Johannesburg

We arrived in Jo'burg and checked into our hotel in the Melrose Arch area. The rest of the afternoon was free so we ventured out and did a bit of browsing in the neighbourhood stores. Melrose Arch is clearly a high end district as evidenced by the Porsches, Audis, Mercedes and the occasional Ferrari. Several of us got together and went out for dinner at a place called Pizza and Vino. The food was delicious and we had a great time!

The next morning was a bit of a sleep in as we didn't leave until 8:00 am. Our itinerary for the day consisted of driving by Nelson Mandela's last residence followed by a drive through Soweto. After that we stopped outside of Desmond Tutu's home followed by a walk through of Nelson and Winnie Mandela's home. This is where he lived prior to his arrest and where Winnie continued to live and be harassed by the police while he was in jail. After that we went to the Hector Pieterson museum and then went to the apartheid museum.

It was a pretty somber day as South Africa has only started to spread her freedom wings in the last 25-30 years.

Hector Pieterson was one of the first casualties of the youth protest against apartheid on June 16, 1976. He was 13 years old. The protest was organized by students and was meant to be peaceful but the police opened fire with tear gas and bullets.

Afterwards we went through the Apartheid Museum where we were randomly segregated so that we could see what it felt like to be in that position. Claude was classed as non white and I white, so we had the enter throughly separate entrance lines. It's hard to believe that only 25 years or so ago, this was how things were here. During apartheid 3.5 million blacks and coloureds were forcibly removed from their homes and resettled in the townships on the outskirts of towns. They lost everything and were persecuted and oppressed beyond belief. They were issued pass cards and had to present them whenever asked. If they didn't have it with them, they were arrested and beaten.

We finished with a stop at an artisan market and then had dinner back at the hotel and said goodbye to several of our group as they were not continuing on to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe with us the next day.Read more