Colorado is so beautiful this time of year

The internets do not come easy in Swazi. It has been some time since our last post and we finally found some internets (as they are lacking in the trucks department) to tell everyone that we are indeed alive. We definitely had our doubts that we would make it. Our drive from Rustanburg to Swaziland was 6 hours of 'fun'. Full of potholes, cows, exploding trucks, abnormal trucks, blasted roads, smoke from fires, crime alerts, nuclear power plants, windmills, random children walking in the middle of no where, un-paved roads and disturbing road signs.

Its amazing how much southern Africa looks like Colorado. We finally we made it through to the very intimidating Swaziland border crossing. Four huts, 50 Rand and ten stamps later we eventually made it through. It is also important to note that along with paying for your visitors visa you also receive as many complimentary condoms as you deem necessary. We took some knowing we wouldn't use them but then again apparently no one uses them anyways. It is rather tough to describe how odd and nerve racking the border was... They had these forms for declaring all of our valuables which we were quite sure were used to determine which cars to confiscate items from for black market sales. So do you declare all/some/none? We chose none and our car was not searched. This was fortunate because our extensive drug and gun collection was in danger. They had an intricate system of collecting the same information multiple times which was a new step in border patrol efficiency. Foolproof.






Locals!



Rockie Mountain High



Friendly restaurant along the way...


Seems normal to me




As we started driving in Swaziland we noticed hords of school children walking alongside the road all times of the day. We slowly determined that they had no bus transportation to/from school and that they walked countless kilometers each day. As we passed them they all wave their hand in a limp risted manner which apparently means they want a ride... If you happened to stop somewhere because you made a wrong turn and needed to turn around... a hord of children would ambush the car trying to get inside...truly a child molesters dream. If you happened to have your windows open im pretty sure they would have jumped right in..


Where are you walking?


As we drove from Rustanburg the landscape and villages degraded quickly. After the border and our last convent that we stayed at we did not have very high hopes for our new dwelling. We turned off onto a dirtroad which our GPS somehow had logged and finally ended up at this gate. Once inside our new compound we found it to be amazing. A stark contrast to the countryside of poverty and way better than the cult establishment we were previously at. Get this...they gave us a key to our room! The bathroom has a door on it! Amazing meals at for nothing. We heard there was a laundry service so we put our laundry inquired about this. So they poured our disgusting stinky laundry out on a bench and counted up all of the individual items. It was a dollar per pair of socks 2.50 for jeans 1.50 for shirts and so on... the final tally around 90 dollars $USD. We opted out of the waterfall clothes wash... as we could buy a new wardrobe for the same cost.

Phat Pad






Thats how we roll




We will be heading back to Joberg tomorrow. We plan to write about some weird cultural things we have noticed along the way. Stay tuned...