@AlevScott
SHORTLY AFTER dawn, Christiaan Erasmus dons a cashmere poncho and steps into the clouds that envelop his mountain retreat. We are on one of the highest points of Swaziland’s Malolotja mountain range, along the country’s northwestern border with South Africa. The 51-year-old stands on a boulder and watches the mists recede. “Welcome to the Sultan’s Spiritual Retreat!” he exclaims in a cheerful Afrikaans accent. “Let’s get some coffee.” I follow him down the mountainside to the scattered huts that make up this remote retreat in Nkhaba, about 20 miles north of the capital, Mbabane.
At 5,250 feet above sea level, there is a slight chill in the air even in the summer month of January, when the fertile lower veld produces mangos, lychees and mosquitoes. Here, the only indication of life beyond the mountaintop is the distant clang of cattle bells. Later, as the sun burns through the clouds, a panoramic view emerges—of forest, farmland and fields of “Swazi gold,” the cannabis famed abroad as the tiny country’s top (unofficial) export.