Splendid South Africa and Swaziland

By Ernie Nylander

When our good friends, a doctor couple from Australia, asked us to go with them to South Africa, I wasn't sure I wanted to go. I've traveled quite a bit in my seven decades, but I'd never considered going anywhere in Africa. I knew I would not care to take one of the guided tours offered in travel brochures although I'm sure they do a good job, offering animal safaris, and sights of big city Johannesburg. I would want to see the country while traveling among fewe

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645844679

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Splendid South Africa and Swaziland

Ernie Nylander

Copyright © 2019 Ernie Nylander and Carole Nylander

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2019

ISBN 978-1-64584-465-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64584-467-9 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

A Very Long Flight to Johannesburg Then on to Mabula through Bela-Bela

Animals with Whom We Share the Planet

The Beautiful People of South Africa Fascinating Landscapes Along the Way

Crystal Springs, Kruger National Park, God’s Window

Fascinating People…Plight of the Animals

Crocodile Bridge, Watching from Hides

Getting Ready to Go Home

Introduction

Iwelcome you, dear reader, into the best memories, thoughts, and pictures of my mind—full and rich memory pictures (and tangible photographs)—of a month of travel in South Africa and Swaziland. I had already enjoyed a life filled with experiences that span three quarters of a century. Since I mostly wouldn’t have put high odds on the fact that I’d live this long, I am happy to be on the green side of the grass, to be able to experience such wonderful places as South Africa and Swaziland.

I have many theories on the mysteries of the good, the true, and the lovable and ideas concerning our transition at the end of our bodies’ existence. I’ve skated near the reaper’s grasp, racing cars (on streets away from traffic.) I raced on speedways, and down the Grapevine in California at the fastest speed, the car would go at the first light of the morning—no other cars around, and never when anyone else was in the car. I’ve gone scuba diving with barracudas and sharks in the Atlantic Ocean, and I’ve jumped (and was pushed) off a sailboat into the ocean where we’d seen a shark. Sailboats don’t turn around on a dime, so I knew I’d be in the water for a while.

Today I think about these instances without the fear about close calls. There was (sometimes) fear back then. I think the close calls helped make me who I am. These experiences caused some of the recklessness of my personality to be knocked off, rolling downhill on the abrasive substances of reality. I was always restlessly doing something when I was younger, even if it wasn’t right. For all my life adventures, I’m surprised it never occurred to me before to visit the continent of Africa.

My wife, Carole, and I were offered a trip to South Africa to be taken in the African winter (August) by our good friends George and Gabrielle from Australia. George is a surgeon and has a great big intellect. He is proactive and always thinking to the nth degree. Gabrielle is also an MD, and besides being bright, she is a kind and caring person. I have marveled at her willingness to meet a person, and within a short time of conversing, invite them to dinner. Once she invited an acquaintance/friend whom she’d just met an hour before to come visit them in Australia. So knowing them as I do, I pretty well knew that such a trip would be exceptional. I knew it would be fun, inspiring, and interesting—but I still hesitated. My wife, Carole, was instantly for doing such faraway travels.

Being friends with Australians who are smart and interesting is great. First, I get to use all my old expressions and tell the jokes American friends have heard for years. Some of the stories can sound fresh and new to G and G. They also share their tried and true expressions Aussies use. So we learn from each other every day. One of their first expressions that started the words exchange was, Sparrow fart that means very early morning. Then there was, Our shout, that simply means that they’re buying. After that, I realized that we could share idioms and expressions to learn some of the cultures of both continents. They are far more versed in American slang and expressions, inasmuch as they have traveled often to America to ski. They liked Park City, the Ogden Valley, Breckinridge in Colorado, and they have skied them all. George has been dropped from a helicopter on mountains in Canada.

In the last weeks before the South African trip, I became less than excited. There’s too much to do here in Utah, too little money, and on and on. My mind was trying to make up excuses to not go. We’re going to look at a few animals—well, I can do that at home on television, and there are zoos. Believe me, it is nowhere near the same. Viewing the animals in their natural habitat was just the icing on the cake. I learned a little more about unconditional love with these animals—an up level in consciousness for me. Carole and I, while knowing George and Gabrielle and traveling with these two wonderful people, are learning how not just to see the South African people and the South African animals and wildly diverse landscapes; we are learning how to fully experience the people more wherever we visit.

These friendly Australians make acquaintances everywhere they go. They talk to and respect almost everyone, with few exceptions. One exception was a waiter on one of our travels to Sedona Arizona who didn’t treat them well at dinner. They went back to the restaurant the next day to talk to the owner of the restaurant. He was grateful for the information and gave them a gift certificate and a holster that had been hanging on the wall (without a gun to fill it). George is an avid shooter at his club in Australia, so the holster was an appropriate gift.

George and Gabrielle had planned the trip to Africa themselves (i.e., where we would travel and when to move on from each location). They are not the sort of people who sign on to a tour that hauls people from one place to the next. When we would get to each area where there were wild animals, we did have tour guides driving the Jeep-type vehicles in which to see these animals in their natural habitat. In Africa, we were infused with the experience of not only looking at the animals, but we began to understand some of the unique culture there. We experienced the elephants’ unique love for family, and the rhinos’ care and protection of their young. Photographs taken in the bush show the leopards’ wary habit of eating his prey high up on a tree branch, and the elephant’s love for their families, and the watchfulness of other animals. The animals seemed to know the safety or lack of safety of the other animals they were with. Of course, there’s the hierarchy of the food chain. As far as I could tell, the South African animals only kill to survive. Not necessarily true with the human animal. I knew that I would not change Africa, nor did I think that seeing exotic animals in the South African wilds would change me. I was wrong. It was indeed a life-changing trip.

I sometimes refer to George and Gabrielle as lord and lady, and they refer to us by the same titles. It’s an inside joke that came about because they bought land for us at a castle in Scotland. We now each own a square foot of land at Dunans Castle. So if you read Lady G that refers to Gabrielle. (George pronounces her name like the angel Gabriel; we say Gabrielle like the refined ladies of Europe pronounce it.) Lord G is just George.

Chapter 1

A Very Long Flight to Johannesburg Then on to Mabula through Bela-Bela

The travel time to Johannesburg, South Africa, from our home in Pleasant View, Utah, is a little over twenty-three hours. One flight attendant announced that one of the flights was sixteen hours and one minute. That’s not counting the time of getting to the Salt Lake Airport, then a long wait in another airport for the next flight. So from the time of leaving home, it is more than a full day from home to destination. Not only does one experience great time change in going such a distance, but there is something added to the whole experience when going into the other hemisphere of our beautiful earth. The trip to the airport begins at 8:00 a.m. on August 5. We get there the recommended two hours early for check-in. That extra early arrival turned out to be highly fortunate for us.

Oops! I inadvertently add to the difficulties of check-in by forgetting some sharp metal objects in my computer bag. I had unknowingly carried around a set of drill bits in that bag for months. The man running the x-ray scanner pulls out one piece after another of these various sized drill bits. Then he announces, regarding the pound of metal, You can mail this home. Then he adds, "We don’t have to allow you to do that, you know."

He is letting me know that they are being nice. That unloading task takes him forty-five-plus minutes. If allowed, I could have helped him, and I’d get it done in five minutes. I offered once, but I don’t offer to help a second time for fear of being held up even longer. Then I purchase a bag and postage from a nearby shop that is used to selling such items to forgetful passengers.

We board one of our two airline flights and see that the biggest airliner in the world is packed full on this flight to Atlanta. The flight attendants are crazy busy. We’re hungry by this time, so the attendants sell us a sort of dry food wrap for ten dollars. They are all so busy that we almost don’t get a drink before landing in Atlanta. The passengers directly in front of us get two drink services, however. Since we were midship over the left wing, we only get one drink, and even that was at nearly the end of the flight. One flight attendant has what I described as dayglow teeth. She smiles, and I had to blink at the unreal white. I wondered who did her dental work. Carole and I called it movie actor white or beyond. We say to each other that we think it looks good on screen, but in person, it is strange.

Getting off the plane in Atlanta for a plane change, I see Bermuda shorts, suntans, and many toned bodies. These people look just like the ones I grew up with and went to college with in the Southeast so many years before. I had spent much time with people who looked just like them in my high school and undergraduate schools. I like it here. Southern accents make me feel like I’m home! I spot a gentleman I’m pretty sure I know but can’t remember his name. I don’t say anything, and we just smile as we pass each other. Just not quick enough on the uptake to think of and remember people from my past. We have a few hours wait for the next flight, so we check in at the desk for international flights and show our passports. Carole doesn’t think much of the photo that AAA took of me. She thinks they ought to give me half my money back. I look totally bald and have red stripes running down my face. Her picture looks normal. Mine is good enough to get me through customs. Whew.

On board, we get window and aisle seats with no one in the middle. Hooray! It’s going to be fifteen hours-plus in the air, and that is a very long time to be confined to the small space of airline (definitely not first class) seats. It is one of the biggest plane’s longest flights. The captain looks very sharp and wide awake when we meet him. Good! We take our seats, and they tell us to put cell phones in airplane mode. We buckle up, and away we go. It feels to me like the wheels need balancing on this plane, so we shake and rattle as we roll down the runway. We pull up, and the shaking tapers off and ends after a bit. This plane doesn’t exactly go upstairs like a homesick angel, but we get to cruising altitude. The lack of service on the previous flight is now surpassed by the almost overdone service here on the international flight. The attendants are all women—and they are very hard-working ladies. I eat and take a nap. There are more drinks offered. All in all it’s a very good flight although extremely long.

We exit the plane fifteen-plus hours later, feeling quite stiff in our joints. I give the ladies my accolades. The captain is there, and he gets my hearty well done! I think to myself about the old saying we frequent travelers used to say to each other when I used to fly forty weeks a year: Any landing you walk away from is a good one. We have finally arrived in the Johannesburg, South Africa Airport. And I am so glad to be on terra firma.

Now we stand in