the land of the hobbits....

hello all

so i've returned from my far far too brief mid-semester break! This entry is about my stay in Hogsback - the lord of the rings country! I still am amazed that JR Tolkien is South AFrican not English, but i can see how he was inspired living in Hogsback! It was sooo beautiful. It poured the day we drove up there, but the next morning there was mist everywhere! It was gorgeous! Amy has better photos of it than i do, will endevour to post them sometime....

So this is where we stayed at 'Away with the fairies' backpackers. We stayed in bagend, like from the Lord of the Rings! how cool, is that! things weren't quite as hobbit sized as i was hoping but we a fire and couches (such a luxery, there is no where to sit in res). Also family, i proved myself to have mad fire skills - i was way better than army boy ian (i was so proud!)

this is the lounge-room/kitchen - it was an awesome little self-contained house, it was AWESOME!
ps chrissimo speaking of 'it was awesome' we also had a tv and watched the episode of Scrubs where everything is from the wizard of oz - thought of you!

so me and Amy went for this walk to tall tree and somethingorother falls - this is tall tree... in case you couldn't guess. but it was soo muddy coz of the rain the day before that amy had a bit of a spill and coz covered in mud.



We also made it up to the waterfall, and had to effectively climb it! It was a lot of fun and so beautiful. i swear it looked exactly like the scenery from lord of the rings! don't think these photos quite convey that but still...



this is amy looking gandolf-like (sorry can't spell it), she was meant to be looking commanding of the land, instaed looks more like she's saluting Hitler!


just some more of the stunning scenery.

Then the day before we left Ian and I left Amy studying (as i probably should have also been) and went to the Eco Shrine - a tribute to "science and all the recognised religions) it was pretty amazing!

I was recommeded the Eco Shrine by a massuse at Coffee Shack, i'm glad we went!
I really liked the artwork - very unique and beautiful, and just so amazingly matched by their surroudings!
This one is inspired by photos from the Hubble Telescope.
This was one of my favourites.

We also went to this 'labyrinth' (everything in hogsback is mythical themed) this is what we saw first - i was so disappointed!

so this one was slightly, and i emphasise slightly, less disappointing! but the funniest bit was that as we were leaving this older couple turned up, and the lady looked genuinly confused baout how to get through it! there was no choice, it wasn't a maze just a long winding path to the centre!
so yeah, this is the second half of my trip, it was pretty sweet. i loved it up there. i will update the first half another day!

Swazi Reed Festival

So I have already spoken a bit about Swaziland... incredibly beautiful. But it also has a HIV rate of 30-40%, which is pretty scary. I've just finished a one-week intensive course on "Understanding AIDS in Africa", so AIDS has been on my mind a lot this week...

Anywyay, the reed dance. Basically the reed dance (Umhlanga in Swazi)is about the King choosing a new wife - or so the Lonely Planet and others say, but I think it is more of a coming-of age ritual for the young girls. I'm sure most of them are aware that given just to sheer volume, they have a slim chance of being chosen by the king to be his new wife. I think it is more about showing you are Swazi, becoming a member of Swazi society. Either way, it is amazing to watch!

We got there at about 10am (hitched a ride with this German guy from our hostel - 8 of us in one car, and we drove past 2 police check points and they didn't stop us!) There was so much security at the event, which is good for the girls, i heard there are often rapes at the event - a thought that just makes me sick. But each group of girls has at least 2 older guys with big sticks to protect them. Basically young girls from every part of the country converge on the palace - the king pays for all their transport and accomodation and food so they can come, which is fortunate coz Swaziland is a very poor country.

Here is one of the protectors



So the girls come in groups down from the palace - protectors in tow and stand in these field singing for literally hours - it was just amazing. They have the most amazing voices and were so well behaved, some of the girls were like 2 or 3 (clearly not new wife material) but all dressed up and so good, no temper tantrums or anything! I think in our culture we molly-coddle children too much and turn them into spoilt brats!

This little girl was so cute and so well behaved! the wooden spoon is in place of the machete most girls carry.


These girls we kinda made friends with, myself and two other girls were walking down the road and this girl came up with her mobile phone around her neck - she wanted a photo of us! it was an very cool role reversal!



Lots of the girls really wanted to be in photos too, which is good coz i much prefer to take photos of people who want to be in them.


here are the reeds the girls carry


here is some of the scenery and traditional dress



and check this out - this is the royal family! the King is looking slightly to the left. And the queen mother is in the chair, the other ladies and the kings wives (who don't seem to be called queens...) I stood literally 20-25m away from the Swazi royal family, can you believe it! I was quite excited, i didn't expect to get that close!

Swaziland Safari!

Sanbonani! (Swazi for 'i see you' - which is like hello)

So this weekend I went to Swaziland with some of the ladies - it was AWESOME! We caught the minibus up there - an experience that has left us with memories mingled with the odours of methane, burbon and BO - a charming combination for 6 hours! But it was fun, the burbon eventually led a few of them quiten down/pass out, and then the journey was very enjoyable - the scenery was magnificent! I am sooo in love with Africa! Our hostels were pretty sweet too, so was Mbabane and Manzini - i agree with the Lonely Planet that says the racial tensions are less palpable in Swaziland, we all felt so much safer there even walking back to our hostel just as it got dark. The people were so friendly too - we hitched out to see the Milwane Game Reserve with a nice guy called Arthur who came back to get us at the end of the day, and on Sunday after the festival we met this girl (who may be somewhere in her teens) called Faith who walked us to the minibuses (which were so NOT in the direction we would have headed, so I was very grateful for that!). We did get ripped of by these two jerky taxi drivers. It was the last night, and we stayed in Manzini (which is where the minibus to Durban departs from). So we got there just as it was dark so we decided on taxis to be safe. These two guys insisted they knew where we were going, then once we had divided into 2 taxis (there were 6 of us) they both admitted they didn't know where they were going and asked us for directions. Long story short, the Swazi backpackers where we stayed is AGES out of town, and has moved about 500m or so from where it was 1 month ago. So the taxi drivers take us off road where there are no signs to the old packbackers (allegedly), and I was like 'where are we going?' and he was all 'don't be scared, swaziland is poor and not as pretty as your country' or some crap. so we get to what is now a private residence and the drivers ask the new owners where the backpackers has moved to, then demand more money to take us there! I was furious and so was Amy, Doucette and Andrea so we stood there for 10 minutes argueing and eventually coughed up less than 1/2 of what they asked for just to get out of there. I hate taxi drivers - scum of the earth rip off merchants. I much prefer the minibuses - they are honest (way more than I expected), follow set routes (or close enough) are cheap and go all the time.

Anyway - there were much more exciting things in Swaziland also - this post I'll tell you about the Milwane Game Reserve - next time the Reed Dance festival (which TOTALLY rocked)!






Are these not THE most amazing photos ever! At Milwane they have hippo feeding time at 3 - so this is mumma hippo (bub stayed in the water) who came out at like 10 to 3 and waited for lunch (which was basically bird food... interesting given i thought hippos ate like grass... but whatever...) I was literally like 1-2m away from this beautiful animal, i could not stop smiling! It like made my whole month, probably year actually, i was soo excited!


This is mum and bub - they are soooo beautiful - yes I have a thing for hippos and for those who share my obsession i have MANY many more photos of these two!

Andrea and I also went on a horse-riding safari (this is andrea, i'm on her camera we have to swap, but you get the picture)

We also saw wildebeast, blasbox, impala, warthogs, fighting monkeys, crocodiles, lots of birds - it was cool!





So this is me, Doucette (Haitan American) and Ali (who i'm sure you're becoming familar with!)


This is some of the views - how beautiful is Swaziland?




Stay tuned for the next installment - the festival, also very, very cool!