Days 6-8 - The Kingdom of Swaziland

After our Kruger tours, we drove to the Kingdom of Swaziland. Yep, Swaziland is one of the few remaining monarchies in the world with a legit king who is the head of the government. We stopped at a glass factory on our way to our next accommodation. It was really cool – they use recycled glass to make all kinds of unique figurines of animals in addition to the standard glasses/plates/etc. We got a cool wine pitcher with an internal ice-cube holder to keep it cool without diluting the wine. It’s kinda hard to explain, so you’ll just have to come over sometime to see it! ☺

Our accommodation in Swaziland was at a place called Milwane Wildlife Sanctuary which was started by a farmer back in the day who wanted to protect the animals. He eventually gave it to the king and it became a national park. The park doesn’t have predators, so the zebras, nyala (like small antelope), warthogs (lots and lots of warthogs), wildebeests, and other animals are able to live in peace.

Warthogs warming themselves by the fire

Kudu walking around, checking out the place

But the coolest part is that we slept in what they call a beehive – a circular building with a thatched roof, no windows, and a tiny hobbit-door at the front. This type of structure is similar to what people used to sleep in back in the day. It was really unique.  The floor was concrete (far better than a traditional earthen floor) but the walls and ceiling were made of grass and wooden sticks that were lashed together to make a dome shape. It looks small on the outside but is remarkably spacious on the inside. The materials actually did a pretty good job of maintaining a comfortable temperature during the day (nice and cool) and at night (nice and warm).

A traditional Beehive from a Swazi cultural village

Our "Beehive" for our stay

The inside of our Beehive... just kidding. This is the view from the restaurant where we ate dinner

This guy (or gal) greeted us our first morning at the doorstep of our beehive

We spent two nights there, so during our one full day in Milwane, we did a long 10-mile hike up to Execution Rock (literally what the Swazis used to and still call it – I’ll let you guess as to why). We got a little bit of a late start since I didn’t do a good job of figuring out where the trail started, but we made it up to the top for a nice picnic lunch (bread and cheese) with a fantastic view of the whole park and surrounding valleys.

Yep, we're headed up there!

The view was getting better...

Panorama at the top (definitely worth clicking on to expand)

Can you spot the striped frog?

Flowers hanging over the trail

These flowers were really cool, but aren't native and are taking over...

That night, we had a braai (pronounced “bry” – like “dry” but with a “b”) which just means grilling out. There was a nice outdoor pit and our guide procured some Wildebeest meat to try in addition to squash, chicken skewers, and beef sausage (wors). The Wildebeest was good and tasted similar to beef, probably with good reason considering… Anyway, so “braai-ing” is huge in South Africa. It came up multiple times a day with our guide – they have special wood for a braai and even have a National Braai Day (one time our guide was on a tour and they had a braai for every meal!). Definitely fun to sit around a campfire with some hot coals cooking food. Unfortunately, we did not have any s’mores, but I was so stuffed with other food that it didn’t really matter by the end.

Sunset over Milwane on our last night