Africa's Bono Tours - Part 1

SOWETO TOWNSHIP TOUR

It sounds like a delightful African name, but the word is actually an acronym for southwestern townships. It is a sprawling township, or more accurately, a cluster of townships on the south-western flank of Johannesburg. With a population of over 2. 5 million, the township is the biggest blank urban settlement in Africa with a rich political history. Soweto was the centre of political campaigns aimed at the overthrow of the apartheid state. The 1976 student uprising, also known as the Soweto uprising, started in Soweto and spread to the rest of the country. Many of the sights on the heritage route, therefore, have political significance.

Soweto tour includes a visit to the informal settlement, Nelson Mandela’s house, Regina Mundi’s church, Kliptown and Hector Pieterson Memorial museum.

APARTHEID MUSEUM

The newly built museum will take you to the journey of the rise and fall apartheid. Here you’ll walk through the behind apartheid. Few hours at the Apartheid museum you will feel that you were in the townships in the 70’s and 80 ’s, dodging police bullets or teargas canisters, or marching and toy-toying with thousands of school children, or carrying the body of a comrade into a nearby house. This extraordinary powerful museum has already become the city’s leading tourist attraction, an obligatory stop for visitors and residents.

THE CRADLE OF HUMAN KIND

Fifty kilometres west of the Johannesburg, among nondescript koppies, scattered shrubs and trees, is a 47000-hectare valley known as the cradle of humankind. Three million years of human activity haven taken place in and around these caves, including man’s earliest known mastery of fire, and forty percent of the entire world’s human ancestor fossils have been found here. You can discover the area yourself, by taking your own custom-made tour of the area. The biggest and best-known of the caves is Sterkfontein, where over 500 hominid fossils and over 9000 stone tools have been found. It was at the Sterkfontein that two major finds were made, that have changed modern palaeontology: Mrs Ples and Little Foot. Cradle of Humankind offers the following four attractions: Maropeng, Wonder Caves, Sterkfontein Caves and Rhino and Lion Park.

GOLD REEF CITY THEME PARK

Come and experience Africa’s greatest Entertainment theme park created around an authentic 19th Century Goldmine, Gold Reef city history, site seeing and tours for you to enjoy: over 30 thrill rides, Jozis story of Gold (heritage tour), restaurants, amusement attractions, tribal dancers, kiddies corner, farmyard, a Victorian hotel, Conference, Facilities and Speciality shops.