Cascata

This waterfall (cascata in Portuguese) is in the Mantenga Reserve in the Ezulwini Valley. The April climate in this part of Eswatini is almost perfect, although moving from a coastal tropical city, layers are being used on occasion. The German coach-trippers at breakfast did not require layers; just crop tops, and with their walking boots, shorts akin to hotpants.

Joao and Tassiana are fantastic company so our conversations provide much food for thought. We talked about Brexit, because, who isn’t. In Mozambique it’s viewed as a novela, a soap opera, and god only knows how much distorting and simplifying the media in other countries is doing.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a regional cooperation which includes both Eswatini and Mozambique, and several others. It allows for easier travel for citizens of Southern African countries but can’t really be compared to the EU, as it’s a looser affiliation. Totally free movement of labour wouldn’t work where unions encompass countries with massive economic disparities, such as Zimbabwe and South Africa. However much UKIP tries to scare the electorate about Bulgarians coming to the UK in droves, economic factors don’t drive movements in Europe as heavily as they would in Southern Africa, if the right to work in neighbouring countries existed in the same way.

We lunched at House on Fire, which is a quirky restaurant-cum-gift shop-cum-festival venue-cum-arty place, well known in Eswatini. It is extremely gratifying and relaxing to be exploring this country without a cacophony of teenagers. In the evening, Guillaume and Joana, another couple from Maputo staying a few cabins away, joined for dinner and we had a delicious and fun time. The highlight was a malva cake, which is a South African dessert that is apparently supposed to be apricot flavoured. Instead this one resembled very closely a McVities Jamaica ginger cake.