I was quite pessamistic about South Africa. It felt a bit like the end of the trip, which it will be eventually, but only a month too early. Everywhere we had been in Africa had been 'African' Africa which is what we really came for and not the largly westerised South Africa. As the park warden at Nyika described it, South Africa can best be summed up as 'Africa Lite.' Our first destination was Johannesburg which wasn't exactly somewhere where we wanted to go. The middle suburbs are reputed to one of the most dangerous places on earth with people attracted to the city by the same old promises of money and opportunity and instead only find guns, traffic lights surrounded by smashed car windows and lots and lots and a bit more crime. It would have been easy just to miss out the city and go to Pretoria but to Marte's credit she pushed me to go to Soweto, which is the largest township in South Africa. Estimates put the poplation between 1.5 to 3 million people and became famous for its role in bringing down Apartheid and just being a general pain in the arse to the racialist government. We stayed at a place called Lebo's Backpackers which was really just his house, well his grandmothers, with a few beds for guests. One of the first things that we noticed was that it was bloody freezing. We spent two nights shivering under our bedsheets only to hear on the radio as we left that the temperature was approaching freezing point at night. So when (no, if) England get to the World Cup in 2010 they will not have the old heat excuse for being lame; although they will no doubt still be bunch of bottle boys. Anyway, thats a discussion for another blog.

Lebo took us on a truely brilliant day tour of Soweto. Our chosen mode of transport for the day was bicycle which in true African style had brakes which cannot have been working to more than ten per cent of their potential capacity. He took us to the Hector Pieterson museum which is named after the thirteen year old boy who was shot in the back as he ran away from police during the Soweto/ students uprising. The museam was dedicated to the students uprising who were protesting about the truely disgusting Bantu education system. The white government went too far and on top of giving the non-white population sub-standard education introduced Africaans as the official language for a large portion of the lessons. Not only could the students not speak their oppressors language the sodding teachers obviously couldn't either. One girl got so over wealmed during an exam she simply threw herself out of the window. On the back this the students in Soweto led a peaceful march and we can all guess what happened next, the police opened fire and young Hector was one of the youngest victims. He was immortalised because his dead body was pictured being carried by a fellow student protester whilst his sisters ran sobbing by his side. The post uprising crack down was so complete by the South African security services that even the young lad carrying his body was forced to flee the country. The museam was well done and very comprehensive and satisfied my urges for a bit of history. We carried on cycling round Soweto, visiting Nelson Mandela's former house as well as seeing both Winnie Mandela's current abode and also Desmond Tutu's occasional house. We also went to a she-been. Because during Apartheid blacks were only allowed to drink in governement establishements, many opened up their house for to sell beer on the quiet. They still exists and are brilliant, it just like going to someones back garden for a few beers except you have to pay for the drinks. It was an all round top experience and gave us the opportunity to see and experience the township residents at their level rather than peer down on them from a tour bus. Soweto will also host the final of the next World Cup so if our boys get their act together I've at least got a place to stay.

On our way to the bus station we spent stopped at the Apartheid museum. This again was a really indepth museam with lots, maybe even too much, information. The museum starts with some very strong imagery. When you purchase your ticket you are given a slip which enables you to enter the museum through either the 'white' or 'non-white' entrance. I've always considered myself racially androgenous but this is one of the few times in my life I have had to think about it. Marte was given a white ticket and I was forced to go down another entrance, we were kept apart by a steel fence before met again to continue through the rest of the museum. The museum was both interesting and shocking as expected and as my concentration began to fade we watched a video of the young and very innocent and sweet looking Winnie Mandela. Against the back drop of all the violence and just hellishly mistreatment of non-whites, this beautiful young women in her khakis confidently said that one day South Africa would be free and it would be everyones nation where everyone was welcome and that, remembering this was in the 1970's at the latest, that the first President of the free South Africa will be 'Mandela'. Such forsight was impressive and the cool manner in which she laid out her manifesto for a free and fair non-racial South Africa, well...left both Marte and I with wet eyes.

After a great few nights in Soweto we caught the bus to Bloemfontain. It was a very uninspiring town, to put it nicely, and the hostel we stayed in was both expensive and sh*t. But it was the main way to get in to Eastern Lesotho. Lesotho is a strange little country if you look at it on the map. It's toally surrounded by South Africa and is pretty tiny, and the equally strange thing is that when you actually get there you are flung straight back in to 'African' Africa. Our reason for going to Lesotho was to do a Pony Trek through the beautiful mountains of the 'Kingdom in the Sky.' My stallion was called 'Bowing' and for three days and two nights he trustfully guided me through this truely beautiful country. I can't really say any more about the trip other than apart from being very easy on the eye, it was very and I mean VERY cold. I'm not being a big spoilt baby either. On our last night staying in a small village it only sent and bloody haled and snowed. "Snow in Africa?" Thats what I said as well. Overall, like Rwanda and Uganda and Kate Moss, Lesotho was small and perfectly formed and I wish I had more time to spend there. We were forced to spend another night in Bloem before getting the bus to Upington to plan our assault on Namibia.

No more time....I'll finish this later.

Run