South Africa (1) - Johannesburg and its sad Apartheid History

We flew from Buenos Aires to Johannesburg. Our first challenge upon arrival was to get a safe taxi from the airport to go to our reserved guesthouse in a nice neighborhood of Johannesburg (referred to Joburg by South Africans). Joburg is not a city where you can convince yourself that this crazy story you heard about being robbed is NOT going to happen to you. It will if you do not take great precautions. We found a safe taxi and arrived at our guesthouse in Melville. It was quite lovely. We were happy about the choice. Some reviewers on Trip Advisor had described it as a safe neighborhood with lots of restaurants easy to walk to at night. This was true, however the concept of "being safe" was a little puzzling. Nice large individual houses were separated from the street by a tall cement wall with barb wires on top of it! Their owners must not have felt that safe to get such protection! The restaurants were very nice, all in a main street.
We opted to take the Hop-on/hop-off bus to visit Joburg and Soweto, the township where Mandela lived and black people were forced to live during Apartheid. We (mistakingly) also walked through the center of Joburg to find a taxi. We felt very uncomfortable on our short walk looking for a taxi. Downtown is not the place for tourists to venture in Joburg.
The visit of the Apartheid museum along with Soweto allowed us to get a better understanding of the Apartheid situation. This chapter of history is amazingly sad for the black population and although times have changed, racial divides are still felt in South Africa today. Corruption of the government is not helping the situation.
South Africa is a rich country filled with resources. Its infrastructure is excellent in most part of the country as well. We crossed the country by car and the roads were quite impressive.

The Apartheid Museum

Art work showing the face of Nelson Mandela

A good book describing Apartheid

Soweto (SOuth WEstern TOwnships)

In 1954 Parliament passed the Native Resettlements Act, which permitted the government to remove Blacks from suburbs like Sophiatown and Newclare. Between 1956 and 1960, they built 23,695 houses in Meadowlands and Diepkloof to accomodate the evicted persons. The city council adopted the name of SOWETO as the collective name of these townships. 

 The Orlando Towers, part of the old Orlando power station in Soweto with bungee jumping adventure opportunity between the two towers!

 Memorial in Soweto

Inside this edifice lie the articles of the constitution for everyone to read. Here are a few.

It was Valentine's Day, so we went to La Luna restaurant in Melville to celebrate!

"To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity"

Nelson Mandela

Nobel prize, anti-Apartheid revolutionary, politician and philanthropist who was jailed for 27 years and served as President of South America from 1994-1999

"For Goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are trying to say? Please all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we are humans, too"

Desmond Tutu

Nobel Price, social rights activist and retired anglican bishop, strong opponent to Apartheid