Soweto

About 24 kilometres from Johannesburg is the sprawling township of Soweto, a town famous around the world for many reasons but the two best known facts are, two Noble Peace prize winners lived in the same street, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, and 176 students died there during the student riots of 1976 with Hector Pieterson aged 13 being one of the first students to be shot. Today we visited the monument named after Hector but which is in memory of all the students that died during that period and it is a very moving experience.  We also visited the former home of Nelson Mandela which is now a museum and has on display many personal items covering the long life of Mandela and his family.  Soweto is also known as having hosted the final of the FIFA Soccer World Cup.

We visited Soweto as part of our Hop-on Hop-off Bus tour which besides taking in all the sites of Johannesburg, (which I have covered in a previous blog) also offers tours to the township and a stop at the Apartheid Museum.  If you see nothing else in Johannesburg, visit the Apartheid Museum.  The curators at this museum deserve praise for putting together a stunning piece of work that engages and informs and leaves you questioning mankind.