Leta and Carol’s Southern African Adventure

Doug’s Mom returned to Swaziland at the beginning of March and brought along her cousin, Carol, as a traveling companion. Leta and Carol’s itinerary included five countries over the course of 19 days! We served as their ‘home base’ as they came/went from our place in Swaziland. The ladies arrived on Friday the 25^th of February in the late afternoon, so our first outing was to Mantenga Lodge for dinner.

Carol and Leta

With Doug in front of Executioner’s Rock

On Saturday the 26^th, Doug took both Carol and Leta to Teen Club in Hlatikhulu. The ladies were up at 6:00am to travel to Hlati and spent the majority of the day helping with sign-in, nametags, picture-taking, sandwich making; you name it and they did it! I think they both enjoyed seeing Doug in action and participating in one of the support groups that he has worked so diligently to start and operate for HIV positive teens.

On Sunday, we had brunch and Swazi Candles and spent the majority of the day souvenir shopping. To wrap-up our Sunday we drove through Mlilwane Game Reserve to give them their first taste of ‘safari,’ Swaziland style.

Wildebeest

Zebra

Blesbok and warthogs

On Monday, Doug went to work and Carol, Leta and I got to enjoy a morning at the Mozambiquan Embassy in order to secure our visas for our upcoming weekend trip to the beach! It’s illegal to photograph the Embassy or to take any pictures in/around the building; therefore, you’ll have to take my word for it and know that it was awesome (drip, drip)(that's my sarcasm)(the Embassy blows).

The rest of the day we ran around to do final souvenir shopping between Gone Rural and Ngwenya Glass Factory.

Glass blowers

On Tuesday (and for the rest of the week), both Doug and I had to work, so we arranged for Carol and Leta to be picked-up by ‘All Out Africa’ and taken to Shishangeni Private Game Reserve in Kruger National Park for a 3-day safari. The private reserve came highly recommended and the ladies were well taken care of by the couple who ran the lodge. They even saw lions mating! MATING. I’ve never seen anything mating in the wild. Boo.

To celebrate their return to Swaziland, we went to the Royal Swazi for dinner; the fanciest place in all of Swaziland! I say this, yet, there was still a cat in the lobby…

On Friday, we whisked them away to Mozambique and to the beach in Ponta D’Oura. Doug took Friday off from work at the clinic so that we were sure to be able to drive the entire way in the daylight.

We stayed at our usual digs, Coco Rico, and got upgraded to an ‘ocean view’ because one of the air conditioners in our original unit was broken.

Coco Rico

Bedroom

Family Room

View

It was a really relaxing weekend as we spent our days on the beach and our nights eating seafood! I partially turned into a prawn due to the amount of prawns eaten over the course of the weekend.

Views of the beach

Upon our return on Sunday evening, Leta and Carol unpacked and re-packed and got ready for their Monday morning departure. It was at that point that we parted ways for good as Leta and Carol continued on to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and then to Chobe National Park in Botswana to round out their Southern African Adventure.