January 10, Johannesburg, South Africa

Caught the train in and bought Hop ON/off bus pass. Rode for about 1 1/2 hours through the city. Some amazing old buildings. The city is only about 150 years old and started when gold was found in the area. We got off at Constitution Hill. This is mostly a prison area. This is where Mandela and Gandhi were held for a while. Conditions must have been awful and the treatment of prisoners was terrible for nonwhites, but good for the whites!

The Constitution Court is also in this area. A beautiful building that has been designed with Africa in mind. The main lobby designed to be an area under a tree where tribal decisions are made. Skylights, pillars as tree trunks and leaves up above. Even the carpet is designed to look like sunlight shining through to the ground!

Caught the train back and then into the mall close to train station. Huge and really 2 malls joined. One was Nelson Mandela square. There was a huge bronze statute of Mandela with several restaurants around. We stopped and had coffee! Once again, very good.

January 9 Johannesburg, South Africa

After a 3 am crawl into bed, up about 8. We are in a nice apartment so made coffee and relaxed.
Breakfast of peanut butter on toast! It was great!

We finally got moving about 2 in afternoon, we walked to the Gautrain (pronounced howtrain) station, about 20 minutes away.

We caught the train into the main station, only a 10 minute ride. This happens to be the main intercity train station and bus station. Not the busy and the place is huge. Lots of restaurants, fast food places and banks. Walked through the station and ended up in a small market. This market had lots of things.... watches, clothes, jewelry etc. We had something eat at a South African grill fast food place. I had a steak.... very good. It came with pap ( a grain cooked to a thick sticky consistency), salad, potato salad and another spiced salad that had carrots. All very good and it cost about $7. Caught the train back to hotel and crashed early!


January 8 Volcano National Park, Rwanda and part of night in Johannesburg, South Africa

A slow start to the morning.... no 5 am alarms!

Breakfast and then off to tour the city of Kigali (pronounced Che gali).

We stopped at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. This is a history of the country leading up to the 1994 genocide. The museum was excellent... very well done.... but the information and description of the events are shocking!

Our guide/driver lost all of his family except his sister. And it took 9 years to find her! It was all very disturbing but I had to keep thinking that according to our guide, they are focused on the future, and education to make sure that it does not happen again. Then to the memorial to the 10 Belgian soldiers that will killed protecting a dignitary.

Off to airport, and really do not want to leave. A great country and there is much more to see. A 4 1/2 hour flight to Johannesburg with a stop in Lusaka. Arrived about 1 am got through immigration and into taxi for 20 minute ride to hotel. Nice as there is not much traffic.

Up until about 3 am catching up with Jayne.