My Travel Adventures

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.

We left our hotel in Amsterdam at a leisurely nine o’clock, as we did not have much to do for the day. Our plan was to drive to Barberton and follow the educational route through the Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains, after which we would drive along the border with Eswatini, cross the border on the road leading to Mbabane, visit the Ngwenya Mines, and check into our hotel at the Ludzidzini Royal Village. We were specifically cautioned not to cross the border at the end of the Barberton Mountain route, where the road was supposed to be awful.