Land Of The Swazi

So, I was told on Friday that I had to get a new visa, and this required a trip out of Mozambique to the little country of Swaziland. Now my visa didn’t run out till the 9th of February and I told them that but Seja had to go because hers was running out, I think they just wanted to send someone with her. Anyway, free trip to a new country why not.

We left early and got a chapa to Manzini, the largest city in Swazi; it took about four hours to get there, even with the border. I was very impressed by the Swazi side of the border, nice building, and computers to scan the passports and enter the details. They country had a bit more money than Moz I thought.

The trip into Swazi is nice, it is higher up so the terrain melds from the flat lowlands of Mozambique into rolling hills. It is just a pleasant trip, its cooler there are little villages up on the hills. It reminds me of mini Switzerland in a warm climate. Small villages nestle up on the mountains.

From Manzini we took a chapa or combie as they are called in Swazi to the capital of Mbabane, so we could get to the embassy to get the visa. Back in a country where everything is English and there was more money was a bit different after the pot holed roads of Mozambique and the Portuguese greetings. We got to Mbabane at around 11:30, a simple trip.

The visa process was fine; we dropped the passports off at noon and had to go into town to pay money into Mozambique account at the standard bank. I guess they are trying to fight corruption by having no money handled at the embassy, not a bad idea even if it adds another step. But we had our passports back with new visas by 15:00.

We had met a few people at the embassy, Brian a peace corp. guy living near the moz border; he was planning on coming for a visit soon so was getting the visa for him and his wife. Also, we met Jen a Canadian girl who had done some volunteering in SA and was now traveling around before going home. They were both very nice people, so we took their advice on where to stay and stayed where they were staying.

Mbabane is tiny a capital by name alone it has a small center and then the rest is residential areas up around the hills. The hostel was up on the hills outside of town with a beautiful view over the green lush landscape. We chatted with the people there for awhile and then went out and got some dinner.

The next day we had planned to go take an extra night and got to a park, but the weather was so poor, and it was raining so we headed back home to Maputo. So, it was just a quick simple trip into my first new country of 2011.