Fall Holiday

Heyo! Home again after 10 awesome days of travel. As you can imagine, I have a lot to share, so I’ll try and break it down into pictures and highlights of each city.

Johannesburg

I started the trip with a weekend in Joburg. I had yet to see the city, so I stayed with another Fulbright ETA, Scott, for the weekend- he was an awesome host/tour guide!

• Friday night at the South Africa vs. India cricket match. More fun than I thought it would be (I’ve always assumed cricket was painfully boring), the fanfare was great for both teams, and President Zuma was in attendance. 

• Saturday morning short run through the Kopies (a big park in Joburg), walked around the Univeristy of Wits (where Scott teaches), and headed to Soweto- a huge township located just outside of Joburg. Over 2 million residents, well known for the large protests/demonstrations as well as police brutality during apartheid. Drove around and had a lunch of “Kotas” (or “bunny chow”)- quarter loaf of bread, hollowed out, and stuffed with fries, cheese, sauce, and sausage. 

• I was surprised to find Soweto was much more developed than I had imagined. I pictured 2 million shanty shacks, and instead found that most of the residences were small, simple houses. After Soweto, we went to the apartheid museum. The museum was beautiful with many powerful exhibits and lots of video/audio exhibits. Seeing the breadth as well of quality of the photographs and videos was a vivid reminder of how recently apartheid was finally ended (1994). There was also a large exhibit on Mandela which I find somewhat fascinating because it’s not often such tribute to a leader is seen until they are dead. It’s wild to think that he could go see the exhibit of himself if he wanted to.
• Sunday: Scott, myself, and 3 other Fulbright ETAs (Rob, Ben, and Mariann) drove from Jozi to Durban. It was a 6 hour drive in which we got to pass through the provinces of Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal which all had totally different landscapes! 

Driving thru Soweto with Jozi in the background

Your ticket to the museum identifies you as black or white which determines how you enter the museum, a pretty neat way to bring visitors in.

Durban

Durban is a city on the coast of KwaZulu-Natal (East of PE if you’re looking at a map). It has the highest concentrated Indian population outside of India, so we were looking forward to some good curries! I didn’t know exactly what to expect of Durban, but I loved it! The perfect combo of city and beach life.

• First morning explored downtown: Indian markets, centre city, and Juma Musjid mosque (largest mosque in the Southern Hemisphere and can accommodate 7000 worshipers). Afternoon was spent picnicking/lounging on the beach.

Outdoor lounge area at our hostel

Downtown Durban

Juma Musjid Mosque

• Next morning took a skycar to the top of the world cup stadium- incredible views and photo opps from the top. Afternoon boat tour of the port (Durban is the largest port in Africa!) and more great views of the city. Dinner with a Fulbright research grantee at a fun restaurant called Market that had a great outdoor eating area and even better food!

The world cup stadium- the architecture (specifically the triangular part) is meant to emulate the South African flag. 

The skycar carried us up the arch to an open-aired platform we could get out and walk around on. 

Our group at the top! 

Tour of Durban's Port

• Wednesday- drove to Warner Beach (a town about 40 minutes south of Durban) to lounge around the water for one more day in the quiet beach town. 

Ladybrand/Lesotho

• Another car day- 6 hours from the KZN coast to a town called Ladybrand in the Freestate about 20 mins outside of Lesotho (the tiny country inside of South Africa), which was our next destination.

Our B&B in Ladybrand

• On the drive, we passed through Golden Gate National Park- my pictures don’t do it justice, but the road curved for miles through incredible rock formations, plateaus, and landscape. That night we drove into Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, for dinner. We forgot that it was Easter weekend and Friday was a national holiday, so we waited in a line of cars for 2 hours to cross the border. There was nothing remarkable about Maseru (a typical big, dirty city), but it was nice to see.

Driving thru the park

Bridge to Lesotho

Gorgeous sunset driving in

• Friday was probably the highlight of the whole trip- Pony trek! The name, however, is deceiving. These were not ponies, they were horses, which we were more than thankful for once we began the “trek” part of it. We spent six hours on these horses that took us through the mountains of Lesotho. They carried us up steep, rocky trails, through rivers, to a gorgeous waterfall, and to the site of some Bushmen paintings (some of the oldest indigenous people to Africa). We were exhausted, sunburned, and sore from the waist down after 6 hours of riding- but it was some of the most beautiful, untouched landscape I had ever seen.

Driving to the pony trek

The trek begins..

Little did we know we'd be going through this valley

Bushmen paintings

• Saturday we returned to Jobrug, and Sunday I returned to PE. Before I flew home, Scott and I went to Easter Mass (or at least the last hour and a half of it because we messed up the mass times) at Regina Mundi. This is the largest Catholic church in South Africa, and is where Desmond Tutu preached. It was also where Tutu and Mandela held many of their meetings to organize resistance during the apartheid era, and as a result, was also victim to many police raids/acts of violence. After church, we drove past the homes that Tutu and Mandela each lived in during apartheid in Soweto. It was neat to see the areas I had read so much about in real life. 

Regina Mundi Church

It was nice to get out of PE and see other parts of this beautiful country with Fulbright friends I hadn’t seen since orientation! But after 10 packed days in 5 provinces, it is certainly nice to be back home! Tomorrow begins term 2 of the school year, so time to get back into school mode. Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! xx