Holiday Inn Sandton-Rivonia Road

... cardboard, and they stretched on and on. After driving by a number of them we went to a museum that commemorated the Soweto demonstration where a thirteen year-old student lost his life and where many others would as well. The students were peacefully requesting that the schools teach them English rather than Dutch so that they could communicate with the rest of the world. <br><br>As the police watched the numbers of students swell they panicked and ...

... entire continent of Africa because it's one of the only airports hardly big enough to sustain a terminal at all. I hate the United States sometimes. Our country is a great idea with poor follow through. I blame it on Ronald Reagan.<br> When we finally got through customs we went and had tea to wait for our final flight to Windhoek, Namibia. Five minutes after being in South Africa I broke out in hives ...

... passport control, then run to my gate, so as not to miss the shuttle... I ran the wrong way and by the time I got to my gate, I was sweating like a pig and almost in tears. ha ha. I had NAAAAAAAAAAAAATHIN to worry about. This is africa, we were still letting people on the plane 30 min after I had gotten on. ha ha I could so have had a cuppa tea, bought a book, taken a leak... aha I knew I was forgetting something.Soon after take off, half the plane got up to go to the toilet ...

... hoopoe Banded martin Common fiscal Lilac-breasted roller African cuckoo African pied wagtail (the "groovy bird") Yellow-billed greenbul Dark-capped bulbul Southern pied babbler White-browed robin-chat Chinspot batis Red-billed oxpecker Wattled starling Namaqua dove Red-billed quelea (my favourite, in swarms) Cape weaver Southern masked weaver African skimmer Long-toed plover African finfoot (watertrapper) White-backed night heron

... and made it their home... So, two days in Johannesburg has flown by and we now enter unknown territory. For the first time in seven and a half months we will no longer be travelling independently but with a guide and in a group. We are not sure where exactly the trip will take us, nor when, just that we arrive at our final destsination Cape Town on 20th August. We're not even sure whether there will be somebody to meet us at the airport in Lilongwe. Here's hoping!* *There was!

... their future spouse, eventually marrying shortly after graduation and settling close to family. The amazing thing to me is that not one of their friends is divorced. We are often told that we change so much in our twenties that we shouldn't choose a spouse until after we've gotten more established, but Yvette told me that here people have tended to marry young and change with each other, perhaps with the support of family and friends. She said that people ...

... I may have been a bit crazy the last couple of days isn't because of the lack of internet access but because of the anti-malaria pills I started taking on Friday as Kruger is in a malaria zone. The pills I am on (Larium AKA mefloquine) do have some doozy side effects (vivid nightmares and dreams is one) and it warns that people who have had mental illness previously should not take them. So far no whacked out dreams or nightmares yet but then I never ...

... cows-no joke. Some went for as many as 15 cows! In the end, though, no one ended up getting betrothed. After that we went to the homestead of one of the important families of the village. We were welcomed by the mayor and had a gathering in one of the bigger huts, where all the women sat on the left and all the guys on the right. The Zulu culture is very patriarchal, so we had to wait for the guys ...

... to actually go there! For less than a fiver, visited the Bird Gardens, where, along with several school groups, I fed some birds and was entertained to an hour long bird show. The highlight of the show was a toucan called Tango. After his routine, he decided that he wanted to do it two more times, and then sit out the rest of the show on the amphitheatre's roof. I felt sorry for the poor trainer who was laughing nervously and filling ...

... which detailed the life that black people in Soweto led under Apartheid, and explained what the riots were sparked off by - the government decreeing that all instruction in school would be in Afrikaans, which would mean that black people would be massively disadvantaged educationally. It was very interesting and very powerful. After lunch we went to the Apartheid Museum which was incredibly good and definitely something we would recommend people visit if they are in Jo ...