On Boxing Day (Sunday, December 26th) we piled into Lemmy and made the ~4 hour drive back to Swaziland. Along the way, we stopped for a late lunch at Forester's Arms, as they have quite a unique spread and serve pretty yummy food (it's all relative).
After a quiet night of showing my Dad around town, unpacking, and playing cards (Euchre) we turned in early in order to get some rest for our big day planned on Monday.
My Dad and I ran around hilly Mbabane (so that my complaining about the route could be put into perspective) and then we had a tee-time at 10:30am at The Royal Swazi in Ezulwini Valley. Before we began the round we had to rent clubs (gasp) and organize our caddies and extra balls and tees. I thought that we should purchase 6 balls, but my Dad pushed for us to buy a dozen. Let the record show, we lost 10 or 11 balls throughout the course of the 18 holes, so, my Dad was right. As far as scores go, they weren't too shabby. My Dad killed us all, my Mom beat me by 2 strokes and Doug came in fourth (I'm laughing right now remembering him hacking it up. I love you, really!).
Club House
The course is truly beautiful. It is super hilly (no surprise) and quite a challenge, but the vistas are worth it.
You can analyze each of our swings
Views from the course
Then, on Tuesday the 28th, Doug had to go back to work (boo) and my Mom, Dad and I climbed up Sibebe in Pine Valley. It was quite an adventure as the route that I thought that we were taking was not the route that we ended-up taking, but everyone made it to the top and enjoyed the glorious views. Never a bad way to spend the morning.
At the start
Hiking up on the cow trails
View of the valley, on the way up
Side view of the dome
On the plateau
On Tuesday night, we met our friends Keri and Eric and Keri's parents (also from Michigan) for dinner at Mantenga Lodge. The patio of the restaurant overlooks Executioner's Rock; therefore, we took a couple of sunset pictures before sitting down to dinner.
My parent's last full day in Swaziland was Wednesday; and we reserved it for souvenir shopping. So, we ventured to Ngwenya Glass Factory, Swazi Candles and Gone Rural so that my Dad could see some of the products made by the rural women and so that my Mom could buy them...
We had lunch at Sambane Restaurant in the midst of the spending spree.
On Thursday morning, I took my parents to brunch before taking them to the airport and we tried a new restaurant in Mbabane called, Ramblas. Here are my parents on the patio on their final day of vacation (sniffle, sniffle).
Appendix I: Flowers of Southern Africa
I didn't feel like trying to name these flowers or trying to match them with the location in which they were taken, so I'm pasting them all here as an 'Appendix.' My Mom is really into plants and flowers (she's a member of a 'Garden Club'); therefore, she took lots of pictures of flowers! And, while I'm too lazy to do anything else with them, I thought that they were pretty enough to include, here:
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