On to Johannesburg, South Africa

 I have been hoping to go to South Africa for quite some time.... that time was definitely now!

The non stop AF flight from Paris to Johannesburg is easy, helped by traveling overnight and no difference in time!

First impressions of the city were positive......helped by the fact we were staying in a very nice small hotel 54 on Bath..... it even had a pool (small!!) and garden.

We visited Soweto and the Nelson Mandela original home, now a museum, having passed by 2 homes he was able to own after he became President.......

A little different from his family home before being put in prison for 28 years!

While there we visited the Hector  Pieterson museum. Amazingly we were able to meet Hector's sister, Antoinette. 

He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.....he was just 12, a young boy killed in the Soweto riots. She was 16 at the time and apparently all the schools had gotten together to protest the mandatory use of Afrikaans in the schools.... 170 plus were killed! 

 Her brother was just curious! A photographer took a photo of her with her brother being carried, running to get aid for him at a nearby clinic. The person who carried the young boy had to leave the country and has never returned!

We checked out the rest of Soweto......

...but were not tempted to bungee jump!

Some of the areas are obviously still extremely poor......despite the evidence of satellite dishes......these are provided very cheaply with access to just one channel....

Communal cooking facilities......

Some areas were not so poor!

We also visited Walter Sisulu Square...... where the South African Freedom Charter was signed in 1955

These figures represent clauses in the Freedom charter.....