Weird enough, I am fond of Mozambique since my childhood. It used to be the poorest nation in the world, even it has a long coast line and many natural deep harbors. Almost five centuries of Portuguese colonization came to a close for Mozambique with independence in 1975. The ruling party formally abandoned Marxism in 1989. It's now slowly positioning itself as a major tourist destination. With all it has to offer, the future looks bright.
Swaziland's monarchy is one of the oldest in Africa. Despite Swaziland is very rurual, it has one of the world's worst AIDS crises. 39% of the adults are HIV positive. Strangely, I could not notice the effect of AIDS on the people and society.
I arrived Jo'burg and heard a story of a Korean whose throat got cut on my way to the hostel. The guy stayed in the same hostel as I did. He went to city center and got his throat cut before getting robbed. What a start!
It is a violent country and public transport can't be relied on completely and the only way I can go to a hostel is by arranging a driver or better still hire a car. The country lacks the history of somewhere like Turkey or India, the exoticism of the likes of Peru and North Korea, and certainly perhaps the beauty and compactness of say Japan. Nevertheless, it still has all that in small measure and a lot more besides.
South Africa apart from being one of and most under-rated backpacking destinations around, is a country of stunning variety. Forgetting the gems and highlights easily visited in its bordering nations, you've got everything from the typical African acacia scrub in Kruger national park to the typically un-African green fynbos clad slopes of Cape Town. In between there is everything from wine lands to the mountainous Drakensbergs to a red desert.
I started loving the place, and even balancing about whether to move to South Africa from Singapore. Let's see.
