We reached our rooms for the night at the Mantenga Lodge, high in the hills surrounded by dense forest and the even higher mountains in the near distance. 

Overlooking the valley is a tall pinnacle called “Execution Rock,” reportedly because this was the spot for dispatching prisoners the local rulers felt needed a one-way trip. Not sure just how recently that was the norm.

Execution rock—best seen from this distance, I would imagine

At the pool, we ran into a family from Chile (which, as they described it, is "the Britain of South America") vacationing for a month or so in South Africa, and a French family who had been in Kruger the same day as us and had been the ones who told Alfred about seeing lions. 

Dinner that night was on the deck, below Execution Rock, and included an excellent South African wine, some not-so-excellent but adequate South African beer, and Brenda's entrée, something translated on the menu as "Meat on Fire"....and it was exactly that. 

 The next morning, bright and early as usual, we got back on the bikes and made the short hop to the Swazi Glass factory, another small locally owned business.

We watched these men blowing glass, forming it into jars and other figures.  One worker, seeing us watching him, kept blowing his bubble larger until it blew out in a spray of molten glass.  He smiled, then broke off the remaining bits in a waste can and turned back for another dip in the furnace pool.