We left London Heathrow on the Friday 15/6/12 night flight to Johannesburg arriving early Saturday morning. It was noticeably cool but sunny. We looked for the driver from African Moon guest house but only saw a man walking around with an interesting sign saying Jully Speace. When I had got some rand from the ATM we decided to ask if he was waiting for us ---and yes he was!! We arrived at the guest house about 10-15 minutes later and had breakfast while we waited for our lovely large room to be made ready.
The rest of day we relaxed and in the evening had a pizza while watching England lose to South Africa at Rugby thanks really to two quick early tries.
Sunday arrived and at 8 am we were collected to start out day tour of JNB, Soweto and the Apartheid Museum.
We saw both sides of Johannesburg - the rich side where all the houses have high walls and security to the shanty towns of Soweto, no running water and most one room tin shacks. We passed Nelson Mandelas current home in the affluent area and later we saw his early house, now a museum in Soweto........on the opposite side of the road was Desmond Tutu's house; indeed it is where he is currently living.
Soweto (south west township) may have a scary reputation as it was where the uprisings by the students rebelling against lessons in Afrikaans were in the 70s ( indeed they acted as a catalyst for the eventual breakdown of apartheid ) but it is now a relaxed quite normal place. Importantly before going into Soweto we went to the Hector Pieterson museum - he was the first young boy to die during the protest march against the teaching in Afrikaans - and has become iconic - indeed the Rugby team had been there the day before and laid a wreath, as the anniversary of his death is now designated as National youth day i.e. 15th June.
Soweto has 3 types of houses - bank ( built with a mortgage) matchbox - brick with asbestos roofs or elephant - domed concrete roofs replacing the asbestos and of course the fourth is the shack - which many still live in as it's a 7 year wait for a house. We were asked if we wanted to visit a shack - we could take photos but should leave at least 50 rand - no pressure - but clearly we act as a lifeline to these families. We were greeted by about 10 small children and taken to a clean one room shack in which cooking,eating,resting and sleeping all happen for a family of 5. Several photos later, together with a young dutch guy we were with, we left about 200 rand and smiling faces. Hopefully we enabled food to be on the table. The driver said the visits are shared around so all families get to share in the tourist bonus.
We also visited the Constitutional Court cleverly constructed, on the site of an old prison, to reflect African traditions, remember past conflicts and cruelties, but clearly showing the desire for all future laws and actions to be transparent and accessible to all 11 languages and people's of South Africa.

That was the morning - the afternoon was spent in the absorbing displays of the Apartheid Museum.

Monday was spent relaxing, we walked to the shops nearby and had coffee and pancakes. In the evening we watched the Euro 2012 matches and packed so we could leave in good time on Tuesday to catch our flight to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.