Jo-Burg

Wow so sorry it's been so long since my last post! Can't believe I haven't posted since Zimbabwe!!

Since that time, we've been in Johannesburg (aka Jo-Burg) for a few days and are now at a private game reserve in South Africa, called Kapama. 

Jo-Burg was very busy and full on, as I guess most of the trip has been ha ha! You're trying to see and do as much as you can while you're here, that your days are very full!  Prior to arriving in Jo-Burg, we were a bit nervous about things, mostly safety I guess and weren't quite sure how things would go. We were looking forward to learning about some of the history of the city and seeing some sites, but we were a bit nervous.

We stayed near the airport, in this massive complex including various hotels, a casino and restaurants. This was actually nice because we didn't have to travel anywhere for eatin, etc and gave us a chance to choose what we wanted to eat, rather than having to eat at the hotels. We saw our first food court and it included Nando's ha ha!! We felt very safe there, but it sure was noisy and busy!

Our first full day your took us to Maropeng and the Sterkfontein Caves. The whole area is known as the Cradle of Humankind and it shares a history of  fossils they found at this site and shares information about evolution and how the world changed over time (Pangea to the way the continents look now). It was all very interesting and they've done a great job with the sites! Crawling around in the caves was pretty cool too!

Our second day was very very full of history and museums! At one point we were given the option to go to two more museums and we passed! We were museum-ed out by that point. We learned so much about Nelson Mandela, his arrest, his imprisonment, his fight for human rights and not only his fight, but the long fight that many fought against apartheid that is so much a part of South Africa's history.  Our tour guide lives in Soweto, and role played for part of the day as one of Nelson Mandela's right hand men. Learning about it this way, brought history to life for us through out the day! There's so much to share here, but I just feel like I won't do it justice and I feel like I'll miss important details. So, I'll share pictures instead and try to share info with those. 

We also visited Soweto, with a population of over 4 million people. This is where the poorest of the poor people live but you also have people like Winnie Mandela and Desmond Tutu living, winners of Nobel Prizes! It was an eye opener of course and made us appreciate what we have in our own lives!

We visited the farm where Mandela and others were arrested. People see Mandela as the Father of their nation so they call him Tata. They have left him messages of thanks and cards in this room. 

The reality is that things were not always peaceful in the fight against apartheid. We saw many things that showed the violence of the struggle in this fight. 

Painted rhinos for sale to promote and raise funds for rhino awareness.

There was everything for sale at this market we went to!

We visited a prison where both Mandela and Ghandi were kept. 

The towers of Soweto, now used for bungee jumping!