Well today we were not lucky enough to get on Steve's bus - we have Lutendo, who is a King's son from up in Zimbabwe, but as a bus driver he merely drives as fast as he can and points out the highlights. You are always the first back to the train when you are with Lutendo! But we saw a great deal today anyway. It might be because Cherel went to Lutendo and asked him specifically why we weren't going to see some of the main sights - he got upset and tried to put "a woman" in her place and then obvious realized what he was doing in front of a bus load of paying guess. Anyway we did fly past the sights but we did see them.
After a not so good sleep on the train we left with Lutendo and drove to Pretoria and around the Union Building (Parliament Buildings) for six months the government sits here and six months in Cape Town.We saw, from our bus windows, beautiful gardens, embassies, statue of Paul Kruger, and his home, went to Church Square and saw statue of Pretoria and his father. Also saw the changes in the street signage. One of the main planks in the NCA campaign under Mandella was to have all the cities, streets and other important places renamed to the original names and not the Boer or English names. Obviously makes for confusion!
We then went to the Voortrekker monument - which is quite inspirational. Think in terms of the Oregon trail and the wagons heading west in USA or the Red River Carts in Canada's west. Shirley and I were the only ones from our group to walk to the top of the monument and see back into the city from this height! Also got what I think is a great picture of the stone walls at the top.
Left here and went into Soweto. This is actually a suburb of Joannesburg - Jo-burg has 3 and half million people, while Soweto has 4 and half!! We saw well to do homes and also tin or wooden shacks all in the same township! Drove along Vilakazi Street where two Nobel Peace Prize winners once lived. Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandella. Also Winnie Mandella still lives in this neighbourhood. We went to the Hector Pieterson Square and museum which shows in very realistic terms the young student uprising of 1976 and documents the death of Hector Pieterson a black student. This museum reminded us both of the Martin Luther museum in Memphis and the power one person's death can have on a whole race or in that matter a whole nation!!
Like always with Lutendo we were first back to train, but this gave us time to have a drink and as it turned out john got a free Scotch from the man (Leon) who owns Shongololo. John was able to give him some ideas we had talked about as a group on how they could improve it and how the guides should all be like Steve. Leon said he would like to email John and get some more details, so John has been keeping a list.
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