Having brought the luck of the Irish with me upon entering SA with a full passport (you need 2 blank pages to enter SA officially), our first stop was Polokwane in the Limpopo district. From what I saw, this place was pretty nice, and it turned out that this was the home of a childhood friend of mine during her year living in Africa. We stayed at a beautiful lodge and went to Nandos and the cinema (first time in ages for me) that evening before having a lovely nights sleep in this beautiful accommodation.
The next day we set off on the next half of the journey to Joburg, which went pretty quickly. When we arrived that day, I met David, Leisels son and we all headed out to Monte casino for the evening. We ate in the delicious Ocean basket restaurant in the stunning casino (laid out like the Venetian in Vegas) before a spot of gambling. After winning almost three times my money and losing it all again, we called it a night and headed home. It was such an amazing evening in a cool place.
The next day Leisel and I went for breakfast at Clearwater Mall, did a spot of shopping and then headed to the China mall for the rest of the afternoon where I picked up some awesome things. Its also where unheard my first gunshots in South Africa- apparently a car robbery had happened right beside us and Liesel was more shocked than I was. The next day we headed to Mandela Square, where I got some nice pictures at he giant Mandela statue before we ate a delicious lunch at Walnut Grove cafe. David and I spent the entire afternoon at The Apartheid Museum while Liesel, chilled in Gold Reef casino. The museum was highly recommended before I got here and I knew I had to see it. It was one of the best museums I've ever been to- highly descriptive, informative bad very interesting. The history of South Africa was incredible and it was definitely a must see in Joburg. Afterwards we headed to the awesome Gold Reef city for some more casino time.
During the end of my stay in Joburg, Liesel took me out of town to the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere - Nan Hua Temple. We wandered around the majestic buildings and gardens for the morning before sipping on some authentic high mountain tea and veggie dumplings-(Something I'd missed so much since Nepal). Later on we headed back to the city where I had made plans to stop by the Greenpeace Africa office to meet some friends of my old boss Nick. They told me about their current campaigns and showed me around the place. It was a cool experience to be part of an organisation so well known and worldwide and to get the chance to see what goes on in this part of the world! That evening I packed my stuff and got ready to take the 7hr overnight bus to Durban which went pretty fast. Faranah and her dad were due to meet me at 4:30am- a very early start for all of us, and I was so excited to experience my first beaches of South Africa!
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