Swaziland: Pine trees, the king, police control and cows on the road...

Swaziland is a beautiful, little country in a green, hilly area. There is no question about the boss in this country. The king with his 17 wives (subject to change - typically at a pace of one additional wive a year...) rules this place. We entered from Nelspruit and drove through large pine forests before entering Mbabane, a small town followed by Manzini. The 'highlight' for us was actually the bus from Manzini to Maputo. The day started with a 2 hour wait (pretty fast for this area) till the minibus was full. 30 minutes down the road a police man stood on the road and stopped us. He took the driver out of our minibus and entered himself. He drove a tour testing breaks etc with all of us in the bus. A short conversation later we were back on track (don't know how much the driver paid...). Probably half an hour later there was a bang in the back and everybody turned their heads back. The tire of the trailer had bursted. As we turned the heads back to the front two cows were in the middle of the road and it got really calm inside the minibus...! Luckily we had a good driver who managed to get around the cows and pull over. We had a bit of shacky legs when we watched them changing the tire... Afterwards it was a calm ride into the center of Maputo.