After 37 days of work I finally got a day off so I decided to hop a bus to Swaziland. I got myself to a hostel in Joburg to catch a ride on the Baz Bus. It a van bus thing that goes door to door to hostels around South Africa.
I waited early in the morning and saw the Joburg rush hour for the first time. The streets where packed with what we would call vans but they go by mini buses, or mini combis here. But they are really just vans. Locals filled the shoulders walking to work. Everyone was walking. No bikes. It took a conversation a few days later to realize people don’t ride bikes here. After being in China for so long Im surprised I didn’t notice that for myself but the fact is everyone commutes by foot. Driving past villages everyone walks to town over dirt paths from their homes.
Before getting to Swaziland, the bus passed through Nelspruit. There was less residential security here in the form of walls and barbed wire. The barbed wire was less prominent and some homes lacked walls altogether. This was some sight after coming from the fortified northern suburbs of Joburg.
When we finally reached the border to Swaziland the driver told us to get out. Take your passports and walk there in Swaziland, he said. So all us white people in this bus walked across the border and got all the stamps we needed.
Not far into the country I could see orange lines of fire winding up hillsides. A friend of mine in Joburg told me locals are afraid of tall grass because they say evil spirits live there. So the burn the grass down. As the sun set the mountains were spilling smoke as the snake of fire worked its way through dry, tall yellow grass.
I slept on a game reserve at Sondzela backpackers lodge, ate chicken stew out of iron dutch ovens cooked in coals of a campfire outside. Later with a beer I sat by that fire and for the fist time checked out the southern hemisphere sky. I was finally out of the city and could see the milky way clear as… milk. I didn’t look for too long. Maybe it will become really disorienting to constantly see an unfamiliar sky. No matter where Ive traveled before – always in the northern hemisphere – the sky is the same. The area around me might be foreign and different but the sky is the constant. Thats not the case here. Weird.
After a breakfast of Swazi porridge I took a van past some Zebras to catch the bus to Durban.
Cinder block houses with corrugated metal roofs dotted the landscape as the road led to the South African border. Seven hours later I was in Durban.
Durban is a nice, big city with a beach on the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean. I walked to the beach with some people I met at Tekwini Backpackers. For lunch I ate Bunny Chow. Thats a loaf of bread served vertical with the center dug out and filled with curry. Good stuff. Theres a huge Indian population in Durban and it shows.
I took a mini bus for the first time. These are the public transportation for blacks. Whites simply dont take them. This is the easiest situation that people will tell you not to do. It might be dangerous. Well, I rode on three different combis all packed with local blacks with no problem at all.
I kept feeling all weird because I was only on of a small handfull of whites anywhere. But then I realized with that traveling in these vans, packed in with locals is nothing to be afraid of, they are not gonna steal my backpack. Why would they? Why should I feel any more uneasy riding in a confined space with blacks through their downtown neighborhoods than what I did with Chinese people in China? Because there is some stigma attached to black people, especially here. Thats a bummer because I don’t think I have anything to worry about.
Now I’m in Port Elizabeth. That took a 15 hour bus ride yesterday. Peanuts. Now Ill check out he beach here. I can see the Indian and Atlantic oceans mixing already.
Tags: Durban, Indian Ocean, mini busses, mini combis, Port Elizabeth, Sondzela, South Africa, Swaziland, Tekweni, Zebras
Awesome!! Any pics?