We are at the end of February and more than a thousand meters above sea level.
At this time of year, the summer in these parts should have already started to cool down. Instead, Sunday wakes up warm.
In just a few hours, it returns Mantenga, the Ezulwini valley and most of eSwatini to the meteorological hothouse that, as different hosts tell us, has been going on for a few days.
We went up to the wooden veranda and open dining station at Mantenga Lodge.
The Mantenga Lodge, above the Ezulwini Valley.
A tropical forest surrounds it, which is irrigated almost permanently by the late afternoon rains and the Lusushwana River.
Opposite that luxuriant half-slope, a granite hill stands out that a few solitary clouds seem to defy.
Ezulwini, Nyonyane Mountain and Execution Rock
Dramatic in appearance, known as Execution Rock, it is one of the peaks that crown Nyonyane, a mountain long associated with Swazi royalty and, for different reasons, with life and its end.
Execution Rock, at the top of Nyonyane mountain.
In the early days of the region, the Bushmen used caves and recesses of Nyonyane as shelters. The popular wisdom of eSwatini, often reiterated by local guides, explains the name of the peak.
In other times of merciless justice, perpetrators of serious crimes, including witchcraft and the like, were taken to the top of the cliff and thrown from there without appeal.
All around, Nyonyane also welcomes deceased Swazi royalty. During his term, members of the Dlamini royal family have quarters in Ngabezweni.
Once dead, they are buried in caves on the rocky slopes of Nyonyane, in areas considered sacred.
According to Nsesi, one of the natives who guides us, the stadium where the nation's biggest events take place can hold fifteen thousand spectators. However, it was left without half of its bench structure. This is so that, during events, subjects would not turn their backs on ancestral royalty.
It's far from everything. According to the same guide, when subjects need to point to the Nyonyane mountain, they must do so with their finger bent.
eSwatini, formerly Swaziland: the Last Absolute Monarchy of Africa
eSwatini preserves secular royalty and the last absolute (read non-constitutional) monarch of Africa. As, in Tonga, there remains that of vast Polynesia.
It was founded by a certain chief Mtalatala who led the Swazi people through present-day Tanzania and Mozambique to the areas in which they were established.
The Ezulwini Valley seen from Execution Rock.
Its antiquity justifies a countless number of protocols and bows, some, in the light of our days, considered eccentric and which give the kingdom much of the fascination it arouses.
The Royalty of eSwatini and a Historical Polygamy
It is, for example, expected that the Swazi king is a polygamist. Mswati III, has no more or less than fourteen women. And of these, more than twenty-five children.
Polygamy is so embedded in the history of eSwatini that, in 2019, Mswati III himself was forced to deny a viral accusation that he had decreed that all men in his subjects must maintain at least two wives, or they would be arrested.
Days later, we completed a tour of the royal capital of Lobamba.
We learned about many other particularities.
The Mantenga Cultural Village, in the Ezulwini Valley
Mantenga and its Mantenga Cultural Village
We started this warm, inaugural day by dedicating it to the Mantenga Cultural Village.
It is a village located on the banks of the Lusushwana River.
It serves the purpose of showing visitors the traditional ways of life of the Swazi people.
Host Mbuluzi, in the cultural village of Mantenga
Paul serves as our host there, introducing himself with his Christian grace and care to inform his true name:
Mbuluzi, the same as a river that flows further northwest of the nation, on the edge of the border with South Africa.
The village groups together elementary huts, protected by a palisade.
Before we walk through it, Mbuluzi invites us to a dance performance.
It was going to take place inside a much larger communal hut, in the shade and safe from the furnace which, in the meantime, had intensified.
Dance Exhibition at Mantenga Cultural Village
The Dances that Mirror the Brave Spirit of the Swati People
Swazi men and women appear there, men with bare torsos, above fur kilts, adorned with shin guards and furry bracelets.
The women wear the traditional red, white and black tunics of eSwatini, which we have seen, in other places and occasions, decorated with the image of the king.
Both genders brandish wooden sticks and impress us and the rest of the spectators with their sometimes graceful, sometimes warlike and vigorous movements that emulate the historic Swazi aptitude for battle and submission of enemies.
After more than half an hour, as demonstrated by performances from later days, we concluded that, among a panoply of movements, the successive elevations of the legs above the head can be distinguished in Swazi dances.
While the dancers recover from their efforts and wipe off their sweat, Mbuluzi leads us inside the palisade.
Moments later, he guides us from hut to hut, each one worthy of its own narrative, some, with the presence of dancers, converted into extras.
Men of Mantenga Cultural Village
Grandma's House and the Lusushwana River Waterfalls
Mbuluzi spends additional time in the so-called grandmother's house, present in all traditional villages in eSwatini and even in those already built in stone and modern materials.
“Wherever it is in eSwatini, grandmother's house continues to be seen as the communal “haven of shelter”, the place where family members learn about news and where they seek advice in moments of indecision and difficulty.
Many things have changed and are changing in this kingdom. Believe me, respect for grandmother’s house remains at the basis of our way of being.”
Mbuluzi is also concerned with, beyond the village and the cultural component, revealing to us unmissable landscapes other than Execution Rock.
After a trip by jeep and on foot to the riverbank, we come across the Mantenga waterfalls and a flock of thirsty warthogs, eager to get into the water.
Mantenga waterfalls
By that time, the heat was reaching its peak. Gerava cumulus nimbus impressive buildings that presaged the day's brief deluge.
During that whole tour, Execution Rock had insinuated itself above. We would conquer it, days later, from an opposite side of Mlilwane.
That afternoon, we surrendered to another emblematic elevation of the nation.
We cross Mbabane, the executive capital of eSwatini, home to almost one hundred thousand of the almost 1.3 million citizens, the vast majority of whom are Swazi ethnicities, with around 15% being Zulu and other ethnicities.
Mural in Mbabane, the capital of eSwatini
The Monumental Sibebe Rock
From Mbabane, we continue north, through a valley comparable to that of Ezulwini, deepened by the Mbuluzi river.
Suddenly, a huge cliff of gray-streaked stone stands out from the plain and green slopes.
The great rock of Sibebe
For some reason, it appears on the labels of the most popular beer in the country.
Impressive as we saw it, with its 800 meters high, Sibebe rock defines one of Africa's superlative monoliths, often promoted as one of the largest on the face of the Earth.
The Sibebe Survivor competition takes place there, which involves strenuous climbing and, much of it, crawling to the top.
An unexpected injury and the scorching heat prevent us from trying it. Instead, we dedicate ourselves to beer, although not Sibebe beer, marula beer.
In eSwatini, at that time of year, it was prepared and consumed in enormous quantities. It even justified an entire national festival, celebrated in exuberant intoxication.
Because of him, a substantial number of his subjects zigzagged, in euphoria, along straight paths.
The national parliament of Lobamba
Lobamba: the Royal Capital of eSwatini
Our introduction to marula beer began, with relative pomp and circumstance, with a visit to Lobamba.
Lobamba is the legislative capital of the Kingdom of eSwatini, seat of the Parliament, the Royal Village of Ludzidzini, the residence of the Queen Mother of eSwatini.
And also the King Sobhuza II Memorial Park, built in honor of the king who led Swaziland to independence from the United Kingdom.
Statue of King Sobhuza II, at his Memorial
Sobhuza II was proud of having achieved Swazi emancipation from the colonists without conflict and without generating enemies for his nation, the famous quote “I Have no Enemies”.
He also proved himself to be the true Swazi heavyweight of polygamy, head of a family that was estimated to have around six hundred child descendants, supposedly all surnamed Dlamini.
After this incursion, as a counterpoint, Bongani Motsa (grateful, in the Swati dialect), the designated guide, suggests that we visit the neighborhood where he was born, Txuluga.
Txuluga and the Marula Beer Tasting
We discover it made up of homes and other poor buildings, in a controversial discrepancy with the wasteful pomp, inevitably generating frustration and protest in which Royalty lives.
Irony of ironies: Bongani clarifies that Txuluga is also the neighborhood from which Sobhuza II, the deceased father of the nation and the current king Mswati III, came from.
We walked between squatted houses. Greeted with jubilation by successive drunken residents. “Well, with so many questions about marula and beer, it’s time to try it!”
We followed the guide through two or three winding alleys. At the bottom of one of them, a group of natives live together, excited by the drink. He sells it, by the plastic cup, to an unexpected supplier, Busi Mthembu, an elderly widow who simply collects money, but remains on the sidelines of the party.
We tasted the beer, amidst the laughter of the guests. It tastes like we are in the same line of artisanal drinks that we have tasted in other parts of Africa, for example, palm and cashew wines.
We drank a little more, in order to justify Bongani Motsa's approval and attention. After which we said goodbye to the residents and left Txuluga, before the fermented marula killed us.
We returned to Mantenga, only slightly dizzy,
Along the way, a herd of cows stops us and other traffic.
We are told that the cattle belong to King Mswati III.
King of eSwatini's herd of cows
The battle of the day soon took over the valley and dampened tempers in the kingdom of eSwatini.
How to go
Fly to Mbabane via Maputo, with TAP Air Portugal: flytap.com/ and FlyAirlink.
Where to stay
Mantenga Lodge: mantengalodge.com; +268 2416 1049
More Information and Support in Preparing Your Trip
The Kingdom of Eswatini: www.thekingdomofeswatini.com
