We woke surprisingly early considering our activities yesterday. After catching up with emails and messages we set out to explore Johannesburg. It was still raining as we walked up to the Gautrain station a block away, and after the last week felt fairly cold.
We bought tickets for the hop-on, hop-off bus at Rosebank and enjoyed our trip round to Constitution Hill. This is the site of the old prison and we spent a wet time looking at the old cells and seeing the new court. It is a powerful reminder of how people were treated under the apartheid system.
On the next bus ride, we travel across the downtown area, heading for the Apartheid museum. The weather is still atrocious, and we have a quiet laugh when we stop for a view over the city, and can barely see the edge of the road, or when we are reminded to wear sunblock as the sun can burn easily in Africa. At the museum we have a nice launch of Bobotie which warmed us slightly, but I have to buy a t-shirt to wear just to try and get warmer.
The Apartheid museum is very informative, and emotionally draining. Our original plan to visit the Origins museum next goes out of the window as we try to absorb all the information, and we eventually catch the last bus back towards the city centre. Some of the most chilling moments were watching old interviews of the politicians justifying the apartheid system, and scenes from the Truth and Reconciliation trails.
Our journey back is delayed as the traffic is so bad due to rain and flooding, and eventually we get back onto the Gautrain at the Rosebank station. At Sandton we decide to go directly to the restaurant Ossie and Chris had recommended, and eventually find it, looking like a trio of drowned, shivering rats. It was a fairly upmarket place, with great steaks, and when we eventually dry out we thoroughly enjoyed our meal, especially the springbok capaccio for starters.
It was so wet all day that I took no photos at all!!
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