3RD - 11TH MAY

As usual Malaysian Airlines provided us with a very pleasant and comfy flight. I didn’t manage to get much sleep though as it was only a six hour flight to Cape Town, where we had an hour’s stopover. This meant that by the time we were fed it was only about three hours before we were woken up for breakfast!!

The approach to Cape Town was just stunning! It really does enjoy an amazing location and we couldn’t wait to visit there in a month or so. We got off the plane and were herded into a holding area while the plane was refuelled and cleaned. The flight out was just as stunning - we flew right over the mountains behind the city and onwards towards Johannesburg,

We weren’t sure quite what to expect from Jo’burg - obviously we’d read all the

stories about it being so dangerous, and the advice was to get somewhere to stay where they will pick you up from the airport, which is a safe place. We’d chosen somewhere from the internet and after getting some money from the cash point we phoned them and were picked up in a Land Rover within about twenty minutes.

The drive to the hostel seemed to take a while and the surrounding scenery was getting ever greener! When we finally pulled up to our hostel we really didn’t have a clue where we were as this place appeared to be firmly in the countryside!! We had chosen a twin room with shared bathroom as it was the cheapest, and we were amused to find that it was actually a kind of corrugated metal shack in the garden!! It was about as basic as it gets but it would do fine, and the rest of the place was really nice. There was a garden with a swimming pool, a bar with a snooker table and a great