Adventures in Swaziland

Over the last weekend in January, we hosted our friends, Jay and Hilary, who are currently serving as Peace Corps Volunteers in the Shiselweni Valley in Swaziland. Doug met them during Baylor’s Teen Camp back in December as they volunteered as counselors. Because Jay and Hilary are at the end of their service, they have to come into Mbabane in order to complete paperwork and to take care of business at the Peace Corps Headquarters. Additionally, since they live on a homestead in a rural area, they miss some of the comforts of ‘city life’ (i.e. flushing toilets, grocery stores, restaurants, etc.) therefore they decided to stay with us for the weekend.

On Saturday, after a 7 mile run (I love running buddies!) we drove to Malkerns to Swazi Candles for lunch. Swazi Candles is a wonderful slice of Swaziland heaven as it houses numerous traditional handicraft shops and a restaurant called, Sambane (with the best carrot cake, ever). On the way, we saw a waterfall from the road and decided that we’d go looking for it after lunch. The kicker was that we were not intending on hiking; therefore, I had on flats (and an otherwise ridiculous hiking outfit) and Hilary had on a skirt. Our journey to the waterfall was adventurous indeed, but it was well worth the effort.

This is as far as the Rav-4 could go…no more dirt road

Trying to find our way to the source! We could hear the rushing water

My ridiculous hiking get-up

Looking back at the source of the waterfall

The drop off

The actual waterfall

It’s hard to capture the sheer vastness of the ravine, but here I am standing on the edge.

Happy hiking couples