We had a healthy breakfast of chocolate and caramel muffins (I have to balance out the vegetarian meals with some shit that's bad for me) washed down with Cherry Coke.
We then started the bus tour, it was open top of course so we sat in the sun and plugged in our earphones to listen to the automated tourguide. The bus went everywhere, and in the centre of Joburg the roads were barely wide enough for the bus to make it's turns. It's a very diverse city, the centre is built up with skyscrapers and roads lined with trees and it's incredibly busy. Other parts are more open, single story buildings much like some of the American cities such as LA.
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| These guys liked to dance and shout a lot. |
Some parts of the city we didn't venture into such as the notorious Hillbrow, where the autoguide diplomatically advised you not to go there alone unless you're with a VERY experienced guide. I took this to mean that it was full of Nigerian drug dealers and I'd need a flame-thrower to get through.
As we headed into the suburbs towards the poorer parts of town we turned a corner to see a black woman face down in the road with a car next to her, obviously been run over. It didn't look good, she wasn't moving and I didn't fancy her chances...
We then stopped at a casino which was very grand, and from here we caught a smaller minibus to take us to the Soweto, one of the townships where the non-whites were force-ably moved to during the apartheid times. This was really eye opening as I thought it was just a few city blocks, but it was huge. According to the stats 4-5 million people live in Soweto but in reality with the shanty towns it's more like 8 million. This place was huge.
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| White people were not so welcome here a few years ago. |
There was a stark contrast too between the districts of Soweto, the middle class had matchbox houses which were tiny, the more upper class had matchbox houses that had extensions built or even a what would be described as a small house, but with no room around it. The lower class were like sheds and then there were the shanty towns which were made up of corrugated iron and whatever else would keep the roof on.
We made a few stops for pictures and saw the site where it all kicked off in 1976. The police opened fire on the unarmed students who were protesting killing several of them and this sparked the uprising which went on to see over 3000 deaths over the next few months.
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| Outside Nelson Mandela's tourist trap, I mean house. |
After a couple of hours in Soweto we went back to the casino and grabbed some lunch. We went to the main restaurant in the casino and ordered some drinks. The waiter wasn't sure what beers they had so went to check and eventually I was able to order one. Pandaman wanted a Tab, but they didn't have that, so he ordered a Virgin Mohito. They didn't have that either. So he ordered some other non-alco cocktail, but they didn't have any cucumber, so we asked him what he did actually have and he just laughed. Just for fun we asked if he had the Nachos that PM wanted, no, ran out of that too, so we just upped and left. How can you run a restaurant where you don't have any of the food or drink that is on the menu?
The next restaurant that we tried was a buffet, but they didn't cater for vegetarians, so that was no good, how hard is it to eat in this place?
Luckily the third restaurant had some good food, so we filled our faces and then took the bus to the Apartheid Museum.
Man, this place is depressing. The horrific things that were being done, as recent as 25 years ago is crazy and there were lots of graphic pictures and stories there. It's a massive museum with replica cells, nooses, armoured trucks and so on. It's well worth a visit, but don't expect to come out smiling.
After an hour or so there it was time to head home, in the car, PM was talking to me and I just wasn't speaking, it's crazy what this place has been through and it really shows why everyone here is so friendly and happy all the time! It sounds like I had a rubbish day, but I didn't and despite the dead bodies in the street (highly unusual!) and the depressing subject matter, I'm glad I did it all and well recommend it.
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| Bunny Chow, I should have taken the picture before I threw it everywhere |
Back at base I had chance to get over the days education and we sat down for a traditional meal called Bunny Chow. It's basically a gravy like curry with beans in which is poured into a hollowed out loaf. It was really unusual but pretty good.
We then chilled for a bit and went to Sandton Mall to visit Milky Lane, an ice-cream parlour that makes just the best sundaes. Rio fell for the ol' "does my ice-cream smell funny to you?" trick, and had a spoonful of ice-cream on her nose as a result.
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| Rio's ice-cream, all part of the healthy vegetarian diet :) |
On the way home we saw one of those new Mercedes A45 AMGs, the fastest four cylinder production car. However, it was no match for the S5's supercharged 3.0l V6 as we both booted it off the lights in downtown Joburg. Both cars sounded awesome with the exhaust note echoing off the buildings. No video unfortunately, the g-forces were preventing me from getting my phone from my pocket.
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