety briefing and shows me the video that they show all participants, then we go through all the equipment: brand new full body harnesses and helmets made by Black Diamond, double cable system with back up cable that can take 10 tonnes, screw gate karabiners, top notch leather gloves combine to make an impressive set up. As with the rafting company, he patiently answers all of my seemingly bizarre safety questions, though he does think it’s pretty hilarious that I insist on taking a dozen photos from different angles of the mannequin they’ve got set up with the harness and cables – but it’s all useful stuff to help the safety team approve the activity. Finally we negotiate a good group rate. With flashy Big Five safaris there are plenty of expensive R&R options for teams in Southern Africa, so it’s good to have an alternative activity that will cost the challengers just over £20. And they even agree to include lunch in the package!
From Malolotja we head south again – back through the Ezulwini Valley, on to Manzini (Swaziland’s biggest city – an unfortunate blot on an otherwise lovely landscape) and then we drop down off the edge of the midvelt escarpment to the lowvelt – Swaziland’s steamy lowlands. The scenery changes straight away. You can smell the neatly manicured sugar plantations before you can see them – a woozy treacley stench of burning sugar which reminds of Malawi’s deep, south – and then we’re driving through Hllane Royal National Park, Swaziland’s best safari destination. The main road goes right through the park and I see a giraffe and several bushbuck – another free safari! We’re heading to a remote mountain community, very close to the border with Mozambique, home to the first community owned and managed lodge in Swaziland. I hadn’t even heard of the place until a chance encounter at a backpackers lodge, but it sounds amazing and full of potential so I want to check it out and spend the night there. Turning off the main tar road it’s another 16km along a bumpy dirt road up in to the mountains, and we arrive just before sunset.
I phoned ahead so they are expecting me, and as the taxi pulls up a troop of singers and dancers emerge out of one of the huts and I’m welcomed by a fantastically colourful display of traditional Swazi singing and dancing. They want me to join in… Pretty embarrassing, but basically it’s just lots of stamping and clapping with the occasional leap in the air – fairly rudimentary, so it’s not too difficult for my two left feet to get the hang of. Once this is all over I’m shown round the camp. The whole place was conceived by the community and set up with support from DFID, and it’s now a showcase for community-based within Southern Africa, with all profits they make from lodging, food, hiking and ‘village walks’ being ploughed back in to the community. It’s fantastic – 6 huts with dorm beds for 30 people in all, a big central area for eating, a camp site with covered camp kitchen (perfect for teams) and immaculate bathroom block, and with the sun going down I can see that the location is pretty special too – at the edge of the plateau with sweeping panoramic views over Swaziland.
I have a traditional dinner. African food is not my favourite, but this is surprisingly good: fresh pumpkin, tonnes of spinach, delicious chicken in a peanut sauce, a thick paste made from fried ground nuts, and of course the obligatory maize meal. Looks like mash potato, tastes like…. All in all though it’s a pretty tasty meal. I talk to them about World Challenge, and what we do. They’re excited to hear about the projects that teams do in particular, and I’m equally excited about the treks that they’ve set up in the area. I arrange for a guide to take me trekking in the morning.
The sun’s up at 5am, but I’ve already been awake for an hour (thank you rooster, thank you village dogs…). Quick shower, tasty breakfast, and then we’re off for our walk. Somehow we’re going to trek off the edge of the plateau down to the river which is a speck in the distance below. It takes around 1½ hours to get down there, and to be honest it’s not the best trek I’ve ever done. The ground is pretty steep in places, alternating between smooth granite kopjes and dry loose stones, and you have to concentrate so hard on where you put your feet that it’s impossible to admire the views. For most of the time these are obscured by endless dusty thorny scrub through. Not very inspiring – it’s a no-go. The river is very pretty though – tempting to dip a toe in but with crocs, bilharzia and other risk assessment spoilers at the forefront of my mind I decide to just admire the view and take some photos.
Then comes the devastating news that this is not a circular walk – we’re just going straight back up the same steep path to the lodge. By now it’s well over 30C and there’s no breeze. It’s a punishing walk in the blazing sun up the steep slope and by the time we get back to the lodge I’m totally drenched in sweat. Nice. A cold shower and half a tub of talcum powder later (never leave home without talc) and I’m feeling human again. Not sure I’ll be recommending this trek for teams, but there are two other more gentle treks from the lodge, as well as the chance to just spend time in the villages helping out on the farm and mingling with the locals. I also chat to my guide about projects, and from the sound of it there is loads of potential – improving the school (which thanks to the lodge is now a proper building, rather than just a blackboard under a big tree for 100 kids), helping out at the orphan day care centre, and lots of other projects. I’m really pleased to have found this place – it’s just a wonderful location for teams, and I love that it is 100% community owned and managed, so all the money that teams spend really benefits the local economy.
Crossing the border to Mozambique
From the mountain lodge I was planning on heading back to the Ezulwini valley for one final night and then catch a lift to Maputo on the i-to-i and Realgap group bus heading that way. But the lodge is just 10km to the border, and from the border it’s just 60km to Maputo and the coast, so it seems crazy to head all the way back. I catch a lift to the border and then clear customs. Goodbye friendly English speaking Swaziland, hello crazy Portuguese speaking Mozambique… Borders are always hectic, but it’s particularly intimidating when you really can’t understand a word anyone is saying. I decide that we need to arrange for teams to make this journey by private transport. Around 500m walk from the Mozambique entry point, a gauntlet of very persistent money changers, cackling fruit-selling old ladies and nonchalant stray dogs, I reach the minibus stand. Rumour has it that all buses head to Maputo, which makes things a little easier. There’s a small tourist office where a helpful man (who thankfully speaks English – he’s from Zimbabwe so what chat about that for a bit) confirms how much the bus should be and lets me change some money, so armed with the correct change and my best/ only Portuguese phrase (“Leve-me para Maputo, por favor”), after a quick minibus inspection I squeeze onboard the least bad vehicle and prepare for the journey.
Thankful that the bus is relatively full (busses never leave until they’re full in Africa) I wait for the journey to start, safely pinned to my seat by my rucksack. But this is Africa, where even the fullest bus always has space for an extra family or 3. 40 minutes later, by this point safely pinned by my rucksack AND snuggly nestled under a lady’s armpit, the bus pulls off, to a polite round of applause from the passengers – I would join in but I’m so well wedged that I can’t move my arms. 10 minutes down the road we reach a road block. The bus pulls over, the door slides open, and a slightly scary looking policeman jabs his head in and barks something in Portuguese. No idea what he asked, but everyone on the bus answers quickly with a chorus of “não”– no – and vigorous head-shaking. The policeman asked another question and they all said an even more convincingly “não”. Then he points at me and says something which sounds like ‘and you?’. Cue the whole bus swivelling round to stare at me with nervous anticipation. Didn’t know what the original question was, but thought best play it safe and so confidently said “não” like the rest of them had, and shook my head. Policeman pacified, slid the door shut, and off we trundled. The rest of the bus looked palpably relieved – not the faintest idea what the policeman had asked but I’m glad I said “não”!
Maputo
Mozambique’s capital is Africa’s answer to Miami Beach. A scruffy, sprawling seaside city, but an inexplicably chic one. Wide boulevards a riot of lilac jacaranda and orange flame trees, crumbling ice cream-coloured Portuguese mansions, and a welcome sea breeze taking the edge off the near 100% humidity – I’ve spent a fair bit of time in African cities and they can rarely be described as attractive, but Maputo is definitely easier on the eye than most.
Being Sunday, virtually everything is closed, but this affords a good opportunity for a mooch around to get my bearings before the onslaught of Monday morning. Everyone seems half asleep. In fact some people actually ARE asleep on or under shady benches. Can’t blame them – it’s boiling, and that sea breeze is akin to someone opening the oven door mid roast. I’m on the hunt for an internet cafe – plenty of cafes and pastelerias (thanks to Portuguese legacy) with trendy Maputeños sipping coffees and eating pastries. No internet to be found, but never mind. There are quite a few craftsmen out selling wood carvings, capulanas (sarongs), weavings and beaded jewellery. It’s hardly aggressive touting though – their sales pitches consist of a smile, a raise of the eye brow and chin, to which my reply is a ‘não obrigda’ and a smile and wave. Nice contrast to other African cities where the hawkers are relentless.
Miraculously I’ve found a small local supermercado that’s open. As with all the best shops and restaurants, it’s not marked in the Lonely Planet. Note to teams: step away from the guidebook! It’s well stocked though, affording the perfect opportunity for one of my recce rituals – the Challenger Trolley Dash. The idea is to go round the supermarket and note down the price of a load of typical items that a team might buy: certain weights of pasta, rice, porridge and salt; tins of beans, tuna and vegetables; fresh tomatoes, onions, potatoes and eggs; peanut butter, cooking oil, dehydrated soya mince, washing up liquid, meths for the stoves, hot chocolate, tea bags, powdered milk, herbs and spices, and (of course) ketchup. These items can be found in supermarkets the world over, and give a good bench mark for setting the food element of the in-country budgets, and for getting an idea of real cost increases in a destination from one recce to the next. As ever, the supermarket staff are pretty bemused by this bizarre activity, so whilst noting down all the prices I buy some noodles and vegetables for supper to stop them staring.
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