Johannesburg - a Jumble of Contrasts

"Highlights" are few and far between – Joburg's a place to experience rather than enjoy. An immense city (no one seems prepared to commit to the overall population of Joburg or of Soweto), its contrasts are together humbling and inspiring. Even in Soweto itself (certainly a highlight on anyone’s itinerary), it’s interesting to see that the nature of man is such that a class system existed (pre- and post-apartheid) even here, and perhaps startling to understand that Soweto houses and their facilities run the gamut from respectable gentility to tin-roofed despair.

In downtown Joburg, the glittering Manhattan-style skyline of the Central Business District is deceptively inviting – even grand glass-houses that, two or three years ago, were bank HQs are now deserted and, on closer inspection, reveal broken windows and tell-tale marks of vandalism or squatting. Locals told us that the stock exchange has recently moved out of the CBD (despite on-going lease obligations) and most other large employers are relocating to Newtown. Rumour also has it that Nigerian gangsters have moved into the area and the police-force is struggling to maintain law and order – sadly not a place to go, let alone linger.

Quick Tips:

Having passed though the downtown area (and look out as you travel from the airport on the main overpass for the new glistening Mandela Bridge, opened in May 2003), you’ll probably stay in the opulent white suburbs, often protected by high walls and razor wires, not far from the sprawling shanty-towns which are home to millions of black people, some of whom are living hand to mouth.

It’s easy to harbour preconceptions or prejudices that the comparatively affluent white suburban Joburg isn’t "real" and certainly those occupants are in a minority, but it's well worth a visit for some great restaurants and bars. Also remember that the expanding middle and professional classes are moving out of the townships to the suburbs which has meant a spread of the suburbs towards Pretoria (originally 50km away but now estimated to join up within a decade) so it's becoming more representative.

Don’t miss the newly-opened Apartheid Museum (which can be included in the Soweto trip if you’re keen and ask in advance).

Best Way To Get Around:

With few normal tourist "sights" in Joburg and public transport being pretty much off limits, it’s tempting to stick to your hotel-room or venture only to the shopping malls of the northern suburbs. Reluctant as you may be to resort to a tour guide, this may be the one-off situation that requires it (unless you’re lucky enough to have a home-grown friend or trusted contact to accompany/guide you). As you wander around, things do look quite controlled and tranquil, even in Soweto, and you wonder what all the fuss is and why you bothered not setting out on your own – but, given that locals are chary about safety and local papers feature regular stories of violence and murder, my own view is that it’s not worth taking the chance.

Its other attraction is as a jumping-off point to Kruger or smaller Reserves (like Madikwe -- see below) or to the razzmatazz of Sun City.

There’s no such thing as a cheap safari but some are nonetheless good value on which you mind less spending your cash – Mosetlha is one of these. It’s basic (in the nicest possible sense) but fun, with decent food, excellent, knowledgeable guides who also seem to be enjoying what they’re doing. Family owned, it was built in July 1995 by Chris and June Lucas (originally Brits) - it has apparently gone from strength to strength and engenders loyalty in its guests: several staying there were on their third or fourth visit).

It bills itself as rustic and intimate and that’s about right – capacity is 18 (8xdoubles and one family tent) and buffet breakfasts and lunches, and hearty three-course dinners are served at a set time for all-comers around two tables. With two game drives each day, the schedule is as follows: 5am wake-up call giving 30 minutes to shower, grab some tea and a rusk (solid and likely to break a tooth unless dunked in coffee, you get used and even fond of them by the end of the stay) and then clamber into the 4x4 (of which there are three, so there are rarely more than six to a vehicle) with your friendly guide to watch the sun come up and head round until about 10.30. You can then snooze till 2pm lunch before the second drive of the day at about 4.15 until well after nightfall, coming back at about 8.30 for a beer around the fire (honesty bar operates for beers/wines/soda) followed by highly enjoyable dinners (chicken, fish, sometimes a steak or sausages BBQ-ed over the fire) swapping stories with good company. Given the 5am start, you’ll risk indigestion and head straight to bed – lights out at 10.30 anyway and you’re warned not to venture out alone as the camp is open to the Reserve’s other occupants (save for the shower/loo complex, though the flimsy wire mesh may keep out fellow guests but not a hungry lion!)

The "tents" are heavy-duty single rooms on stilts, with flaps to let in cooling air and keep out heavy rain. In winter months, extra blankets and hot water bottles are provided and hot toddies left in your room to keep out the chill (The winter months’ schedule is somewhat abbreviated to account for shorter, cooler days). The facilities are half the fun – collect your bucket of water and warm through a heater; your presence in loo or shower is indicated by drawing across a chain and then, to shower, you lower down the shower bucket and head, fill it with your water (having checked the on/off release is off!), heave it up again and shower away (always hoping there’s enough water to wash out soap from ones hair!) As I said, not luxury but great fun and you can see below the variety and quality of the game.

Located in the small genteel village of Parkhurst (it’s in an area with antique and furniture stores) is a relaxed and relatively up-market restaurant, set back off the road so it’s quite quiet and discreet, with plenty of safe, secure parking. It has a pleasant atmosphere, with daytime al fresco terraces on the roof (you can also eat out there by candlelight at night if you’re feeling romantic, though it does get a bit chilly). From the rooftop terraces (you can also take your pre-dinner drinks out there, there are great views of the leafy suburbs.

The décor is understated – fairly classical though with contemporary touches. The waiters are attentive and there’s elegant white linen tablecloths and napkins. The publicity blurb focuses on its "authentic chandeliers, sand washed walls, handmade menus", none of which I specifically noticed though I was left with an impression of a classy, pleasant eating experience.

The chef and owner, Aristotle Ragavelos, has apparently worked in London and the Greek islands before setting up in Joburg, and the cuisine is certainly international (again, the blurb refers to it as "unplugged cuisine," whatever that means – it rather put me off). The portions are fairly generous and dishes range from well cooked pasta with interesting touches and ingredients (the giant ravioli stuffed with salmon and wasabi, served with pickled ginger in a nori cream sauce is recommended) to more unusual dishes such as beef fillet salsa verde (marinated fillet in tamari, served with oriental cabbage and liberal helpings of salsa verde) – all beautifully presented. If you can wait the 20 min prep time, try the house special dessert of warm chocolate cake with a tamarind crème anglaise.

There’s a good domestic wine list; as with most S African restaurants, the small selection of imported wines is prohibitively expensive by comparison.

Madikwe is a 60k hectare reserve in a malaria-free zone (the lodges/camps hard-sell this as "kiddie-friendly" to attract families) in the NW Province’s most extensive conservation area. Its NW boundary runs along the Botswana border (apparently c15mins by if you've proper insurance to cross the border for a Gabarone lunch). It's less well-known that Kruger and the bigger parks; visitors are mainly South Africans keen to keep it a secret!

Development of the reserve began in 1992 with Operation Phoenix. The rich diversity of the vegetation and topography mean that a wide variety of animal life is sustained here (including a great many unusual breeds of antelope, including the sable – photo below) – Phoenix was (and continues to be) the largest reintroduction of game undertaken by man in any African reserve. 8,000 large mammals, including repopulation of entire herds of elephant, antelope, buffalo, black and white rhino, zebra, giraffe, leopard, cheetah, spotted hyena and wild dogs, increased the inhabitants of the land to more than 16,000. Many of these were taken or bought from parks in other African countries whose own stocks exceeded what the land could accommodate (particularly Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe) – apparently, there's considerable, regular swapping. The process has been an almost unqualified success, with the sole exception of the hippo population which was unhappy with its new home after several years of low rainfall and spontaneously moved outside the reserve to where water was more plentiful.

The reserve is managed by the North West Parks and Tourism Board, who quietly patrol the area regularly and seem well known and liked by driver-guides from the lodges/camps (unlike other countries/reserves where they are sometimes seen as flouting the rules and ignorant of the wildlife).

There are no campsites or self-drive facilities – there’s a check when you enter into the reserve as to where you’re staying and all cars have to be dropped off at the NW Parks office with visitors being collected by their camp/lodge. You can do 4x4 drives or walks within Madikwe (again obviously with a guide and they’re not too much like hard work) to see the smaller beauties (lizards, flowers, birds – of which there are hundreds – a twitcher’s paradise, plus the guides are knowledgeable and the camps have reference books a-plenty) that are often missed out in the hunt for bigger mammals.

As for accommodation, we stayed at the Moseltha Bush Camp, right in the centre of the Reserve and recommend it highly (see above). If you’re into luxury (and are prepared to pay for it), try more upmarket lodges such as Jaci’s Safari Lodge, Madikwe Bush House, Tau Game Lodge and Madikwe River Lodge – what you’re there for, in my view, is the game viewing and that comes down to the personality and ability of your game guide/driver. Madikwe Reserve truly has it all – though leopards as ever are the hardest to find (there’s always someone at dinner who saw one when you didn’t!).

Soweto is the most populous black urban residential area in South Africa (2001 census gave its population at 896,995 - though locals think this considerably short of the real figure). Since its earliest establishment, it was always planned as housing for black labourers – Klipspruit, the oldest of a cluster of the townships comprising today’s Soweto, was created in 1904 for miners and city workers, with the inner city reserved for whites.

In 1963, the acronym, Soweto, was adopted as a name for the burgeoning townships and so it has been known ever since. Synonymous with overcrowding and poor housing (shacks made of corrugated iron sheets are not uncommon), violence and high unemployment, apartheid planning provided little in terms of infrastructure and social services; it’s only recently that the democratic government has invested in installation of electricity and running water and drainage, as well as planting trees and developing parks and recreation areas. These days, a vast hospital is proudly displayed to visitors to Soweto along with any trip to the various types (or "classes" as astonishingly they are still called by Soweto inhabitants themselves) of houses.

Soweto’s apartheid years’ fame was also as a hotbed of political campaigns (and tragedies such as that of schoolboy, Hector Pieterson, shot dead in the 1976 Soweto student uprising) and as home to political luminaries such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu (two Nobel Peace Prize winners who once lived in the same road, Vilakazi Street in Orlando West).

The shock of Soweto is in both the very existence of the dreadful “tinny houses” (ie lengths of corrugated iron, welded together without windows or anything really serving as a door) without normal human amenities and the fact that these co-exist (albeit some streets away, divided by a road) with what are cheerfully called “middle class” and “upper class” houses (both of which are clearly recognisable as nice dwellings, albeit the middle class “2-up, 2-down” matchbox homes look rather snug for too many people). Whilst almost prepared for the ghastliness of the squalor of the most down-on-their-luck inhabitants, I hadn’t expected it to be cheek by jowl with comparatively palatial homes with window boxes and manicured, sprinkler-fed lawns, fancy brickwork and stylised window-frames. It almost makes it worse somehow that some of Soweto’s inhabitants are clearly doing very nicely. Some larger houses sub-let either the garage or the space outside the building itself to families or individual for a modest rent to supplement income (hence one of the difficulties in guaranteeing the census figures).

Soweto is both shocking and somehow consoling – people go about their business, children play in the streets or go and come from school with bags of books, old folks chat by the roadside; just like anywhere else in the world (or, at least, 100 other places in the world) but you can’t help wondering whether it will ever get any better. Maybe one day at a time . . .

Jimmy’s “Face-to-Face Tours” are operated by eponymous Jimmy Ntintili, who took friends and visitors to his hometown and thought he’d make a business of it. It’s not cheap (prices vary depending on where you’re picked up – R305 from the airport to R265pp from an uptown hotel), but FtF (others are similarly priced) has you at a disadvantage since warnings not to visit Soweto unaccompanied shouldn’t be dismissed lightly. Given that it’s an experience not to be missed, unless you’re lucky enough to have a friendly trusted escort, there’s no choice but to pay up for the tour-party.

First it's into the CBD (probably the only time you’ll go there unaccompanied too) to FtF’s office to pay; then it’s SWwards to Soweto (with a brief explanation of views from the window en route). Tours are popular and advance booking is through hotels or by email – FtF minibuses hold 12 people.

First stop is the Soweto minibus/taxi-rank where most folk catch transport to work – your guide enjoys interpreting the hand gestures, which signify one’s desired destination (palm flat=CBD; index finger raised=station). Stopping on the bridge, attention is directed to the vast hospital and you’re bombarded with proud statistics of how well Soweto is served. It’s even more entertaining to observe the locals coming and going -- less so is the “witch doctor” who talks you through herbal medicines and tries to part you from a few Rand to cure your bunions.

The drive takes you round various streets (compulsorily past chez Mandela/Tutu and Winnie Mandela’s current home) and the monument to Hector Pieterson, the Soweto schoolboy shot dead during the 1976 student uprising against compulsory teaching in Afrikaans (565 people died -- you’ll get a lot of statistics but they’re given in digestible portions, which makes them all the more shocking since you retain them all rather than going into overload). The tour ends in a shebeen (formerly illicit drinking den) for a welcome beer and chance to talk frankly with your guide about his own Soweto life.

Soweto housing is split into three distinct districts – called (by the Soweto-ians themselves) lower, middle, and upper class. Lower class is desperately bare and insufficient, and the raggedy children outside their school make you want to turn away. Middle class is tolerable and upper class quite palatial – it’s shocking that these co-exist so closely. Soweto’s greatest surprise is perhaps that things are not so desperate for everyone as you expected.

Jimmy’s publicity material boasts that FtF has taken a million people into Soweto (doubtful) but the guide was pretty well-informed, obviously knew his way around (hardly surprisingly given he lives there), easy to talk to and had his spiel off pat (if rather too much so). If it’s somewhat voyeuristic to photograph and gawp at, in some cases, the sad squalor, you can only console yourself that some of the money you’ve paid for the privilege is going towards maintaining the schools or churches.