Waking Up in South Africa

Johannesburg, South Africa
26.2041°S, 28.0473°E

Flying to South Africa from Kilimanjaro involved many modes of transportation and one night of lost sleep, but we touched down in Johannesburg the morning of July 4th excited to begin our eight weeks in the country.

But first, sleep.

Our plans were to venture out in Johannesburg to a good dinner somewhere to celebrate the 4th and the completion of our climb, but our weariness got the best of us and our Independence Day ended up looking like this….

• 11:00 a.m. – Arrive at hotel and eat lunch.
• 11:30 a.m. – Take a quick nap before venturing out to explore the city.
• 8:00 p.m. – Wake up from eight-hour “nap” confused and still tired.
• 8:30 p.m. – Order room service dinner.
• 9:30 p.m. – Go back to bed for the night.

So it wasn’t the most exciting July 4th. It just felt so good to be in a comfortable and warm bed after so many campsites over the last week, and we needed the rest.

We had three days to check out Johannesburg, and after the hibernation session, we were down to two. We decided to spend one day exploring the area where we were staying, and then another hitting some of the major tourist attractions.

Johannesburg has probably the worst reputation of all of the places we’ve traveled. We heard it wasn’t safe or clean, and while we weren’t really sure exactly what to expect, we had low expectations.

The hotel we stayed in was in the Maboneng precinct of the city, a redevelopment zone with lots of mixed-use buildings filled with cafes, restaurants, art galleries and workspaces. It reminded us of the “Fort Point” area in Boston and was similar to many other urban revitalization areas in major U.S. cities. We liked the area a lot and had fun walking around looking at the public art that dots the walls around the neighborhood.

In addition to exploring Maboneng, we packed our last full day in Johannesburg with visits to many of the city’s historical sites. These included the Apartheid Museum, Nelson Mandela’s house in the Soweto area of the city, and the Hector Pieterson Museum, which serves as a memorial to Johannesburg’s 1976 student uprising in response to the government’s Apartheid-related policies.

We ended up really enjoying our days in Johannesburg, and definitely felt the spirit of “ubuntu”, the Bantu word often used in South Africa to describe a universal connection between all people (Celtics fans will also remember Doc Rivers used this unifying term with the team post the acquisition of the Big Three). People were warm and friendly everywhere we visited, and it made us wish we had a few more days to explore the city.

Safari, Part Deux

We flew from Johannesburg’s Lanseria Airport to the coastal city of Durban, where we picked up a rental car to drive three hours north to the town of Hluhluwe. Sarah’s dad won a safari package several years ago at a charity auction and very generously offered it up to Sarah and me when he learned our trip would take us to South Africa. We were off to see more of Africa’s amazing wildlife (thanks Peter!).

We stayed just outside of the Zulu Nyala game reserve, and over the course of five days we went out on two game drives a day. We had so many impressive, up close encounters with wildlife, which hopefully these pictures capture…

Southbound

After filling our cameras with a week’s worth of animal pictures, we left Zulu Nyala in the early morning to start our long drive down South Africa’s eastern coast. Our plan was to spend a week driving down the coast, before arriving at our final South African destination, Cape Town.