Friday 26th August 2016: Another day of bus travel into Swaziland, late start at 9, but we don't know how to sleep in. John has been down to the lake, but no hippo in sight - yesterday he saw his nostrils sticking up out in the middle. As we leave Mkuze you realise how small a town it is, all based on the sugar cane. Between us and the mountains to the West is the very large dam or lake that I spoke about yesterday, it feeds all the irrigation and the towns, even into Swaziland.
We get our passports stamped as we leave South Africa, walk into Swaziland and have them stamped again. Swaziland is a very poor country and is suffering from the same drought. It is a land locked country with South Africa on 3 sides and Mozambique on the other.
The Kingdom of Swaziland does have a democratic system, but the king has the ultimate power and he is a dictator and makes all decisions. 60% of the land is under the King's control, his wealth is 200m US$'s and he has 16 wives, who cost the State a lot of money. Our guide does not think much of the King. Swaziland is a small kingdom of 17,000 square kms and has a population of 1.2m, of which 97% are Swazi, 70% live rural and there is 40% unemployment. 38% of the population has AIDS (the world average is 1.1%) and their life expectancy is only 32.6 years due to AIDS.
We pass a big distillery which is US owned which can produce very cheap sugar for the Coke market, due to the extremely low wage structure here - it is near a river and lots of irrigated plantations.
 







 At our toilet stop there are lots of little black curly haired children selling necklaces for about a $ each. As we head East it doesn't appear to be as poor with the town of Manzini being quite westernised and there is better housing. We stop for a late lunch where there are lots of African craft style shops and stalls - the guy painting a giraffe which is made out of jacaranda wood - very cute but not room in my suitcase and would I still be impressed wiwhen I get home! 
 
 
Our lodgings tonight are at the 'Royal Swazi Spa' which is a hotel, casino, golf country club, and it has 2 bowling greens - we had bit of a roll up, but they certainly don't have a green keeper like Radd - the golf course was a different matter though, very special. The hotel is pretty swank - 1980's style they tell us. The buffet is a banquet again.