Eggbert's Travels

Tuesday 27th February

SHE SAID:

We were gone from Joburg by 11am, flying to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
The hotel that we were booked into, the Ilala Lodge, was lovely, and we had been given an upgrade to the executive suite (I had told my South African booking agent it was Geoff's birthday, so she had obviously passed this on to the hotel).  The suite was lovely,  we could see the fall's mist rising from our veranda,  Warthogs in the gardens below, & many birds in the trees around.

We did the 10 min walk to the Falls National Park, and walked several kms around to the various lookouts.  There was progressively more and more mist as we headed up the gorge towards the bridge across the Zambezi River to Zambia. We also walked onto the bridge and across into Zambia (just).

Dinner at the hotel on the veranda was lovely. It was a warm summer evening, with a sunset behind the hotel which just got better and better.

Archie is ready for he falls

Two wet boys

Cataract Gorge

Carved walkway rails

Dr Livingstone & Dr Geoff I presume... 

The boys again

The path in the mist

Zimbabwe/Zambian bridge-border crossing

Vervet Monkey 

Archie with the Zimbabwean
national bird - Bateleur Eagle or
African Fish Eagle

Our suite, top level centre of photo

A Warthog family comes visiting

Mist rising from Victoria Falls at dusk

Geoff gets his 1st birhday card for his 50th

The Palms Restaurant

HE SAID:

Vic Falls is a very impressive place. The water is still building up from the wet season. We got rather wet from the spray, which can come at you from any and all angles.

We then wandered across the bridge to Zambia. But as we never made it to the border station we were really in the no man's land between the two countries. There were plenty of hawkers flogging cheap trinkets, but we resisted their charms and sob stories and finished our 8 - 10km walk unburdened.

Monday 26th February

SHE SAID:

Geoff and l took the hop-on hop-off tourist bus around Johannesburg today. We find it the best way to get your bearings and decide where to go. We decided on the old Boer Fort and the new Constitional Courts, where the apartheid era gaol was. 

We had a tour of the remains of the gaol, hearing terrible stories of the prison. As well as Nelson Mandela and Gandi being imprisoned here (though at different times), there were many anti-apartheid people here, both black and white. But they were in seperate areas, and treated very differently. The old inmates recollections were horrendous, and barbaric. 

The Constitutional Court building is full of symbolism for the positive future of South Africa. 

It was quite an eye opening place to visit.

The wall of the Constitutional Court

Entrance to the Fort which became the apartheid era prison 

Inside the female prison

Isolation cells

Constitutional Court walkway

Languages of South Africa

Representation of sleeping conditions in communal blocks

Guard box

View down into old Fort/ prison

Constitutional Court Carved wooden doors 

Joburg War Memorial 

On the bus

Inside the Constitutional Court

HE SAID:

The bus ride around Joburg gave us a bit of a look around, with Varena getting much closer than me when a low tree branch whipped her face.
The prison seemed like an awful place, with the black prisoners treated the worst, and whites in their own area and receiving better treatment all round.