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After spending one day in Pretoria and going on a guided tour of Soweto, we headed for Swaziland. We stayed two days at the orphanage in Nhlangano before travelling by kombi to Mbabane. From there we arranged a hiking tour in the Komati Valley. It was a really beautiful place, although our crazy guide turned out to be slightly disorganised.

Southern Africa 2000 - Part 5: Soweto and Swaziland

Jan Arild Teland
2006-05-09 00:02:39

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but it was quite clean and well organized.

After a little more driving we passed the house of Winnie Mandela. We didn't see her, but some of her bodyguards were inside the garden. Then we stopped outside the former house of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, which had now been turned into a museum. We decided to skip the museum and instead buy an ice cream and look around outside in the souvenir markets. While we were enjoying our ice cream, a black limousine and another vehicle stopped outside. Inside was Winnie Mandela and about six security guards. She only stayed for a few minutes, though, while one of her guards were inside, probably sorting something out for her. It was strange to see such a "celebrity" for real.

Before going back we stopped for lunch at a small Soweto cafe. It was interesting to see how Soweto was almost purely a residential area, hardly any shops or restaurants were located there as far as I could see. The guide confirmed that one had to visit Johannesburg to spend money, because there was not much in Soweto to spend money on. With over five million people living in the area, and not all of them being that poor, there certainly should be a market for more shops in Soweto.

Around 12.30 we were dropped off outside Kia-Ora again. I enjoyed the tour, but the trip to the townships of Cape Town last year was better.

We had a quick lunch at Kia Ora and discussed what to do for the remainder of the day. Being Sunday, we were a little uncertain about how safe it would be to walk around in the streets. Most of the shops were closed and there was bound to be fewer people around. On coming out, we didn't see too many other people (although it was by no means a ghost town such as Johannesburg this morning), but we decided to take the chance and walk down to the cinema. We first checked out the cinema near Sammy Marks Square, but decided that none of the movies were of much interest, and decided to walk back a few ...