Going South

Once I decided that I was going to travel solo, what came next was where to go, I decided that I was going to do Africa travel for now as Africa is largely undiscovered in terms of travel and exploration and most people rarely see Africa as a travel or tourist destination. I felt the need to show Africa to Africa and the rest of the world. Along with that, came the decision to travel South, I had heard a lot about South Africa and I felt it was time I saw for myself. Choosing where exactly to go was a tad bit difficult as I had heard a lot about Capetown, Johannesburg, Durban, Pretoria and read quite a bit about Port Elizabeth. I had to make a decision as to which of these cities in South Africa to visit and after quite a bit of research I settled for Johannesburg and Capetown based on activities and interest.

Traveling solo isn’t as exciting as it sounds especially when you are not so extroverted like me. Reality began to dawn on me that I was alone, and would be alone for the next couple of weeks. As if to reiterate this fact, I was also alone on board as the seat next to me was unoccupied, so all through the 6hours that it took to get to the OR Tambo international airport in South Africa, I was with me, myself and I. I felt this was natures way of telling me to get accustomed to the idea of being alone. The cabin crew were however quite friendly and one of them would come check on me once in a while and attempt conversation.

I landed about 6am South African time on a Tuesday morning as South Africa is an hour ahead of Nigeria, got me a cab and got out of the airport. The first thing I noticed was that Joburg was quite a bigger city than I thought and soon enough I also discovered that cab fares were as large in amount as the city was as it cost me 641Rand which was about 11,000naira considering that exchange rate was about 17naira to a rand. Paying such for a distance of about 38km wasn’t my idea of budget travel, I just had to find a means to cut transportation cost since id be doing a lot of moving around.

Since I got to joburg quite early, my adrenaline surge had to be released. I had to go somewhere and see someplace and of all the places I saw on my first day, the apartheid museum and the gold reef city were my favorite places

The museum showed photographs, film footage, artefacts and text panels illustrating the events and human stories that were a part of the rise and fall of the Apartheid regime. To illustrate the everday reality  visitors were only allowed in through the gates allocated to their race group.

There were exhibitions showing,life under apartheid, segregation, political executions, the rise of black consciousness, the turn to violence, political executions etc. Pictures were restricted however, the signs below show the depth of man’s inequality to man, ostracism and segregation of the blacks in the everyday life of the then south Africans.

After the historic tours and the solemnity attached it was time to hit the gold reef theme park and casino. The rides, slot gaming and video poker sure helped to clear the sentiments that came with going down history lane.