July 27th

All the roads near our hotel are blocked and stands are elected. Apparently, it is the Formula One Race Exhibition. You could hear the thunder of race cars from our room.

We all are so tired and lazy today. No one but Len wants to do anything. We ate breakfast and came back to our room and lazed around. Len went out to watch the exhibit, walked around the nearby malls. Came back twice and we were still not ready. We had wanted to go to a Lion Park but now it is too late. Sorry girls, no Lion cub feeding.

Finally, at around 2:30pm, we emerged from our room looking for lunch and met up with Len. We walked passed the exhibition and went to the Village Walk, a small mall in Sandton City and had lunch. By the time we walked back to our hotel, the exhibition was over. They were lots of people everywhere. We saw people at the top of our hotel roof, a nine floor hotel. The girls wanted to go up there but as the show was over, we didn’t bother. We went to our room and just relaxed some more. Paul and Doris have called and are now back in Johannesburg and decided to check in at a hotel near the airport. Our hotel is 34KMs away. We will see them tomorrow at the airport as we head back to Malawi together with Air Malawi(probably another chartered plane) in the afternoon. We land at Chileka Airport early in the evening. We will sleep over in Blantyre before heading back to Lilongwe, a 4 hour drive by bus. The trip is really going by fast.
July 26th

Happy Birthday to me. We booked a full day tour of Sun city and Pilanesberg National Park in North West Province; a 2.5 hours drive from Johannesburg. We originally had wanted to spend a night at the Palace of the Lost City in Sun City but quickly gave up the idea of spending a lot of money for one night only accommodation. We opted instead of a game drive through Pilanesberg, the fourth largest game park in South Africa. This park traverses the floor of an ancient and now extinct volcano. We will then spend another 3 hours at Sun City Resort Complex whose grounds borders on the Pilanesberg National Park, a popular game-viewing destination.

Finally! Animals in the their natural surroundings! It was so interesting, eyes wide open, always on the lookout! Whoever saw something would alert others of that they saw and which direction. Thankfully our tour guide knew what to look for as we missed most and he spotted most. If we saw something interesting we would stop and watch. We saw elephants so close it was frightening. At one point, we watched them block the road right in front of us. Scary. We saw Zebras, Giraffes, Rhino, Buffalo, Hippos, Gnus, Crocodiles, Warthogs, Antelopes(deer), Monkeys, Wilderbeasts and a Fox. We saw 3 out of 5 “BIG 5”.We did not spot any Leopards or Lions. These look too much like their surrounding. We have been told it‘s luck of the draw which animals you see as they are wondering about all over the park which covers an area of 50,000 hectares. Spotting animals in these terrains sometimes required good eye sight, many looked like
rocks; as some could hardly be seen in the tall grass that covered or camouflaged them. Very interesting indeed. No one wanted it to end; we could have drove though this park all day.
We then left the park and headed over to Sun City Resort Complex. The resort is a man made overly artificial Theme Park. Described as “The Las Vegas of South Africa, the largest adult entertainment centers in the world, with casinos, golf, live shows and the architectural wonder of the Lost City. The vast resort complex is one of South Africa’s top attraction for gambling, entertainment and opulence, a luxury theme park.” No money was spared in it’s design. Kids are not left out here either. Small ones can be babysat. Lots of things for kids of all ages to do. It has the largest kids arcade games I have ever seen. Ashley, Grace and Marie had a blast after we had lunch. I gave them each 40 tokens. I even joined them in some of the these kids games. Len and I passed on the adult games and the Casino, we didn’t even go to see it. We then had to leave for Johannesburg; a 2.5 hour drive back to our hotel.

Meanwhile, we got a phone call from Doris and Paul that they were driving themselves to Sun City and planned to stay at a hotel outside the resort. As they reached late, we did not get to meet.
Back at the hotel we had supper at the hotels restaurant. Got ice cream sundaes and brought them in our room where I was given my birthday present and card. They secretly bought me a T-Shirt at the Lost City in Sun City. We were all so tired and the girls fell asleep and we followed soon after.

July 25th

Happy Birthday Andrea! We hope you are having fun and a great day in Capetown. Hopefully mommy has given you a present you wanted from Malawi from us.

Johannesburg feels different from Capetown. The city has what looks like smog hanging over it. You can’t really take clear pictures of the city line.

This morning, our tour guide helped us move to our next hotel, Garden Court Southern Sun Hotel in Sandton City across from Nelson Mandela Square mall.

We then started our tour and drove past Nelson Mandela Houghton home, then through Johannesburg city centre. The office buildings are modern, felt like Ottawa Bank street area. We then drove through the rough part of town where even locals avoid going there.

We then drove to Soweto. We drove through different areas in Soweto. Soweto township is orderly with the majority of small houses, has some big ones and a few pockets of informal settlements here and there. It is not a slum as some people might believe (might seem so in some places where the squatters are however). We visited one of the informal settlements to experience the Soweto township lifestyle. Houses there are made of anything people could find, the majority with metal scrap materials. The house we visited had a kitchen and 2 bedrooms in an area of 12 by 20 feet. Most of the residents are waiting for government housing we were told.

We then drove past Winnie Mandela’s home, stopped at Hector Peterson Museum, an innocent youth that was killed by police during apartheid days. We then stopped at Mandela’s family museum but were not able to visit it as it was closed for renovations. Further down the road, we drove past Desmond Tutu’s Soweto’s home.

We then headed over to Gold Reef City. Gold Reef City is built around a working gold mine and has a Theme Park. Across from it is the newly built Apartheid Museum. The girls were in Heaven. One entrance fee covered all the rides they could go on and as many times as they wanted - too bad not enough time. Must say they avoided most of the rides. I was only brave enough to join them on the Ferris wheel and the small train that goes though the park. As time of is getting short, the girls did not want to leave the park and go to Apartheid Museum across; so Len and I left them in park under strict rules. Len and I hurried through the Apartheid Museum in one hour; a place you could easily spend 4 hours. Very interesting and disturbing at the same time. Human nature! An Epic saga it was indeed.
We then met up with the girls at the Theme Park. As usual they did not want to leave. We only had to left because it was time agreed by our tour guide to take us back to the Hotel. What an amazing day!

July 24th

We left Capetown for Johannesburg on our favorite South African domestic Budget airline, Mango Airline. As we did not pre-book any hotel rooms, we had a difficult time finding one. So we booked a one night at an apartment hotel called Sandton Suites and the next 3 days at Garden Court Hotel in Sandton City. The suite was a self catering type of accommodation, actually nice, 2 separate bedrooms with ensuites, separate living room, dining room and kitchen. It was fully equipped. As we only had a night here, we took advantage of the laundry facilities and despite the machines being slow, we managed to do 3 loads. Wash and dry. It was the first time we didn’t have to pay to wash our clothes. Everyone wished we could stay there some more, as it had a more at home feel. We walked to a nearby shopping centre, ate supper at Nandos and bought some groceries for breakfast items for the next day. We then booked a full day tour of Johannesburg city for the following day.