Robert's Travels

The ninth day of the tour was the last one with scheduled activities. We had a relatively late 7:00 wake-up call, ate breakfast in the hotel and were back on the bus at 8:30. Belinda had given up her role as guide for the day, and instead a local guide from Johannesburg joined us. The itinerary for the day had us visiting a number of points of interest around Johannesburg, and the local guide was going to provide us with some local history and knowledge as we drove from point to point. Belinda had discovered she had missed my birthday yesterday, and she decided to compensate by treating today as my birthday. It was a coincidence but there was another person on the tour whose birthday was actually June 24, so Belinda announced the two birthdays before the bus departed.

The bus left the hotel and drove to the township of Soweto, which was in the southwest of the city. The name is an abbreviation of the ‘South Western Townships’, and during apartheid it was one of the major districts that black families were forced to live in after being forced out of Johannesburg. WE took the M1 highways south, passing a large amusement park named Gold Reef City. There were a number of gold mines in the region between Johannesburg and Soweto, and you can still see the tailing piles as you drive through the city. Once we were in Soweto the bus took a road through a residential neighbourhood, in order to show us the different types of accommodations people were living in. There were still communal housing structures built during apartheid being lived in, but there were also a lot of more typical houses all packed together. The bus pulled back onto the M68 highway, then drove past the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital, a large hospital in Soweto that was only able to treat black patients during the apartheid regime. We continued on driving past the Orlando towers, a pair of cooling towers from a decommissioned coal power plant in the neighbourhood. Today, these cooling towers are colourfully decorated, and are the site of a bungee jumping business. Shortly afterwards the bus stopped, letting us off in front of the house that Nelson Mandela lived in prior to his imprisonment. The house has been converted into a small museum that focused on his and his second wife’s life in the house. We spent about a half hour learning more about the Mandela’s before continuing on.

The next stop was at the Hector Pieterson Museum, which was only a short drive from Nelson Mandela’s house. This museum commemorated the events of the 1976 Soweto uprising, which was triggered by the police opening fire on 10,000 students protesting against being forced to study in the Afrikaans language. This led to rioting and the death of over 150 protesters due to police violence, and was a significant event in the history of South Africa. The museum was named to commemorate the 12 year old student, Hector Pieterson, who was one of the first killed when police fired on the student marchers. We visited the memorial outside the museum, then spent about an hour learning about this tragic event in the museum before continuing on.

Our next stop was the Apartheid museum. The drive to the museum took us past the stadium that hosted the finals of the 2010 South Africa World Cup, as well as past some of the gold mining tailing piles.

We had lunch in the cafe beside the Apartheid museum, and started the museum tour at 12:20. I can’t adequately describe the experience of visiting the museum, and can only recommend visiting it for yourself. It was incredibly moving and something everyone should see at some point in their lives.

The visit to the apartheid museum lasted for two hours, and shortly before 14:30 we got back onto the bus for the last time. The bus took us back to the hotel, dropping us off around 15:00. We had a bit of time before dinner, so we had a cocktail with the friends we had made on the trip. We spent an hour or so in the hotel bar, after which we returned to our hotel room. We discovered that Belinda had two pieces of red velvet cake delivered to the room with birthday wishes written in icing on the plate. It was a very thoughtful gesture! We packed, then went to a final dinner with the entire tour group at 18:30.

This dinner was held at Pigalle, a nice restaurant a block away from the hotel. We were seated at the head of the table with Belinda and the other member of the tour celebrating their birthday. Belinda ordered a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and all in all we had a very nice evening. The dessert was served last to us, as the staff had added sparklers to the plate along with birthday wishes written in icing. It was a nice touch to a good day.

After dinner we went to the hotel bar where we had a farewell drink with the friends we had made, then we went to bed shortly after 23:00.