Unposted blog post from Swaziland 5/7/07

I have been trying to journal during the past week, but generally failing.  I am sitting on the back porch of our house in Mlilwane Game Park, the girls are playing Egyptian Rat Screw and birds are chirping and doing other cliche bird things.  To my right a hill slopes down to a grass valley meadow where we have seen Impala and baby Nyala feeding. 

This morning I had my very first horse ride on Silver (a creatively named whitish silver horse).  It was your basic head to butt ride, but wow, the scenery was amazing.  I saw zebrus from just a few feet away, Kudos, Blesbuck, Wildebeasts and of course Impallas.  As for the riding part, I loved it.  I was kinda nervous at first, but it quickly became more relaxed.  I would have enjoyed having a bit more instruction, such as should sit forward or back, straight backed or relaxed, feet out or slack, reigns tight or relaxed.  Highlights from the ride for me included crossing two small streams and getting my horse to kinda trot with my heels.  On our way back to the camp we came through a small forest where the trees reminded me of young aspens and there were eucalyptus plants lining the path.  The combination of the sun filtering through the trees and the eucalyptus smell made for a beautiful experience.

Being in Mlilwane has been a nice change from the chilly high veld cabin in Malolotja.  There the wind whipped over the hills and except for the 3 ft. radius around our wood fires kept us quite cold at all times. 

I should also note at this time that I have fulfilled another life goal, my passport is officially full, in fact I went with Mary to the embassy in Mbabane to get an insert.  This makes me so happy, because this has been my goal ever since I got my passport back in 2000.  It has the stamps from my trip to Germany, Malawi & Tanzania, Columbia, Northern Ireland, to London and China and of course most recently South Africa and Swaziland.

UPDATE: I was informed by certain parties who shall remain unnamed *cough* Z *cough* that I managed to misspell most of the animals that I named.  So to avoid further spreading of misspellings here is the list of correctly spelled animals:

zebra

impala

kudu

blesbok

wildebeest (gnu)