Adventures with Toni Tours in Johannesburg

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This is a continuation of our trip from Zambia on June 16, 2008.


June 18, 2008
It was a smooth quiet flight to Johannesburg. We cleared customs and immigration and were picked up by Kookie in a very comfortable mini bus, for our trip to the hotel Sandton Garden Court Hotel. It is a typical business hotel, but quite comfortable.

At 7:00 PM we headed off to Moya Restaurant in the Melrose Arch suburb. It is a brand new residential, shopping restaurant neighborhood. The restaurant was really neat with Bedouin type décor and Pan-African foods served family style. We had an assortment of breads served with different spiced sauces, tabouli and cous cous salad, curried carrot and coconut soup, lamb stew and barbecued lemon chicken. Dessert was vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and chocolate fruit fondue. I also had Hanssan Marzan Amber beer which was quite tasty. We also had our faces painted and enjoyed African drumming and singing by the wait staff.

We headed back to the hotel at 10 PM for a well deserved rest.

June 19, 2008
Breakfast at our hotel this morning, made us feel as though we were in a business hotel in New York. A very crowded, mixed race crowd, all eating in a hurry to make their meetings on time.

Kookie picked us up at 9:00 AM and we headed to Gold City to pick up our local guide, Rafilka. We were surprised to see a large theme park with an assortment of roller coasters and a casino there, all located in the same complex as the Apartheid Museum.

Rafilka is a local resident of Soweto, which stands for Southwest Orlando township. It began as a refugee town, for all of the African people who came to the city to work in the mining industry. The township grew, when apartheid segregation resulted in government built housing for the blacks and colored population. It was interesting to see how many of the residents in the area, have chosen to stay, but rebuilt their homes as small mansions. They refer to one area in Soweto as Beverly Hills.

We also visited the Regina Mundi Church, which was the site of many apartheid rebellion meetings, which was targeted by the Soweto security forces. You could still see the bullet holes in the roof and the statue of Christ which had both hands broken off by the butt of rifles.

From there, we visited the memorial to commemorate the 600 school children killed and the over 1000 wounded, when they held a demonstration march against the forced mandate of teaching students in Afrikaans. This occurred on June 16, 1976. There was also a special tribute to Hector Pieterson, the youngest child killed that day.

We drove past Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s home, Winny Mandela’s home and Nelson Mandela’s home. Desmond Tutu and Winny Mandela still live in their homes here part of the year and Nelson Mandela’s home is currently being renovated into a museum.

We had lunch at a local Soweto Restaurant called Nambitha, which translates to delicious. I had the sticky wings which were recommended by Rafilka. They were honey BBQ, and were quite tasty. Some of our group also had a potuguese style skewered, roasted chicken.

From there we continued on to the Apartheid Museum. We were each given a ticket that said whites or non-whites, and that determined the entrance you needed to enter through. This separated our group and we got to see the different types of ID cards issued during Apartheid. You were classified by your color and sometimes had to change your race to the lower class to avoid being separated from your family. Our group was able to re-gather in the courtyard and continue in to the main part of the museum. It was very well done with a number of multi-media that painted the picture of how terrible Apartheid was.

We returned to our hotel after that. A number of us explored the Nelson Mandela Square and Sandton City shopping malls to pick up some postcards and souvenirs. We also found a Ciao Baby Cucina Restaurant where a few of us split some pasta, pizza and salad platters. The total bill was less than $10.00 per person.

We all turned in to prepare for our trip to Motswari tomorrow.

Trip blog continues in Motswari June 20, 2008.

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Photos

Beaded Zulu Dolls
Johannesburg O.R. Tambo International Airport

Getting My Face Painted at Moya
Photo compliments of Susan M.

Inge with Portuguese Chicken
Nambitha Restaurant - Soweto

Apartheid Museum Entrance
You are given an ID card at the ticket window that classifies your race