JOHANNESBURG, South Africa

We arranged a tour from the airport to Soweto Township. An enlightening day. Population of Soweto abt 1,200,000. Housing ranges from upper middle class to ramshackle homes. It has one of the biggest hospitals with over 3,400 beds, and the site has 430 buildings with various medical services. The lower income has their own justice system. You better not get caught! Officials are trying to remove people from the first housing development that was started when the blacks were removed from Joburg. It isn't working, so they brought in port-a-potties. There is no electricity. Now, in contrast, there are a couple of upper middle class homes that are used for TV soaps. You can see the slums from the upper middle class homes. We toured the Hector Pieterson Museum that commemorates the role of students in their fight against Apartheid. A couple blocks away is a street where Hector lived along with Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Visited the site of decommissioned cooling towers, 100m tall, that was a coal fired power station. From the top you can bungee jump, the bottom there is a pub. The last stop was the soccer stadium built for the World Cup. It can seat 95,000 people and is an impressive building. Then on to Joburg, population abt 6,000,000. The city skyline has some unique architecture. After checking into the hotel decided to walk to the mall. That lasted abt 2 minutes. Security guard at the hotel wanted us to call him so he could pick us up. We don't have cell service, so we decided to walk. Got to the first corner, made the decision to just go back. Didn't feel comfortable with the looks of Security posted at each corner.
Early evening for us.Read more