A Loop around Southern Africa – Day 10: Too early for Umhlanga

Scouring the websites of Eswatini’s Tourism Authority, I learned that Eswatini’s Umhlanga festival generally takes place on the last week of August or the first week of September, and that the exact date is announced about a month in advance. Since this is very little time to put together an international ten-day itinerary for four people, I emailed the authority in July to ask whether they already had some idea of the tentative dates. Much to my surprise, I received an answer within a day. The gentleman wrote that the dates of Umhlanga are determined by a council of elders and that there is no way of saying for certain when the ceremony will occur, but that – given the festival has taken place on the first week of September in the past four or five years – he was fairly sure this year would be the same.

Reassured by this information, we bought our tickets to and from Johannesburg and sketched out an itinerary that would take us to Eswatini on the 1^st of September for the final and most important day of Umhlanga, after which we would continue to iSimangaliso, the Drakensberg Mountains, and Lesotho. Then, disaster struck. The date was announced and contrary to all expectations, the final day of Umhlanga did not fall on the 1^st of September, or indeed, the 25^th of August, but on the 8^th of September – the second Monday of the month. With only four weeks to go, we scrambled to salvage as much of our itinerary as we could. Our flights were set in stone, but we rearranged our entire trip to go counterclockwise instead of clockwise, hitting Eswatini last and seeing the penultimate day of Umhlanga.

Although not as important as the final day, when the king of Eswatini attends the ceremony and sometimes picks a wife from among the young maidens, the penultimate day of Umhlanga offers an interesting spectacle. This is the day when, after a week of preparations and travelling to the capital, Eswatini’s maidens bring bundles of reeds to help repair the Queen Mother’s Residence at the Royal Village in Ludzidzini. They then gather at the village’s stadium to perform their dances for hundreds of spectators, with each contingent of young women having their own dance and attire.

We began the day with a safari drive at the Hlane Royal National Park. We had been hoping to see lions, as we had already seen the rest of the big five on this trip, but despite our driver’s best efforts we did not succeed. Still, the trip was memorable for how close we got to two sleeping rhinos, and we also saw an elephant drinking water from very close. Other than that, there were quite a few male and female nyalas, lots of guinea fowl, and a monitor lizard.

After finishing our drive, Tiana bought an elephant print sarong produced in Vietnam to wear to Umhlanga. We still had plenty of time before the ceremony was supposed to begin, so we made a quick detour to the nearby Ngwenya Mine, which is home to the Lion Cavern – allegedly the oldest mine in the world, dating back over forty thousand years. We were pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the landscape, with the modern mine’s red walls standing above a pool of turquoise water and surrounded by verdant forests.

We arrived at the Reed Dance Stadium at two thirty. We had been told that the ceremony would begin between three and four o’clock, so we figured we had come just in time. Indeed, we had seen young women in the parking lot carrying huge reeds, so we thought the event was just about to begin. Brent and I waited as Tiana and Joel went to the food court to procure some snacks, and for a moment I was glad that the event did not begin exactly at three, as they were still away then. As time dragged on, my optimism dissipated. Four o’clock passed and announcements were still being made about bathrooms and the comestibles at the food court. Walking along the far edge of the stadium, the young women slowly filed in, and occasionally a group of young girls would dance in the front to pass the time, but every time we thought all the maidens were in the stadium, another group would arrive at the entrance.

It eventually became clear that there was a delay because the royal family had not yet arrived at the stadium. There were, of course, many princesses among the performers, denoted by the red feathers in their hair, but the event could not start without their parents. With some reluctance, we abandoned our posts just before five o’clock, consoling ourselves that at least we saw some reed carrying and dancing. It was imperative for us to hit the road again, as we had to return the car in Johannesburg at ten o’clock, after which I had to make my one-thirty flight. On my suggestion, we turned on our Frankenstein’s monster of a playlist and somehow managed to pull up by the car rental just as the last song on the twenty-plus hour abomination finished.