Friday 16th September 2016: Our tour ends with breakfast at the hotel, but we have all day before our flight so we have a day tour booked with Pat & Jim to fill in the time. Khuliso, our driver picks us up at 8.30, is very affable and easy to understand. He has lived in Joburg for 27 years, has 1 wife and 3 daughters, 10, 6 and 25 days old, - his grandfather had 5 wives who all had 5 children each. Times have changed though he says and he helps his wife with the children, but still says that when he is 60 he will go back to the village which is up near Kruger and 5 hours by bus away - I find this hard to believe he could do this after living in a western society. 
 
Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa, but has 27% unemployment and a high crime rate due to this. We don't use the highway at this time of the morning, but instead go past some lovely homes of which many are now being transformed into business premises.
 
Our first stop is the Constitutional Court of Justice which was established in 2001 when the 'Awaiting Trial Block', No. 4, of the old prison was demolished. It is an impressive building. The court room has a huge beaded flag which was made by the women - red stands for blood, white for the white majority, green for the plantations, gold for the gold and minerals, black for the black majority and blue for the Indian and Atlantic oceans. The prison used to house up to 2000 prisoners. Jacob Zuma the current President has been before the court for theft here and ordered to repay a small portion of the embellishment. We cross the Mandela Bridge and head to the 'Museum Africa', interesting displays. There is a peaceful protest rally happening when we come out, to Stop Crime, Stop Violence in this area - there are lots of homeless and the police are corrupt as well.
 
From here we go to the Apartheid Museum - it is basically all about Mandela, they idolise him and he was a great man - a leader, comrade, negotiator, prisoner and statesman as the slogans say. He was born in 1918 and his father died when he was 9. He was brought up by an Uncle who had him educated - by cultural tradition he was circumcised at 16 and he became a Christian which was probably the thing that gave him his powers of forgiveness. In 1943 he went to Uni to study Law, he married Evelyn in 1944 (divorced in 1957) and had 3 children, 1 of whom passed away. He married Winnie ( who turned 80 yesterday). in 1958 and had 2 daughters. In 1964 he was arrested for his active political views and actions and sent to Robben Island, spending 27 years imprisoned. He had the ability to win over his jailers and managed to secure improved conditions for the prisoners, like long trousers instead of shorts in the freezing conditions, hot water and being able to play some sport in the gardens. His son was killed in a car accident in 1969 which caused him much grief. On the outside, tensions were rising, particularly amongst the youth in Soweto and it quickly spread throughout the country, causing much blood shed. Winnie became quite radical and aggressive and was the instigator of the 'necklace', a burning tyre placed around the neck of informers. It was probably her opposing views that lead to their divorce in 1995 - Nelson wanted equality for all, not a takeover and no wars. Due to the groundswell of opposition against apartheid, Nelson was released in 1990 by President FW de Klerk and In 1994 the first non racial elections were held with Mandela becoming President, but much blood was shed in the four years after his release by sections on both sides. In 1993 Mandela and President FW de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to negotiate peace. On display at the museum is the bright red shiny Mercedes Benz car that was presented to him by the company on his release in 1990 - the plant workers in East London gave their time and labour free of charge for this to happen. In 1998 on his 80th birthday, Mandela married Graca Machel who was 27 years his junior. He was President from 1994 - 1999 and during this time welfare spending increased significantly, access to telephones, electricity and water increased and 750,000 houses were built, housing nearly 3 million people. He was however perceived to fail at combating crime, corruption and the AIDS epidemic. He had failing health in his latter years and passed away in 2013 but will always be remembered it seems.
 
From here we went to the outer suburb, Soweto, where 3.5m of the 7m Johannesburg people
live. This was and still is in parts the shanty town, but is gradually being improved with small brick Govt houses, but as Khuliso explained there is the good, the bad and the ugly. We didn't go through the ugly, seeing the section where there was bitumen roads through and even good cars, as some choose to live here as it is much cheaper. We had lunch in the restaurant next to Archbishop Tutu's house - he still lives there - and Mandela"s house is just up the street and is open to the public - we visit this and are taken through by an old lady called Madonna, who fills in a bit more of the history.
 
Going back to the hotel we pass the stadium that was built for the World Cup, seats 96,000 and 140,000 for concerts. Johannesburg had a real makeover for this event. We had to book out of the hotel this morning, so left our luggage in Pat & Jim's room as they are staying another night. After we had a look at the huge shopping complex that connects to the hotel we had a shower in their room. There's six of us flying tonight so all transfer together at 6pm. Our chauffeur is there to meet us in Perth and we spend a relaxing Saturday afternoon with Carolyn - impressed with their finished backyard and then go to Dianne's (the rented house) she arrived back from Iceland at 7pm. That's it folks, the holiday is finished - back to home on Monday, how nice will that be.