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| Botswana group plus Duncan on far left (Baylor PAC doc in Swaziland) |
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| . | Duncan, Bri, Premal, Matt, me, Amit, Gelane, Philip | | | | |
November 7th was the Soweto Marathon. There was no way I was even thinking about running a marathon, but who would give up the chance to do a 10 km walk through one of the most famous and culturally important neighborhoods in the world?
We drove down to Joburg on Friday after work, arriving later than we had hoped. We were staying at a bed and breakfast in Soweto. Unfortunately there are two streets with the same name in Soweto, only one of the streets housed our B+B the other was in a rather dodgy part of Soweto and was the one the GPS chose to take us to, oops. Luckily the people who owned the bed and breakfast were extremely helpful and sent their son out to meet us and show us the way. Gotta love small family owned operations. The B+B was great. There were only 4 rooms and each had a lot of character
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| Here we are in front of the B+B |
On Saturday we spent the day exploring Soweto. We started with a game of football with some of the children in the neighborhood.
Then we walked down Vilakazi Street (where Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and other famous people lived). We made our way to the Hector Peterson Museum. Hector Peterson was a 13 yr old boy who was killed by police on July 16, 1976 during a youth march protesting the use of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in South African schools. The museum was a tribute to him and all the others who died in the struggle. It was well done with lots of photos, descriptions of the events, and videos. Amazing to imagine 13 yr olds fighting and dying for a cause when many of today's 13 years can think of nothing but TV and play station.
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| The fountain outside the museum (no photography allowed inside). The picture is of one of the older youth carrying Hector with his sister walking alongside screaming. | |
After lunch on Vilakazi Street we headed to the University of Joburg where there was a Barista Competition. Baristas (coffee makers) from all over the city were competing to see who was the best one. I never knew there was so much technique involved. Each barista had to make 4 espressos, 4 cappuccinos and 4 of a speciality drink, which they invented, in 15 mins while judges watched their every move. They were even judged on whether the coffee that was pressed into the machine was completely level...It was kind of crazy but we got to drink some really good cappuccinos (unfortunately the drinks made by the baristas in the actual competition were only for the judges).
We had dinner at Wandie's Place (a famous restaurant in Soweto). Not my favorite food as it was traditional South African buffet, but there was really not much for vegetarians (though the butternut squash was really good ;) Went to bed early since we had to be up at 5 am for the race which started at 6:30 am! The race left from soccer stadium (one of the new stadiums built for the World Cup) and the route was through Soweto which involved some rather large hills! There were over 11,000 people participating (about 5,000 in the marathon and the rest either walking or running the 10 km).
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| Walking to the start did not count as part of the 10 km ;) |
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| The walk started 10 min after the run so we got to see the winners of the 10 km run coming back. Here they were passing the 8 km mark after only 20 min! And many (as you can see here) were running barefoot!!! |
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| Here we are going up one of the longest hills. It was seriously 1.5 km of straight uphill! |
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| Around the 9 km mark and still going strong! |
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| We finished in 1 hr on 35 min (I know it says 1:45 but the walk started 10 min after the run and the timer was for all of the 10 km ;) |
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| The winner of the marathon finished in 2 hrs and 20 min!!!! He ran 42 KM (26 miles) in 2 hours and 20 min and ran across the finish line like he had just gone for a little jog! He was from Lesotho where there are also a lot of hills! |
