Swaziland! Tardy post..internet challenges!

I'm behind in my posts, we lost our internet for over a week, it was a royal pain...much to report!   We broke in our new car for the adventure.  Greg says he should have jumped when I was taking the picture!

Our car is another Toyota, a Fortuner, in the states it is comparable to a Highlander.  Wanted a new car so it would cut down our chance of breaking down somewhere in Africa.  This car is a 4x4 and the dealer has a 4x4 club where they will teach us how to drive it, a good idea for all the tricky roads here!

To break in the new car, we headed on a weekend trip to Swaziland, a tiny nation that is completely landlocked by South Africa, it has its own king!We had to a border crossing to get in & out.  Getting in was smooth, getting out was trying, Greg didn't appreciate their system where everyone shoves and cuts in line!

After entering the country, we visited a cool Glass Factory on the way to our game park.  We had lunch and watched the peacocks that wandered around.  Charlie liked the playground and Katie climbed a few trees.

The place we stayed was incredible, called the Hlane Royal National Park, we stay at the Ndlovu Camp, which is a cool cottage, with a thatch roof and no electricity. 

 They come in at night and light the paraffin lamps for you!  We got there in time to make a reservation for the buffet, that they have in this giant outdoor pavilion, also lit by gas lamps. With no dinner to worry about, we played a family game of monopoly!

Our dinner was amazing! Cool foods to try, even homemade Malva pudding for dessert, which is really moist chocolate cake, covered in warm, creamy sweet pudding! Then they put on a traditional Swazi dance around the fire for us, the girls even got to join in the dance at the end.  Charlie slept through all the drums! 

The entire camp is set next to a waterhole, so we could hear the hippo in the waterhole and we also got to talk to nice people from all over Europe that were visiting the park on their Africa adventures.
Lying in bed in the morning, through the big windows in our room,  I could see a pack of warthogs come to the waterhole for a drink, then we also saw rhino arrive!

Kelly made a fabulous breakfast and we had it outside at the picnic table.

 We were reminded of wild Africa by two critter visits, one on a nearby tree that people passing by stopped to point out, it turned out it was a very dangerous, poisonous twig snake.  The snake expert that was passing buy said they are very aggressive where most snakes leave you alone.  If you look closely at the photo you can see his red tongue sticking out!

While we were eating I saw something run down the path very near, it was a warthog and one of the kitchen workers threw a trashcan lid at it!  After we checked out of our lodge, this warthog was wondering around the camp!  He was kneeling down to dig up some stuff in the dirt!

We did our own game drive out of the park, here is brave Katie getting out to open the gate to get into a different area...not many volunteers to get out and open the gate!!

We see our first wild giraffes-amazing!!

Our final stop was the Swazi candle factory on the way home they make amazing animal shaped candles, the kids liked getting a chance to shape their own candles.  Charlie was thrilled that the worker made him his own elephant head!

A wonderful trip, we can't wait to return!