There’s more fire in a Bushfire

The past weekend was spent with Amy in Swaziland, following a hazardous journey late at night which unfortunately robbed us of the splendid scenery we got to see on the way back.

To enter into Swaziland one has to first exit South Africa which takes two different stamps from different officials, an entry stamp from Swaziland and the payment of a road tax.  Swaziland was disappointingly developed in the areas we drove through, with illuminated motorways, good mobile phone service and super toilet facilities.

Days are hot this time of year but the nights are freezing cold which we noticed in the queue at House on Fire the location of Bushfire Festival.  Bushfire is an international festival of the arts, with a great music line-up, local arts and crafts stalls, fairly international food and a lot of drug consummation.

We had arrived just in time for the main act, GoldFish from Cape Town. They were two brothers with mixing desks, a saxophone, a bass and a singer. Their music was some type of electro pop that was very listenable and danceable and the audience really got into it very quickly.

The night was spent at Amy’s friend’s lodge with a fantastic view over the Ezulwini Valley where we stayed in style and for free.  The next morning we stuffed our faces at the festival, chilled on the grass and listened to some very famous artists from across Africa. My favourite must have been Nomzamo Dlamini who had the audience dancing like crazy and HotWater whose African mama singer got the whole of the audience to do a complicated set of dance steps culminating in dancing with the knees bent and the bum hanging out all the way which she called duck dancing.

The highlight of the evening was Oliver Mtukudzi who is a superstar across southern Africa and had the audience dancing and singing with him for every song. He was followed by Bholoja, record selling Swazi artist whose songs cover contemporary Swazi/South African problems like domestic violence and HIV. He too had the audience under a spell and singing along with him.

Sunday was spent lounging on the grass, reading in the sunshine and listening to more music from all across Africa and to the Yale Concert band which had practiced some African anthems and had the audience dancing throughout their performance. I’m guessing it was a first for them.

It was such a great weekend which was concluded by the amazing views of the Swazi mountains on the way back, the purchase of mutant avocados which are almost as big as my head and the slight cringing noise every time the exhaust of the project rental comes into contact with the ground.

Fotos in the Gallery