As we will have spent the night at the Johannesburg airport:
OR Tambo, the idea for this day is to pick up the car at the same
airport and leave for Swaziland, a small country where we want to visit
the Hlane National Park to make sure we see rhinos in the wild.
It will be more than 5 hours of driving in which we will
have to stop to eat and do the procedures to enter the country, whose
current official name is the Kingdom of Eswatini. As the Hlane Park
closes its doors at 6PM, we will have to leave early to be able to
complete the entire journey before that time.
After
At 8:30AM we are at the breakfast buffet, for which they
charge
us 175R per person, and at 9AM I go to the Avis office in this same
building to pick up the rental car. It is very convenient to have
everything at hand without leaving the Johannesburg airport.
I come back for Eva, the baggage and check out in the hotel.
Then we go down to the car and leave ready for today's long drive. We
have to make a couple of U-turns as corrections to find the correct
road among all those junctions, but once there, it just a
matter
of time to reach Swatziland border.
Specifically, 5 and a half hours, with a stop in a town
called
Carolina where we get petrol, water and food, since we took a couple of
pizzas from an offer that left them at around 150R for two medium ones.
As in all border crossings there are two steps: leaving
South
Africa is very fast, they simply stamp your passport and that's it.
Entry into Swatziland, however, consists of presenting your
passport, covid vaccination certificate and car data to allow you to
move on to the next two stages, in which you have to queue: stamping
your entry into the country and paying the road tax of 100R.
When we finish, the GPS gives us an estimated time of
arrival at
the camp in the Hlane National Park of 6:30PM, so we call to inform
them that we will probably arrive after 6PM, which is, as far as I
know, the time they close the camp. They tell us that there is no
problem.
We cross Swaziland in less than an hour, without stopping
anywhere, and arrive at the Hlane gate at 6:10PM.
I show the Wild card so that they let us pass and reach the
Ndlovu camp when is nearly dark, where the reception girl receives us
on her way home to give us the key and tell us to go to the restaurant
for further indications.
They accompany us to our bungalow in complete darkness and
explain to us how the oil lanterns work, since there is no electricity
in them. Dinner starts at 6:30PM, which is now, and since it is a
buffet, they advise us to go early.
We have a wonderful dinner in the nice restaurant in front
of
the small lake where we are constantly being told that rhinos
have been seen there throughout the day, but now it is only a black
background.
We are surprised that a group of native dances from
Swatziland
have come to offer us a show. We enjoy it with the only light of a fire
before going to sleep to get up early tomorrow, because we'll met the
receptionist at 6AM to check if she can put us on the Rhino tour at
6:30AM.
