2024-08-13 Southern Africa and Madagascar: August 2024

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For this blog:

This blog is about our trip to Southern Africa and Madagascar. We visited Zambia on a tour with Tara, our travel agent, Jim and Marvin, and their friends, Adrian and Cheryl. After Zambia, the others went home and we continued our travels with Tara. We visited Botswana and Zimbabwe. After Zimbabwe, Tara headed home and we headed off for Madagascar for a month.

We ended this long vacation by flying to England where we boarded the Queen Mary for a voyage to New York City and then flew to Illinois to visit Mary's brothers.

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More (category) Albums: Photos, not in the blog, that fit a certain category.

Southern Africa:

Scenes from Africa

From the Skies over Africa

Big Cats of Africa

Animals of Africa

Antelopes of Africa

Birds of Africa

Elephants

Madagascar

Atananarivo

Baobab Trees

Chameleons of Madagascar

Flowers

Getting Around Madagascar

Lemurs of Madagascar

Rice Fields

Scenes from Madagascar

Spiny Forests

Villages of Madagascar

Markets

Madagascar Miscellaneous Wildlife

Zebus

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Aug 10 and 11 – Flight to Johannesburg

Our trip to Johannesburg took us from Basel to Istanbul to Johannesburg, South Africa. Basel from the air.

We were able to get some views of the Swiss Alps as we flew over. It is late in the year so there wasn’t a lot of snow on the mountains.

Sunset from the plane.

No idea what city this is but it is beautiful from the air.

We had a hike from the arrival gate in Istanbul to our departure gate. Along the way we passed a coffee and tea shop with lots of Turkish pastries. We stopped and picked up a few baklava for the plane. We very much enjoy Turkish baklava. It seems to be the best in the world.

Making Turkish Coffee

We are flying Turkish Air to Johannesburg. We experienced a first on this flight…an inflight chef complete with white jacket and chef’s hat. The food was excellent but we think the chef mainly just does the plating. There isn’t really a kitchen on board.

We arrived in good time in Johannesburg and made it through customs with no problem. The luggage came off quickly so we were out of the airport in short order. We were met by our transfer and were at our hotel about 45 minutes later.

We are staying at the African Pride hotel in a lovely neighborhood with lots of restaurants. Our room has a large tub, complete with rubber duckie.

Tara, who is joining us on this trip, arrived late and came knocking on our door about 9:30pm…about 10 minutes after we had gone to bed. We visited for a bit before doing a final lights out.

Aug 12 – An Easy Day of Leisure

We always try to arrive a day early on our long-distance trips so that we can get some rest before starting our sightseeing. We relaxed in the room and Mary spent time working on the photos and blog from our previous trip. She is running behind.

At lunch we walked over to the Istanbul Kabab restaurant where we found Peter, our waiter. Whenever we introduce ourselves on our travels people often ask “Where’s Peter?” (As in the 60’s folk group Peter, Paul and Mary.) So we got our photo taken with him.

We had a great Turkish lunch, including Baklava and Kunefe, a cheese, honey and shredded wheat dessert Mary loves but can rarely find.

Later in the afternoon Paul went on a walk with Tara to explore the neighborhood. There was one section that had quite a few interesting statues. Many featured rabbits.

We loved this painting in our room. The painting swings out to reveal the safe (just as in the painting itself. And the painting within the painting

Aug 13 – Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela

At breakfast Mary asked for an avocado and toast for breakfast. Biggest avocado toast she’s ever seen.

We were in Johannesburg on August 13 and 14 doing some tours. And the tours were primarily about Nelson Mandela and Apartheid. On the 13^th we visited the farm (Liliesleaf) where Mandela and many of his fellow reformists were hiding and planning their work on trying to end apartheid. They were captured here and most sentenced to life imprisonment.

We also visited Nelson’s Square, a retail center dedicated to him.

The tour took us through an area called Sandton. This is a high-end area with very modern buildings...

and very upscale homes.

We ate at the Istanbul Kabab restaurant again tonight and split a pide…Turkey’s equivalent of pizza.

Aug 14 – City Tour and Apartheid Museum

More city touring today. We also visited a couple of Mandela’s home. We drove by his last home that had been gifted to him by the country. It is now empty and unused. Sad.

We also stopped to tour his first home as a young lawyer. It was located in Soweto, one of the segregated townships.

And we did some driving through Soweto. Some people are able to get a good education and well-paying jobs and decide to build nicer homes in Soweto. This one was built by a engineer.

But many still live in difficult situations with no running water, just a community well, and minimal or no electricity.

We had lunch in a delicious restaurant in Soweto. Buffet style with many local foods.

Nearby was a house surrounded by a tall fence. On the fence was a medallion indicating that this was the home of Desmond Tutu, another fighter for rights in South Africa.

We made a stop in a small market area in Soweto where they still had some signs posted from the apartheid era.

We also stopped at an herbalist shop that had lots of African herbs…

a small “hut” with more herbs and a roof of animal horns,

and noisemakers made of recycled items. The noisemakers are tied to the legs of dancers when they are doing tribal dances.

And there were plenty of other interesting items.

The drive took us by the Shah of Iran’s home where he lived after being driven out of Iran.

And a trainyard with lots of abandoned trains (wonder if there would be a way to convert them to housing)…

and a nearby abandoned Victorian train station.

The main stop of the day was the Apartheid Museum.

Our guide shuffled our tickets face down and then dealt them to us. Some were for non-whites and others for whites. There were separate entrances for the two categories. Whites could use ramps, but non-whites had to use stairs. And there were other differences to help bring home to point about the unfairness of apartheid.

And they had copies of the identification card that everyone was required to carry. And if a non-white was found to be out with out their card they would be in real trouble.

The museum was extensive, detailed and disturbing. It is hard to understand how people could treat other humans the way non-whites were treated under apartheid. We all found it a bit difficult.