Johannesburg, South Africa

After a quick breakfast we hit the road early in Carla's Landcruiser and made excellent time with driving conditions much improved by daylight than on the way up. I again shared the driving so Carla could tend to Said but overall he was much better this time around.

Back in Maputo we had lunch down at a great little seaside restuarant and pool before Carla dropped as at the ariport. Our flight was on time and when we arrived in Johannesburg we quickly got some rand from the ATM, a local SIM card and then met up with our driver who would take us to the backpackers we'd prebooked over the net from Tofo.

The backpackers is actually just a family home converted to backpackers use, but the owner, Patrick, is a real character and we had a very welcome and enjoyable first night exchanging stories and jokes in his bungalow bar out the rear of the main house.

We started with breakfast at Mbizi backpackers before Patrick took us and two fellow travellers to the Apartheid Museum in his car. Along the way he took us through the notorious Hillsborough area where Patrick had actually lived many years early before it took a turn for the worse. These days it is a very dangerous part of town and not one where you would want to step out of the car or flash a mobile phone or camera or you stand a pretty good chance of being robbed. Meanwhile as we crawled through traffic Patrick recounted stories of previous incidents including one where he answered his mobile phone in the car and three guys tried to rob him with a knife while he had two girls in the backseat he'd just collected from the airport! He apparently grabbed the guy's arm and managed to disarm him and claims to still have the knife back at his bar somewhere!

The Aparthead Museum was very interesting and over the course of a few hours I really learnet quite a bit more about the whole chronology of what lead up to Apartheid and it's eventual downfall as well.

Patrick collected us late and we were stuck in the rain for a while, but no problem for us. For dinner a small group of us walked a short distance from the backpackers down to a pizza place for dinner before returning later. I enjoyed a few late beers with Patrick before finally heading to bed.

Overall a very interesting and worthwhile little visit to Jo'burg!