South Africa Roundtrip - Day 20 - Cape Town - Journey Home

After a last breakfast at the hotel I decided to spend my last hours with walking around the city centre once more, spent my last rands and just tried to take in as many impressions as possible.

Eventually it was time to go to the airport.

Return flight was a bit of a nightmare with our flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg being delayed and the ones flying to Frankfurt just got to the gate with boarding closing though several others from the flight got there even later - and South African Airways staff was not much help - actually totally the opposite being rude to us arriving at the gate just in time how we could dare to arrive that late! 

Managed to get some sleep on the flight, so when we arrived in Frankfurt the next morning (with an hour delay though I didn't mind that as it meant I got a direct train home and didn't have to go via Frankfurt central) I was relatively fit. As it was freezing cold though I just wanted to go back to South Africa.... 

South Africa Roundtrip - Day 3 - Journey to Hazyview

Day 3 was mainly about travelling the around 400km by coach from Johannesburg to Hazyview where our hotel was as a base for the Kruger National Park and area around there.

So most of the day but for one stop at a motorway service station with a wildlife reserve behind it where we could see rhinos etc. from the distance and a another bit longer to grab some food we were watching the country go by. 

In the early afternoon we arrived at our hotel, the Casa do Sol Hotel Hazyview, apparently a 4 star, but compared to the standards I am used to, more a 3 star hotel.
Accommodation was in so called casas, like rather big 1 room apartments in Spanish style houses with a huge bathroom - not the most modern furniture but decent.

Everyone of the group then went on a so called night drive to the Kruger National Park for a few hours, I though preferred to stay at the hotel and just relax at the pool and as I learnt when the group returned and I joined them for dinner didn't miss much - and I actually had  fun with vervet monkeys around the pool teasing other hotel guests - so hilarious to watch that!
 

South Africa Roundtrip - Day 2 - Johannesburg

Day 2 was spent in Johannesburg and Soweto.

First stop was the city centre of Johannesburg around the former Stock Exchange in Diagonal Street. The whole area around this street was right in the centre when the gold rush began. It had seen better times before most certainly but it is still quite an experience to see it!

Next stop was the Apartheid museum where we learnt more about the whole history how the Apartheid could happen and what it meant for the people in the years until the first free elections in 1994.

There is a lot of information to take in, maybe even too much if you do not have a lot of time (as we did not have) and you feel quite overwhelmed.

Still an interesting place to visit - certainly worthwhile.

 

After the Apartheid museum we were off to Soweto, short for South Western Townships, . Now incorporated in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality around 1.3 million people, largely black, live here. 

It was quite a moving journey. To see human beings live in these sheds was disturbing. Yes, some live already in some decent houses but some still do not. 

Lunch was at Robby's Place, a family run restaurant directly in Soweto popular with tourists. It is advertised that it is a place where you can "mingle with locals for an authentic township experience" though for the people running the place and working there all I saw where tourists. It might be different in the evenings but during the day that is certainly not the case. The food was not bad, but what for the odd dish I wouldn't call it South African cuisine. It may be the typical food you eat there but some dishes were no different to what I get in the UK or even here.

The gym of Soweto's YMCA - Nelson Mandela trained here as can be seen on the picture above this.

One of the stadiums built for the Football World Championship

The night was spent once again at The Palazzo Montecasino. With no dinner included I walked over to the Montecasino Entertainment Complex where dozens of restaurants are. After the day in Soweto to be at this artificial place was a bit too much. Actually I couldn't wait to get out of it ASAP after some snacks and looked forward to the next day when finally off to the country side....