May 18, 2018
It was absolutely heavenly to not have to get up before dawn
for a change. The big, noisy tour group
that had invaded our hotel the night before had gone off to Kruger National
Park before we ever got up, so we had a pleasant breakfast. Then we loaded into the bus and drove up onto
the Drakensburg Escarpment, which is also referred to as the high veld. The views on the “Panorama Route” were
fantastic, but we were at nearly 7000 feet and it was chilly up there. Our first stop was at an overlook called God’s
Window where we could look down on the low veld
and Kruger National Park stretched out beneath us.
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| The View of the Low Veld and Kruger National Park from God's Window |
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| Bourke's Luck Potholes |
We followed the Blyde River canyon. At one point, Dutch settlers had been trying
to figure out how to get their wagons down to the ocean from the high
veld. The men left the women and
children camped beside a river and told them to give up and turn back if they
didn’t return in two months. Two months
passed and the men hadn’t returned, so the women very sadly turned back. They named the river where they had camped the “sad” river. A couple of days into their retreat, the men
overtook them as they camped beside a different stream. They named that river the Blyde (or happy in
Dutch) River.
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| The "Sad" River |
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| Monica and Meo at the Blyde River |
We stopped at the Bourke’s Luck Potholes where the two rivers meet. The river
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| Dancers at the Three Rondavels |
had eroded the stone into a series of circular pools.
The stone was colorful and the waterfalls and rock formations were
whimsical. Bridges had been built across
the canyons so that visitors could view the potholes and throw coins into the
water for good luck. We paused there and
took lots of photographs. Then we moved
a little further down the canyon to the Three Rondavels, three rock
outcroppings in the shape of African huts that loomed above the canyon. Our vista point offered spectacular views and
we all snapped numerous pictures. Some
of our group members were chased by baboons on their way back to the bus, but I
didn’t see any. I was on a mission to
get coffee.
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| Roadside Market at the Three Rondavels |
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| The Three Rondavels |
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| Panorama at the Three Rondavels Overlook |
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| The Rose Cottage in Dullstroom |
We stopped for lunch at the Rose Cottage in Dullstroom. Dullstroom has 559 inhabitants and it seemed
like all of them were aggressively hawking macadamia nuts on the street. It would have been pleasant to stroll the
main (and only) street, but the vendors made it stressful. Most of us took refuge inside the restaurant
where our orders had been called in ahead of time.
I ate a beef patty and chatted with Jan, Ramona, Lucy, and Ciro. Electra made a dash for the whiskey store on
the far side of town to buy a gift for her house sitter. Ramona zoomed off to find a pharmacy after
lunch and I kept Jan company, as he wasn’t feeling well.
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| Scenery in the Coal Region |
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| Mountains of Mine Tailings |
The last hour and a half of our journey brought us to the
region surrounding Johannesburg, which had been a gold, platinum, and diamond
mining region. It was the mining
industry that fueled the growth of Johannesburg into the massive city it is
today. Everywhere, there were the
artificial mounds of mine tailings. With
today’s high price for gold, many of these mounds were being reprocessed to
recover metals left behind by earlier, less efficient processes. The government was concerned that
Johannesburg was built on top of old mine shafts and might one day
collapse. While it had survived a recent
5.5 magnitude earthquake, the tailings were being pumped back underground after
being processed a second time.
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| Downtown Johannesburg |
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| Our Room at the Protea Fire and Ice, Melrose Arch |
We drove across Johannesburg to the northern suburbs where
our hotel, the Protea Fire and Ice, Melrose Arch, was located inside a gated
compound containing hotels, luxury apartments, offices, restaurants, and a
shopping mall. So many immigrants had
flocked to downtown Johannesburg that it had become a vast slum. The businesses that had formerly had their
headquarters there had fled to the suburbs, leaving the office blocks to become
overcrowded and crumbling tenements.
Downtown Johannesburg was a wreck and we passed it by.
Unfortunately, Melrose Arch, where we were deposited, was
glitzy and featureless. The stores were
all expensive international chains.
Nothing was recognizably South African.
There was a large piazza surrounded by restaurants and dominated by a
huge video screen. Workers were busy
laying AstroTurf and setting up bean bag chairs so that patrons could watch the
royal wedding “on the lawn.”
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| The Protea Fire and Ice Hotel |
We checked into the hotel, rested for an hour, and then went
out to find an ATM and eat pizza and pasta for dinner. With no early call on Saturday, Electra and I
joined Monica, Meo, Lucy, and Ciro for drinks after dinner. Upon our return to the hotel, Electra and I
went to our room, not being big drinkers, while the rest of the group went for
a nightcap. Somewhere between the lobby
and the bar, Lucy’s phone disappeared, possibly picked from her pocket in the
elevator. Security footage confirmed
that she took a photo of the next day’s schedule in the lobby, got into the
elevator, but did not appear to have her phone once she reached the bar.
May 19, 2018
The next morning, I was just about to hop in the shower when Lucy pounded on
our door, asking Electra’s advice about what to do about a lost iPhone. Since Lucy had not backed up her data or
activated the security features, there wasn’t much Electra could tell her. We finished dressing and hit the breakfast
bar. I wasn’t feeling well, so couldn’t
take advantage of the impressive spread.
I had a little granola and yogurt and a glass of orange juice. I went down to the lobby to meet the group
and was suddenly overcome by nausea. I
went running to the bar, hoping there was a restroom back there, but the only
restroom was one floor up. I turned
around and tried to make it but ended up vomiting all over the carpet in the
bar. I felt better immediately.
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| Our Guide, Andani |
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| Soweto |
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| Vilikazi Street in Soweto |
We had a half day tour of Soweto scheduled for that
morning. Our guide was Andani, a very
stylish gentleman who was a native of Soweto.
He met us attired in tie and sport coat, wearing mirrored shades worthy
of a rap star and wild socks. Soweto is
an acronym that once stood for “South Western Townships.” The townships were established when the
apartheid government moved the black mine workers outside Johannesburg proper
and deposited them there with no services.
The original dwellings were shacks made of sheet metal and tar
paper. Having heard about the unrest
there during the 1980s, I was expecting a scary slum. Instead, we found a pleasant suburban
neighborhood, far safer than central Johannesburg.
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| "Informal Settlement" in Soweto |
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| Nelson Mandela's House |
Today, Soweto is much improved. Seventy percent of the inhabitants are middle
class and live in tidy brick homes. Over
twenty percent are classified as “rich” and live in large, modern homes. The small percentage of poor mostly live in
the former hostels that once housed single male mine workers. These hostels have been converted to family
housing and the poor who reside there live there for free, not even paying for
utilities. A few shacks remain, occupied
by illegal aliens who cannot qualify for better housing. According to Andani, Soweto is safe because
the natives beat up anyone caught committing a crime. Even the criminals who live in Soweto commit
their crimes elsewhere for fear of retribution.
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| Nelson Mandela's Living Room |
We drove through Soweto until we reached Vilikazi street,
the only street where two Nobel Peace Prize winners have resided. The former homes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu
and Nelson Mandela were only about two blocks apart. Tutu’s house was surrounded by trees and
impossible to photograph. Vilikazi
Street had become a tourist mecca and was lined with stalls selling food and
trinkets. The bus stopped outside Nelson
Mandela’s house, which had become a museum.
We went inside. Winnie Mandela lived
there with her two daughters while Nelson was incarcerated. The bricks bore the scars of firebombs and
bullets. The living room floor showed a
scar where she had erected a brick wall (now removed) to protect them from
stray bullets. The house was small and
modest. We could barely pack the whole
group inside at once. We took a few
photographs and then returned to the bus.
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| The Hector Pieterson Museum |
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| Hector Pieterson's Body |
Hector Pieterson, 13, who was only a bystander and was just
trying to cross the road to join his sister, was the first child to be
killed. Dozens more would follow. While black South Africans had been suffering
under apartheid since 1948, the murder of these youths finally caught the
attention of the foreign press.
Sanctions against South Africa followed.
The economic effects of these sanctions eventually led to the end of
apartheid.
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| Our Tour Group at the Hector Pieterson Memorial |
We visited the museum and learned the story of the student
march that finally accomplished what all the adult dissidents had failed to
do. I think each of us thought immediately of the student protests against gun violence going on in the United
States and hoped that they might be similarly successful, although far more
students had already been killed in school shootings than were ever shot down
in Soweto.
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| Largest Soccer Stadium in Africa |
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| The Apartheid Museum |
We left Soweto after visiting the museum and drove past the
largest soccer stadium in Africa to the Apartheid Museum adjacent to a casino
and amusement park in a suburb of Johannesburg.
When you purchase a ticket to the museum, you are randomly assigned a
racial status. I was assigned
non-white. You must then enter by the
appropriate door and proceed through the exhibits about the classification by
race and assignment of government ID which differ depending on which status you
have been assigned. The non-white group
had to use the stairs to ascend to the second level while the white group got
to use a ramp. The two groups eventually
merged after the point had been made.
Somehow, the randomness of the assignment emphasized the ridiculousness
of dividing human beings by race.
The museum was divided into two sections and photographs were not allowed. The first section offered an exhibit about Nelson
Mandela and his long history of resistance to Apartheid. All non-white citizens were issued a pass
book that they were required to keep on their persons at all times. These books were called Dompass books or
“stupid pass” books in Afrikaans. The
books showed a person’s racial status and where they were allowed to be at which
times. Black people were allowed to be
in white areas when they were scheduled to work there, but otherwise had to
return to the townships where they lived.
Nelson burned his Dompass book which led to his arrest. He was imprisoned for twenty-seven years,
eighteen of those years at Robben Island, far from his family in Johannesburg.
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| Nelson Mandela Burning His Dompass Book |
Nelson’s story was moving, but ultimately triumphant. Winnie Mandela had a hard life. She suffered government harassment and had to
raise her children in that environment without a partner. She didn’t always handle it perfectly, which
made her a controversial figure, but she was still honored at the museum by the title of
“Mother of Her Country.”
The second part of the museum showed how Apartheid came to
be in 1948, how it was implemented and, ultimately, how it fell. Economic sanctions from the rest of the world
ultimately forced the government to end apartheid. Ironically, the worst violence against the
people came just after the end of apartheid, when government soldiers killed
thousands of civilians in South Africa and just over the borders of adjacent
countries. South Africa still has its
divisions, but it is amazingly unified considering that Apartheid only ended in
1994. Politically, they are less divided
than the United States, which I found astounding.
Divisions, today, are largely economic. While they avoid racial divisions, class
divisions are everywhere. I fear that
the educational system, with its four different levels from completely free to
completely private, will perpetuate classism in South Africa. At least, today, students are allowed to
choose which languages (other than English, which is required) they will study.
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| The "Lawn" Set up on the Piazza for the Royal Wedding |
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| Add caption |
After the Apartheid Museum, part of the group continued on
to Pretoria with Andani and the rest of us returned to the hotel in Melrose Arch. Electra and I relaxed for an hour and then
went to the grocery store in the basement of Woolworth’s to pick up something
for lunch. Nothing looked good to me, so
I settled for a bag of crisps and a ginger ale.
We perched on the edge of a planter box to eat our lunch. The place still looked deserted with the
exception of one young mother changing her baby’s diaper on the tailgate of her
Range Rover. They were building luxury
apartments across the street. While the
exterior architecture was glitzy, the interior walls were constructed of rough
red brick. The concrete slab floors were
being held up by jack stands until the bricks were in place, which didn’t give
me a lot of confidence in the integrity of the building.
After lunch, we went back to our room and I spent the rest
of the afternoon working on my blog. There
was a lot to cover.
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| My Scrumptious Springbok Dinner |
Saturday evening was our farewell dinner at a restaurant in
the mall called Pigalle. The cuisine was
continental, although there were some African bush meats on the menu. I had a springbok loin with a lovely balsamic
reduction that was possibly the most wonderful meat I had ever eaten. It was tender enough to melt in my
mouth. Our group had dwindled. One couple had already left for home and
another family had eaten too much at lunch to make it to dinner.
The remainder of the group enjoyed a beautiful dinner organized by our guide, Dale, with fine food
and plenty of South African pinotage. It
was a lovely, bittersweet party since we would have to say goodbye to our
traveling companions the following day.
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| Meo, Dale and Monica at Pigalle |
May 20-21, 2018
It was wonderful not to have a schedule on Sunday
morning. I slept until 8:00 and didn’t
get to breakfast until after 9:00.
Electra and some of the others left at 9:30 to go to a farmers’ market
outside the gates, but I elected to stay in and work on my blog. I really wanted to complete a blog post
before I left Africa, but the internet connection was slow and there were many
photographs to upload. I didn’t make as
much progress as I would have liked. I
wasn’t hungry, so I just kept my nose down and worked until it was almost time
for my ride to the airport at 4:00. Dale
had arranged late checkout for us, so I was able to remain in our room.
I reported to the lobby fifteen minutes early so that I
would have a chance to say goodbye, but the shuttle was already there. Dale was coming with us as were four of the
other group members. Two of them were missing,
however. It turned out that Jan, Ramona,
Electra, Larry, and Barbara had gone out for an African lunch and service being
“chill” in Africa, they barely made it back by 4:00. Larry and Barbara scurried to collect their
luggage while I said goodbye to Jan, Ramona, and Electra. It was a little sad but mitigated by the possibility
that I would see Jan and Ramona in Ensenada in a few weeks and the fact that
Electra was likely moving to California soon.
Those of us leaving piled into the van and we were off.
The Johannesburg airport was so quick and efficient that I
was whisked through check-in and security and half way through passport control
before I realized that I had neglected to declare my purchases so that I could
claim a VAT refund. There was no returning
once I had checked out of the country, so I said goodbye to that $50.
Johannesburg was another airport where they didn’t announce
the gates ahead of time. I shopped for
last minute gifts and then sat in the middle of the shopping mall until they
announced the gate. Even after they
announced the gate, they didn’t open the door until they started to board. I sat across the hall from the gate and attempted
to converse with an African woman in French.
The flight to London took ten and a half hours. I had an aisle seat. The seat next to me was vacant but, once
again, the armrests didn’t fold up.
There wasn’t room to learn forward, so I bunched my pillow up on top of
the armrest and leaned over to the side.
I slept for maybe two hours that way.
Fortunately, there were good movies to watch and they served us drinks
and a nice late dinner with wine. This
time, I avoided the spicy curry so I didn’t get sick. We arrived at Heathrow about 7:30 in the
morning.
This time, my flight was listed when I arrived at Terminal 5
C Gates. The monitor told me to proceed
to the A Gates. My flight out wasn’t
until 2:30 in the afternoon, so I had lots of time to kill. I walked a long way and then took the train
to the A Gates. Fortunately, I didn’t
have to change terminals, so didn’t have to endure security a second time. I got coffee and a muffin at Starbucks and
settled down to wait. Thanks to my
pillow, I actually managed to nap for a couple of hours in the airport
lounge.
Finally, at 1:00, they announced
my gate which was back at the C Gates where I had started. I had to make the long trek back again and go
through a particularly annoying security screening where I had to peel off all
of my layers of clothing to get to my completely metal free money belt which I
foolishly admitted to wearing. The whole
exercise could have been avoided if they had just let me stay where I had arrived. I would avoid connecting
through Heathrow in the future.
My next eleven-hour flight was in a middle seat. Fortunately, it was an endless afternoon and
I didn’t even try to sleep. I just
watched movies, did sudoku, and ate and drank when food was put in front of me. We arrived in San Francisco at 5:30. The line
for passport control took an hour. There
were only about three agents trying to process two wide-body planes full of
passengers. I was tired, my backpack was
heavy, and the wait was agonizing.
Fortunately, collecting my bag and clearing customs was a breeze. The agents barely noticed my passage. Then I had a long walk through the
international terminal to the BART train where I collapsed in a seat and tried
with minimal success to stay awake for an hour and a half until we got to
Pleasant Hill.
Sandra was supposed to have picked me up and I had texted
her my itinerary a few days before. Somehow,
she thought I was arriving the next day and had gone to work. Since she hadn’t responded to any of my texts
from the airport, I was not overly surprised that she wasn’t there to meet
me. I was too tired to care. I called an Uber, rode home, showered, and
collapsed in my big, comfortable bed.
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