Matenga Cultural Village & Getting To Maputo from Manzini

Woke up Thursday morning with a plan to get to the Matenga Cultural Village to learn about Swazi culture. It had pretty good reviews on trip advisor and I had been recommended it by a few people, so I was keen to go. At 11:15am and at 3pm there is a performance at the village, so I was hoping to catch it. I had woken up a bit late and it was a bit wet outside, so I called up ‘Taxi Tom’ and arranged him to take me there for E180/R180/$18aud.

Combi Rides in Swaziland & Milwane Animal Sanctuary

I was offered a ride the Mozambique embassy in Mbabane to try and get a Mozambique visa before I go. Unfortunately, when I got there they wanted hotel reservations, which I don’t have so I wasn’t able to apply for one. Plus it would take 2-3 days to process. If I arrive at the border and get a visa I should get one automatically and they won’t ask for a hotel reservation. I’m not really sure what all the fuss is with applying for one at the embassy, but anyways. After trying at the embassy, I got dropped off in Mbabane to spend the day and have a look around. To be honest there wasn’t all that much there to see except a few markets and shops, and I spent most of my time searching for free Wi-Fi (which I didn’t really find).

Johannesburg to Swaziland on the TransMagnific

While the flight from Joburg to Antananarivo was half empty, allowing me a whole row of seats to myself, the flight back to the African mainland was much more packed and basically full. The three-hour flight seemed to drag on and on, but finally we reached O. R. Tambo where I was picked up by my accommodation at Shoestring Airport Lodge. It’s close by to the airport, where I needed to be the following day to catch a bus to Swaziland (and where I had stayed previously and also left a bag in storage to get when uni starts again).