The deadline in South Africa...

South Africa wasn't quite what either of us expected!

So i don't know how we do it, we must put out some sort of pheromones that attracts freaks. After orantz (sic) in Hazyview we thought we might have a freak free time for a little while. But apparantly that was never going to happen. Jo'burg is in the middle of a "taxi war" if you get the wrong taxi there have been attacks, muggings and deaths due to this "war". So we organised a taxi through the backpackers, this white 1990 toyota corolla arrived Melissah leaned in to me and said "shit, its the same taxi as Vic Falls. I swear if one these doors doesn't open I am refusing to get in". Thankfully for Blanky the Taxi driver they all opened. Like a real gentleman he took Melissahs massive backpack off her back and put it in the boot, but unlike a real gentleman I had already stripped my backpack off and was sitting in the vehicle.

So here we are with an apparantly trustworthy driver, reccomended by the chaps at the backpackers (remember 1990 tozota corolla many dents) and we're off into a town that has a taxi war and massive homicide rate, especially for us of a pale complexion (i dunno if thats true but it gives you an idea of the nerves one carries...) Thats ok, I told Melissah I was dripping with optimism to counter balance melissah's pale pessimistic "we're going to die" attitude, he comes reccomended by the backpackers. You'd think we would have learnt by now. For the next forty minutes we drove like a car possesed through jo'burg, apparantly pedistrians are fair target and the commuters talk to each other via a complicated language of honks and expletives. Our taxi driver was also some kind of Jedi master for not once, and i mean once did he look at what was happenening in front of the vehicle. If you have seen the film clip to Jarvis Cockers "don't let him waste your time!" where Jarvis spends his whole time looking backwards at the passengers instead of driving ... we'll it's like that except it's terrifying when its not on rage at two o'clock in the morning but in real time with you... Trust me... Anyway, he hit nothing, killed no one, got us to our destination 5 stars, very posh, in one piece...

I don't remember agreeing to have him drive us around the next day but he did wave his hand infront of melissahs face and said mmmmm pick you up i will.... mmmm tomorrow at 8... to the museum and airport you will go... you seek yoda... (I may have just breached copyright.. but if anyone asks its fan fiction.) So he drove us around the whole next day, took us the tourist way to the airport this costs double and terrified the pants of Steve and Eve when the whole drive he was poking Steve in the chest muttering stuff about 4 wheel drives and motorways... Anyhoo.....

(Melissah has taken over the keyboard - time for a concise version of events, Al will take over later!)

We spent a day in Johannesburg, in a five star hotel, which was a nice change from the two weeks of camping! I don't think that either of us really felt safe in Johannesburg, something to do with the nine foot fences around every property with the electric fence on top of that and the giant metal spokes on top of that. We took a taxi ride through Sandhurst, the ritziest suburb in Jo'burg and couldn't believe our eyes. It's a gated suburb, meaning there's a MASSIVE fence around the whole suburb with a gate that's closed between 7pm and 5am. There were security guards at the gate and one at each corner of the suburb in full camouflage gear. The ones at the gate were all holding AK47's and had amo vests on. I've never seen anything like it. Even with all this, according to the newspapers, Sandhurst still has the highest rate of armed robbery in all of Johannesburg.

We only spent a day in Johannesburg, so the only thing we really had time to do was visit the apartheid museum. The museum was not quite what we expected. A lot less "in your face" than we thought it would be. What it was, was a really fantastic unbiased view of apartheid. There was a lot of explanation as to why the whites bought it in and the affects through the ages. I can't say that either Al or I really learnt anything new that changed our opinions, but it was definitely worth the trip. We were really disappointed that we didn't get time to do a tour of Soweto - but there's always next time!!

From Johannesburg we already had flights booked to head down to Cape Town. In the end we were quite disappointed that we pre booked flights, because instead of Cape Town, we would have preferred to go back to the regional areas, where there's so much culture and so many animals and landscapes to be seen! Anyhow, with our flights and accommodation pre booked and paid for we had no choice!

After 12 full on days of travelling around Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa, the relaxation in Cape Town was exactly what we needed. I don't know that I'd ever go back to Cape Town, it really just felt like an Aussie beach town (just less safe) and with the Billabong Surfing Pro just up the road and all the surfers around, it really felt way too much like home! By the end of it, we were counting down the days to Europe! We pretty much spent the whole time just walking around the waterfront at Cape Town (which is really just a nice marina), did a tour across to Robben Island and then up to Table Mountain. Really, there isn't much else to see in Cape Town that we hadn't already seen either in Australia or on our tour!

Robben Island
Robben Island holds the prison that Nelson Mandela was kept in for 18 of his 27 years in prison. We took a tour around the Island and learnt about its history and how it's always been an island of banishment, from the lepers through to thousands of political prisoners across the ages. Interestingly, the island is absolutely covered in rabbits and eucalyptus trees from the nice Australians ... to say the least, they're not very happy with us!

We were supposed to spend the afternoon with an ex political prisoner, but they were flat out with school holidays and didn't have enough (!!) but instead we had a guy who lives on the island (i think he started and runs the whole thing) and is collating all of the stories from the apartheid political prisoners, he has met and spent time with so many of the people that we would all know from talks of apartheid and had so much to tell us. We saw the cell that Nelson Mandela was kept in and heard stories from working in the limestone mines to priests smuggling them in the local papers. This was a real eye opener for us, and while we didn't have an ex prisioner talk to us, there were enough of them around, that you got the understanding that this wasn't just a story, this happened to real people. Also, everyone that has been employed on the island from the cleaners to the security gaurds are people of the generation that missed out on education becuase they were fighting for freedom. This was definitely the most worthwhile thing that Al and I did while in Africa.