Jo'burg & Soweto

Today we were on the sightseeing hop on/hop off bus including a tour of Soweto.  It has really opened up my eyes as to how poor this country really is.  At times, it was smelly, garbage everywhere, buildings run down & tired with smashed windows or completely guttered inside, barbed wire everywhere, from the 'rich' houses/area to the shanty houses in Soweto.  I feel for the poor.

A few photo's from the Top of Africa at Carlton Tower.

The mining centre of Johannesburg

The 'nice' part of Soweto (close to the freeway)

The shanty side of Soweto

FNB Stadium where the funeral for Nelson Mandela was held - put your instruments down!

 

 

This hospital in Soweto is the 3rd largest in the world.  Has a department for every body part, 6,500 beds (imagine being on bed cleaning!) is free of charge - our tour guide said that if you need a hospital - this is the place, all you have to do is wait...  But he didn't tell us how long.\

 

 



Coal cooling towers, like Loy Yang - these towers gave electricity to Johannesburg only - not Soweto but the towers are situated in Soweto - what the?

Orlando Stadium was used as a training venue for the Brazil & Germany soccer world cup - go Riley!

 





We had a 15 minute stop where we had a man tell us a story about the 1974 Soweto uprising - 600 students killed over a period of time because they didn't want to change their language to Afrikaans - they wanted to speak more English and they felt that the teachers weren't competent enough to teach Afrikaans.  The girl in the picture is still alive today - she is 55 years old and works at the Hector Pieterson museum in Soweto. 

 

 

 

Ther was a little market across the road from the Museum - Jeff went into a little milk bar kind of place - it was all enclosed with bars, you paid on one side, collect on the other.