Johannesburg

       Johannesburg was also more "Africa" feeling--much more dry than the Cape. We had heard all sorts of horror stories about the crime in Jo'burg so we were a bit more nervous than we had been in all of the other places. We stayed with some friends outside Jo'burg in a place called Benoni. I have to say that I really did prefer the Cape to Jo'burg as far as aesthetics go, although it might just be because we stayed in the Cape longer. Also, Jo'burg is a mining city and so there are massive piles of discarded earth from old mines everywhere as well as rubbish and bits of building materials on the perimeter.

      My mom had remembered going to a place called Gold Reef City when she was little and getting to go down a mineshaft and seeing how gold was melted into bars. Our family decided that sounded exciting, so we headed over there and discovered that you couldn't just do the mineshaft tour, you had to purchase a ticket that included the amusement park bit as well. As tragic as that was, we decided that seeing as we didn't really have anything else planned we would suffer through an amazing amusement park.

    The mine was super interesting--I can't imagine having to work in such a noisy, hot, dark, treacherous environment! We walked around a bit, came back to the upper-world and then rode a couple roller coasters (I love roller coasters!!) and finished off with a gold-melting tour.

      We also visited the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints temple. It was so beautiful--so calm and peaceful compared to the busy city surrounding it.

     We then visited more relatives, and headed back to Benoni. The next day we packed up, visited more relatives, and then went to a very swish shopping center called Brightwater. We had lots of fun looking at all of the shops and booths, bought our last curios and then left to the airport. We had a super long wait (our flight had been moved a couple of hours back) and then a super long flight, and finally we were back in the good ol' U.S.A. just before we were thoroughly sick of being travelers.