Pretoria en cullinan mijndagtour (surface tour)

We did the tour with Pastor, who picked us up at our hotel near the airport. He was very knowledgeable about South Africa history and made the drive to the Cullen mine enjoyable and go by quickly. The actual mine tour is done by the mine's guide. We opted for the surface tour, which took 2+ hours and had no idea about the large famous diamonds produced from it. It was a Monday so it was maintenance day and most workers had the day off. We opted for the surface tour so we would have time to see the historical sites in Pretoria with Pastor. He did an excellent job explaining the history of these sites. The whole tour took about 8 hours from pickup to drop-off.

An absolutely amazing tour. I learned so much about the diamonds and history of South Africa thanks to Pastor the tour guide and Grace the guide at Cullinan. The tour starts with a 1 hour drive and once you get to the mine you watch a short film and are provided protective gear. This tour was awesome. We were immersed in the process. The lunch in town was very, very good. Beautiful little town. Pretoria is beautiful. Again the guide Pastor shared a wealth of knowledge. Best tour guide, ever. We thoroughly enjoyed this tour. Pastor the guide was able to answer all our questions, was so pleasant to spend the day with him on this tour. Loved this tour.

This Tour far exceeded my expectation, my guide and principal owner of this company, Pastor has a vast knowledge of history, which was great. First, if you're chosing between the Soweto and Apartheid Museum, go to those tours first, if you have a limited amount of time in Joburg, those are parts of history that are so important in S.AFrica. If you have time, go to the Diamond Mine Tour, especially if you're at all curious about diamonds. If you want to go 1 k underground into the mine, make sure you tell your tour operator this BEFORE you go, because this takes more time and costs a bit more. The surface tour was interesting, and learned quite a bit about the process. At the end of the tour, you can go into the jewelry showroom, which is gorgeous. They'll even let you try on diamonds ;), a girl can dream right? The Pretoria tour is interesting to learn more about the colonizers history in S.Africa, and while the monuments to the early Afrikaner Boers gives one pause, given the blood on their hands, Pastor also says it's history that can't be erased, which reminds me of the quote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." So Pastor is quite correct that it's a painful history that should be known. Going to the Parliament Building was beautiful, but I thought the best part was seeing the giant Nelson Mandela statue that overlooks the entire city. Pastor's company is a smaller tour company, but I think they try harder, and are very accommodating, and Pastor himself goes above and beyond to make sure you are enjoying the tour and learning. He is a wealth of information, and that alone is worth the price of the tour.