Johannesburg, South Africa | An African Adventure

I apologize for the lack of blog posts, but for the last couple days we were at a game reserve in the middle of nowhere where wifi wasn't easy to access. We spent three days taking game drives through Kruger National Park and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I have many images of the animals we were lucky enough to track and I will be posting them, but I still have yet to go through them all so that post will be coming at a later date.

We left the game reserve yesterday and arrived in Johannesburg, which is the largest city in South Africa and is home to well over 4 million people. Today was spent touring the city and learning about the history of South Africa. The day began at Nelson Mandela's most recent house in Houghton, which is where he spent the latter part of his life and where he ended up spending his final hours. Decorating the outside of the house walls were plants surrounded by rocks with messages written by many people who followed him and the great things he did for this country.

This is a view of a section of Johannesburg and it is home to the largest man made forest in the world.

Our tour guide took us to a courthouse in the downtown area of the city, which is also where Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo had their law office, the first black law firm in South Africa. If you look closely, their sign was never taken out of the window. Mandela was known for taking on many pro-bono cases.

Next stop, Soccer City, home of the 2010 World Cup. Can you hear the vuvuzelas? This stadium holds close to 95,000 people!

We then drove to the area of Johannesburg called, Soweto, which is short for, South Western Township. Soweto began because of the increasing eviction of black South Africans in the city of Johannesburg and many people say the name derived from the phrase, "So where to?", because they had nowhere to go. Soweto began in 1905 with only 1,200 people, and has now increased to 4 million residents.

Vuvuzelas and soccer balls line the streets leading into Soweto.

An example of one of the first housing structures in Soweto, which was built in the 50s, and this particular house is still in it's original condition. Many of the other houses have had upgrades.

The two towers were part of a coal mine to produce electricity for the city of Johannesburg. This coal mine has since shut down and is now used for advertising and bungee jumping on the weekends!

This is Walter Sisulu Square, also known as Freedom square, and is located in Soweto. It embraces a unique historical background and is home to many local traders. The architecture tells much about the political history of the people of the area.

A statue of Walter Sisulu and his wife Albertina. Walter Sisulu was an anti-apartheid activist and a member of the African National Congress.

Nelson Mandela on the left and O.R. Tambo on the right. The structure behind them was built to mimic the structure in an upcoming photograph.

The above two photographs are statues of other anti-apartheid activists.

Remember the brick sculpture behind Mandela and Tambo? It was built to mimic this structure which is at the heart of the market where many local traders sell their goods. It is covered with the sheet metal from some original market sellers.

This sidewalk restaurant was our lunch pit stop, which is right next door to Desmond Tutu's house (not pictured). He renovated his home into a restaurant serving local South African cuisine when he realized the number of tourists visiting the area.

When Nelson Mandela referred to his home, this is the home he would be thinking about. It is right up the street from Desmond Tutu's house in Soweto. Mandela lived here from 1946 to 1952.

In 1976 there was an uprising in Soweto, where the children of the schools gathered to peacefully protest the government decision to switch the schools to Afrikaans regardless of the locally spoken language. Without school officials and parents knowing, the protest was scheduled for June 16th, 1976. The plan was meticulously organized, and the children were to meet at Orlando Stadium. Police officials overheard through an informant and hid in this church above and once they police arrived, the children began to throw stones. Subsequently, the police began to throw tear gas and soon the peaceful protests were out of control. One of the officers gave command to shoot into the crowd, resulting in the death of many children ages 8-18.

Above is the outside of the Hector Pieterson museum. Pieterson was shot on the day of the protests, and he became the subject of an iconic image taken by a journalist that you can see above. Today, his sister, who is shown screaming in the photograph, is the manager of the museum.

Our last stop of the day was the Apartheid Museum.

When you receive your ticket, on the back it indicates whether you are part of the whites or non-whites. I'll explain more shortly...

One of the original benches used when Johannesburg was segregated. This was a 'Europeans Only' bench.

Remember my 'non-whites' ticket from earlier? Upon entering the museum, you were to go into the side designated on your ticket.

The non-whites side replicated the small entrances that non-whites had to squeeze into. As you walked further into the museum, non-whites had to walk up a narrow staircase, whereas whites had a wider ramp that in the past, wouldn't have been as cramped.