A Big Rock in a Small Kingdom
And a fat middle finger from the King!
For those of you who live in Switzerland, how many times have you scrolled down a country list in an online form only to choose “Swaziland” by accident? Well it’s because of you they had to change the name of the country “Swaziland” to “eSwatini”!
It’s not really because of you though, I’m joking… No, well, actually it could be. On the day of the country’s 50th anniversary of their independence in 2018, the King & absolute monarch of Swaziland announced in his speech that “from this day onwards, our country will be known as eSwatini” and that he was “fed up of being confused with Switzerland”. Not only that, but with a quick google you will see that on several occasions Swiss-bound post has even ended up in Swaziland… But perhaps more importantly, the rebranding means that the country has now returned to its pre-colonial name, just like Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi has already done.
We entered eSwatini from Mozambique, at a border post that not many people use, except for a few tourists. It ended up being the most easygoing and relaxing border crossings of all - no fixers necessary, nor were there even any available. Instructions were clear, credit card payments worked, and it was a friendly, hassle-free process that took less than ten minutes. I personally believe the reason the crossing was so easy was the fact that there were only women working there. So the first impression of eSwatini was very positive; friendly people, beautiful landscapes, perfect roads, and very little traffic. And if you thought Switzerland was a small country, you can drive across entire eSwatini in about 2h!
If someone asked us what our favorite thing we did in eSwatini was, we would say that it was getting to sit on the second largest exposed rock in the world, “Sibebe”. And not only can you sit on it, you can also drink it… Sibebe is made of granite, covers an area of 16,500 hectares, and rises 350m into the sky. To get a real feel for its size, you need to hike to the top of it, which we did of course. I think I broke the record for the amount of times I said “look at the f*cking size of that rock” in one single day - you pass by so many massive rocks along the way!
Now it wouldn’t be in true Irish spirit if I didn’t point out the quirks of their monarchy. The 50 year old King is polygamous (to put it lightly), with 15 wives and 36 children. And while 59% of the population lives under the national poverty line, he’s living the high life in one of the 15 lavish castles he had built for each of his wives. In addition, he has 120 BMWs and 19 Rolls Royces. It was around the same time that Swazi public servants had taken to the streets to demand pay increases that the King decided to spoil his family with a fleet of BMWs. But you must not complain about the king or you will “go missing”, which explains why we only heard people speaking very highly of him. There he is below, giving what I can only describe as a fat middle finger to his nation…
It was also in eSwatini that we got our first almost puncture… But in typical African fashion there was a garage within one minute of us driving over the screw, and within 5 minutes it was removed and plugged. And that wasn’t the only “first” thing that happened in eSwatini… It was also the first time that I ever cooked spaghetti in an electric wok, which is an experience I don’t wish to have again. We didn’t stay long in Swaziland, as the scent of the wine coming from South Africa was luring us, and as Oscar Wilde himself once said “the only way to get rid of temptation is to give into it”. And gave into it we did.
Thank you for reading our postcard from eSwatini!
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It pleased me to back years ago, when visiting e‘Swatini, how unpolluted it was. A well maintained little country. Curious to know if it’s still like this? Amazing photos, thanks!! xx Renate