22 | October | 2023 | The Cannon Family's travel blog

So my cunning plan nearly worked. We awoke to another sunny day but weren’t quite as refreshed as we would have liked: the bed was too hard and the room was too warm. I think we are becoming travel weary. But it is our last day in South Africa and we have lots of time to kill before our 11pm flight to Amsterdam.

So we shower and pack and head down to breakfast (more food!) before starting our day. The plan was to do the big red bus thing to learn about Johannesburg (or Jozi/Joburg as we learned). The starting point was at the Rosebank Mall which also housed an African craft market. So off in an Uber to our starting point which is a HUGE retail center in one of the richer northern suburbs. The craft market turned out to be a bit overwhelming, especially since we were not in the market for zebra skins or large wooden giraffe carvings. So off to hop on the red bus. Fully sunscreenedwe sat on the top of the bus and learned about the gold rush that formed the city as well as dozens of quirky facts. Or first stop: the Apartheid Museum.

Holy ugly history Batman! If you’ve ever been to the Holocaust Museum in DC, you might have an idea of the effect of this place. We spent several hours wandering through exhibits and watching videos. It was still surreal to think that this wasn’t even ancient history. I know we didn’t see if all but after a while, we were done: emotionally drained and brains full. We picked up some Coke Zeros and crisps for “lunch” then it was off to the next stop: Soweto.

We had purchased a combo ticket that would include a 2 hour tour of the township but I didn’t read the details and we timed things wrong. We would have had to wait an hour for the tour to begin and then we would be cutting things close for the rest of the day. So we had to abandon that plan come up with a new one. Back on the big red bus to complete the circuit and the last stop was the military history museum. Normally, I would never think to got to such a thing but when they said it had an excellent collection of planes from WWI and WWII, Frank was in. And it turned out the be the most excellent surprise. A fantastic collection of transport and armaments from more than a century – including the Spitfire Frank wanted to see. I learned a lot about the Boer wars and South African’s invovement in both world conflicts (who knew?) Overall and excellent stop and one we were both very glad we made.

We started to wait for the next red bus to take us back to the shopping area in search of ice cream to find some respite from the sun and heat but gave up that idea and decided to get some steps in and walk the 30 minutes or so through the posh suburbs. Tall walls with electric fences and razor wire were at every house. (Frank peeked through as many gates as possible to see what kind of cars were hiding there!) It was one example of the inequality that we saw in various places in South Africa: these enourmous houses not far from the shacks of the townships.

We managed to find our way back to the shopping area and procured some local ice cream. That’s when we realised that we didn’t have a good plan for getting back to the hotel. Even though we had checked out, they had our luggage and we had reservations for dinner in the posh restaurant. So we decided to walk. It was a pretty straight shot from one rich suburb to another so we weren’t too worried. (MISTAKE!) As soon as we got out of the main commercial area, we ran into our first SA scammers looking for us to purchase a “walking pass” to go down the street since the president was there for the rugby match. (In Jozi? When the match was in Paris?) We had been warned about these folks and while it took a few minutes to register (I thought we were being told to find a “walking path”….) we figured out what was going on and decided an Uber was the right way to proceed.

So back to the posh hotel to have some drinks while watching the English premiere league and then it was time for dinner. We wanted to have one nice dinner before the 11+ hour flight and even though we were sick of eating, we did a pretty good job tackling oysters, salad, steak, and lamb with a nice bottle of pinotage. A lovely dram of whisky to finish it all off and it was time to head to the airport. We got there in time to see part of the SA-England rugby match before we boarded the very fully flight to Amsterdam. Where of course they made us gate check our luggage….. we have a 5+ hour layover in AMS so the bags had BETTER make it on to the plane…..

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