Today is officially the first day of my tour. I moved from the Tulip Hotel to the much nicer Strand Tower Hotel this morning. After checking in I headed to the nearby Hop on/Hop off stop to begin my second day of touring. Today the tour was more rural in nature than the first day. Shortly after hopping on board it started to rain. Undeterred, I hopped off the bus to visit the world famous Krirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. While touring the gardens the rains grew steadily heavier until I could take no more, mostly out of fear of water logging my cameras. As one might imagine, the gardens were quite beautiful with all kinds of strange plants. A special kind of Bird of Paradise plant has been bred here and is known as the Nelson Mandela Gold. Apparently the seeds are currently worth $6000 each. I was unable to snitch a seed as they have not yet gone to seed. The next stop was a bird and monkey sanctuary which I skipped due to the rain; as well, I will probably have a chance to see all kinds of birds and monkeys over the coming days.
The next stop was the real reason for taking today’s tour. Stop #22 Imizamo Yethu Township Tour. This is a guided tour of a fully functioning South African ghetto. Some of the inhabitants open up their homes and small businesses for us to view. To say the least it was shocking, but an experience that all of us should have. The tour costs 50 ZAR (About $7.00 CAN). The money collected goes towards improving the community and souls within, in many ways. Perhaps it was some kind of omen, as the rain stopped before touring the village and then started up again after we left.
I just sat back and relaxed on the bus for the remainder of the tour as it was raining so hard and I had seen what I came to see.
When I got back to stop #4 (where I started) the rain was coming down in buckets. Boy can it rain here, just steady buckets of rain.
Headed for the hotel and then out to a nearby burger joint for a bite to eat. We have a group meeting this evening. So I will hold the blog until after the meeting.
Back from our meeting. There are 22 in our group for the first two weeks. After two weeks some will leave and others may join us. This is because the 6-week tour which I am on is made up of three or four smaller tours resulting in our number varying.
We leave for the Namibia/South Africa border tomorrow morning at 6:30 sharp.
That is it for today.
No comments:
Post a Comment