Home to giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, elephants, lions and rhinoceroses, Eswatini is wildlife country in miniature, with a concentration of wildlife that is in no way inferior to the large national parks of Southern Africa. Indeed, the added value of its wildlife reserves is precisely that they are small in size and far less frequented by international tourism, thus multiplying the chances of sightings during safaris.
Its National Parks are an astonishing concentration of biodiversity and extraordinary landscapes. A small mosaic of green plateaus and rugged mountains, savannahs and grasslands teeming with wildlife and birdlife, idyllic waterfalls and thrilling rapids, hiking trails between rocky canyons and scenic granite formations, as well as mysterious natural walls that preserve exquisite samples of rock art, bearing witness to a very ancient prehistory dating back to the San Bushmen ancestors.
Swaziland (land of the Swazis, in English) knows how to amaze in all its ‘pocketbook’ beauty, a beauty that finds its greatest naturalistic expression in the Hlane Royal, Malolotja, Mlilwane and Mkhaya National Parks, in evocative wilderness trails.
Each protected area has its own prerogative and one or more characteristics that distinguish it.
If the Mkhaya Game Reserve is famous for housing, among many others, Africa’s last and rarest specimens of the black rhinoceros, the Malolotja Nature Reserve will enchant you with its concentration of tree species, and a wide variety of birds, zebras and wildebeests, which can be spotted on wonderful walking treks.
The Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary will amaze with the quality of its facilities and the opportunity to cycle or walk its wild but safe trails in search of the rich local wildlife, of which the most dangerous species are hippos and crocodiles. The Hlane Royal National Park, on the other hand, will captivate with its sly families of lions, and the complete sampling of Big Five, were it not for the absence of buffalo.
The common denominator, the quality and quantity of sightings, the relaxing atmosphere of the safaris, whether by car, on foot, by bicycle or on horseback, exclusive above all because they travel along the less-travelled paths of Southern Africa, where one truly feels ‘face-to-face’ with elephants, giraffes, lions, zebras and rhinoceroses, among many other species that populate its heaths.
Authentic experiences, in a miniature but surprisingly real Africa, to be integrated with adrenalin-pumping experiences of rafting and caving, or visits to traditional villages of the ancestral Swazi culture, amidst woven huts of wood and bamboo, conceived as fortified beehives, to protect an ancient culture and identity, but where welcome and openness towards others have become the main characteristics, among a population that will make us feel at home, or at least privileged guests.
