Sunday - Johannesburg

---

After writing off Saturday (bad barbecue effects) we decide to go on a tour of Johannesburg and Soweto. Eschewing the hotel recommended tour guides we take a recommendation from a friend and procure ourselves a local outfit - after some delay Charles turns up and we start our own personalised tour. Johannesburg is a huge, sprawling conurbation merging into Pretoria and with satellite cities around it. Even on a Sunday it takes time to get around it. First stop is the house where Mandela lived until his recent death. It's in an affluent jacaranda tree lined road in Haughton - it's quiet with no one else there when we arrive. A single car on the drive signifies family members are at home. On the verge are small flower beds with painted stones giving best wishes to Mandela in his final days. It seems a fittingly peaceful final place for a peace maker and a long way from Qunu nearly a century before.

Then into down town Johannesburg. It's depressingly run down and dilapidated and has the look of a soulless urban US city - larger businesses have moved out to the satellite cities leaving buildings empty, derelict and void of use. A few smaller migrant communities have shops selling domestic essentials but there is a forlorn feeling. The government is investing - there is a bus system, government offices and so on but the prevailing feeling is forlorn. Some of the buildings have fine architectural merit and reflect the heritage of the city, it's development around gold, commercial growth etc. but investment and better planning is clearly needed. We drive through Sophiatown - where the black community once lived before the removal to the south west township that is Soweto. Again there are some little pieces of fine buildings and architectural heritage stranded amongst the decay. Mournful place.

---