TINY AND LANDLOCKED

I have always had a thing for geography. I've been looking at maps and memorizing capitals for as long as I can remember. One fascination that has stuck with me throughout all these years are the tiny countries in the world that are trapped inside or between other countries. Many of these are in Europe, but a few exist in other places as well. I liked them so much that I convinced my social studies teachers to let me turn in reports on Andorra, Luxembourg, and Leichtenstein for extra credit. I hit the encyclopedias hard.

(Andorra. Photo by Nathalie Bourque)

To this date, the only small nations of the world I have visited are the Vatican City, which does not even have a welcome sign, and Andorra, in the Pyrenées between Spain and France. Andorra had been on my mind ever since spending a month abroad in southern France on an exchange program when I was 10 years old. It was only in 2004 that I got to enter the tiny country and was severely disappointed by how uneventful it truly was.

That is not stopping me though, from the possibility of three more tiny countries on this trip, San Marino, Lesotho, and Swaziland. It is absolutely true that I will only go to these places for the pure curiosity of it all, since none of the three is very far from my path.

But how can you blame me? The official name of San Marino in Italian is Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, translating roughly to "The Most Serene Republic of San Marino." The Kingdoms of Swaziland and Lesotho both exist at least partly due to the whims and errors of British imperialism. They are both surrounded by South Africa (although Swaziland has a small part touching Mozambique), and have populations the size of medium United States cities.

(Swazi people. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Christoph Riedl)

But people make a place what it is, and I want to see the differences between outside and inside these tiny countries. I suspect I will find none in San Marino, but in Africa these nations were "granted" to certain peoples on our Earth's most diverse continent. I am hoping I have ample time to explore all of southern Africa and am not pressed for time to make a reservation for the cargo ship I will be taking from Cape Town to Brazil. Only time will tell...