Time to say Goodbye…

The Sun Dial at High View Gardens

Sadly we received the news that High View Gardens in Johannesburg, South Africa will be closing down due to financial issues. I guess the current economic situation is truly a world phenomena, no one seems to be immune from it. My thoughts and concerns are all for the people that work there, they were not the most privileged of people yet they were hard working, polite, friendly and always going out of their way to make us feel comfortable. They really wanted us to leave with a positive impression of South Africa and that we definitely did 🙂

We spent roughly 2 weeks at High View Gardens while we were in Joburg attending the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It was a little gated community that was an escape from what the real city was like, the shacks took you to a different time & place in Africa, it surely didn’t feel or look like the metropolitan city that we experienced once we left the compound. There was also a little hill that we hiked up every know and then that would overlook the whole city, which was quite a scene. What was really unique/odd about that climb is that during certain times of the day some of the locals would go to the same hill top and pray or have some kind of religious ceremony, it really was quite a thing to experience, I wanted to take images of that but I felt I should show more respect for what was going on so I opted not to do so.

Thank you for the memories and a most sincere well wishes to the staff that worked there. Here is another image of one of the huts there, I’ll post more images in future entries.