Jo'burg and the Burbs

Johannesburg was the first stop of our 12-day tour of South Africa. Here are the highlights of our 2-night stay:

Apartheid Museum: This museum chronicles the history of South Africa's racial discrimination. This overview of the country's dark days gave me an appreciation for some of the positive changes we witnessed during our journey. It also helped me understand how some of the depressing scenes we saw came about.

Soweto Tour: Our tour guide has lived in Soweto all his life. He gave us an outstanding tour of this township which included the homes of Nobel Peace Prize winners, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Quick Tips:

Currency Exchange: If you plan to use the currency exchange windows (Bureau de Change) to change US dollars to South African rands, you must have new US notes (the notes with the big faces) with no blemishes or tears; otherwise, the person at the counter will reject your money. I used my ATM card to get rands and avoided the Bureau de Change.

Luggage porters: The official airport luggage porters wear orange uniforms and badges. If you allow them to help you (they are quite persistent), you must tip them in South African currency. Otherwise, you're breaking the law.

Best Way To Get Around:

Flight: Our flight on South African Airlines from Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. to Johannesburg International Airport was 17 hours. This included a 1-hour stop in Dakar, Senegal for a flight crew change. We were not allowed to get off the plane during that time.

In Johannesburg: Our travel agent arranged our transfers and tours through Thompsons Africa. Therefore, we did not rent a car, use a taxi, or use public transportation.

The Rosebank Hotel is located in Rosebank, a quiet suburb of Johannesburg. Downtown Johannesburg is approximately 15 minutes away by car. Our stay at The Rosebank was part of a tour package so we were picked up from there by a tour van for our tour of Johannesburg, the Apartheid Museum, and Soweto.

The hotel rooms are neat and spacious. The bathroom had the biggest bath towels I have ever seen. Our "double bed", however, consisted of two twin beds pushed together. I found this to be the case at several of the hotels in which we stayed during our South Africa trip.

The hotel amenities include a nice fitness center, an outdoor pool, a business center with Internet connection (approximately $4 for 30 minutes), souvenir shop, a lounge, and two restaurants. The large breakfast buffet in the main restaurant was included in our trip package. The food here was very good.

The Rosebank Hotel also has an excellent upscale Chinese restaurant called Lien Wah. I know what you're thinking - why come all the way South Africa to eat Chinese food? We laughed at the idea ourselves but I can tell you it was some of the best Chinese food I've ever tasted. They brought so much food to our table that we decided to create our own buffet. Everything I tried was delicious - especially the prawns. Our bill for all this good eating converted to less than $12 per person.

The hotel is situated in the Rosebank shopping and fashion district. In fact, there was actually some type of modeling agency meeting going on in the hotel which had the lobby filled with beautiful young women one morning. Each evening we walked to the Rosebank Mall which is about three blocks from the hotel. Most of the stores here close at 5pm; however, there are many restaurants located in and around the mall that close much later. We enjoyed our stay at the Rosebank Hotel.

The Ocean Basket is located in a plaza called The Zone @ Rosebank, which is adjacent to the Rosebank Mall. One of the ladies at the front desk of our hotel (The Rosebank Hotel) strongly recommended we eat at the Ocean Basket if we were interested in seafood. It was only a five-minute walk for us. Our group of six arrived at the restaurant around 7:30pm on a Saturday evening in early September and were seated promptly. However, there was a waiting list to be seated by the time we left around 9pm. We chose the outdoor seating under the heat lamps. Several of the restaurants in this area offer this type of terrace seating. We had a very nice, attentive waiter who told us we were the first Americans he'd ever met. I hope we represented our country well.

The Ocean Basket has a chain of restaurants throughout southern Africa. Its menu has quite a few seafood choices on it: prawns, fishes, mussels, clams, etc. Most of these dishes are served with a side of rice, fries, or salad. My wife and I had difficulty choosing an entrée so we decided to share the Platter For Two. It contained samples of several seafood entrées.

The Ocean Basket serves generous portions of food to its customers in the pan in which the food was cooked. There are plates on the table but you can eat right out of the pan if you want. Since my wife and I had the Platter For Two, our mountain of seafood and fries was served on a platter. All of us enjoyed our meals. My wife loved the kingklip and I couldn't seem to get enough of the big, sweet prawns. Our meals with soft drinks converted to about $12 per person.

I regret I never got a chance to thank the nice lady at the front desk of our hotel for recommending the Ocean Basket. It was a great choice for my seafood craving.

Our first excursion in South Africa was a half-day visit to the Apartheid Museum. Apartheid means apartness or separation. During the apartheid years, the South African government classified its citizens as white, black, or colored (mixed or Asian). The blacks were at the bottom of the social status. This systematic discrimination and oppression was the law of the land from 1948 to 1990. As a reminder of this dark period in South Africa's history, the entrance of the museum has two doors - one for whites and the other for non-whites. The door through which you enter is actually randomly determined by your admission ticket - not your race. However, these doors are the extent of the separation. Once inside, the story of the rise and fall of apartheid is told through film presentations and numerous exhibits with plenty of information to read. The museum is symbolically kept dark with brick walls and metal gates. No photography is allowed inside.

Our journey through the museum took us from the early inhabitants of South Africa, through the arrival of Europeans and colonization, through the apartheid years, and eventually to the end of apartheid in 1990. Along the way we learned about the oppressive laws such as the "dompas" law requiring non-whites to carry a pass booklet anytime they left their designated homeland. Without it, they risked being arrested. We learned about Nelson Mandela and others who spoke out against the apartheid. They were charged with treason and sentenced to the maximum security prison on Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town. After his 27-year incarceration, Nelson Mandela went on to become the President of South Africa and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Our visit to the museum was not a typical visit for the tour company we used (Thompsons Africa) in that our driver, who happened to be a certified tour guide, gave us a guided tour. Ordinarily, the driver waits in the parking lot for 3 to 4 hours while the passengers tour the museum at their own pace. En route to the museum, we asked our driver if he would also show us Soweto. He was able to get permission from his office to do so, but he decided to give the six of us a guided tour of the highlights of the Apartheid Museum so that we could make it through in two hours and still have time to see Soweto. He did an outstanding job and was able to answer all our questions. It was a memorable experience to hear narration from someone who lived through this era. In my opinion, the Apartheid Museum was the best place for us to start our South African journey because it provided a great overview of some of the other places we'd visit in the country such as: Soweto, Robben Island, District Six, and the Zulu lands of KwaZulu-Natal.

Soweto is the largest township in South Africa. It was started by the blacks who migrated from rural areas to Johannesburg in search of work in the gold mines. Since apartheid laws forbade them from living in Johannesburg, they lived in single-sex hostels and squatter camps just outside the city. This community became known as Soweto (South Western Township).

We were fortunate to have an outstanding tour guide who has lived in Soweto all his life. Our ride through this township was quite an eye-opening experience for me. Before this trip, the images I had seen of Soweto on TV were those of shanty towns, crime, and protests. While we definitely saw our share of shanty towns and were told crime is still a major concern, we also saw some of the nice neighborhoods of Soweto. These neighborhoods had neatly landscaped yards, quaint houses, driveways, etc. This place is just full of contrasts and has become quite popular on the tourist trail. Some Soweto residents have even begun turning their homes into bed and breakfasts.

After riding through the various neighborhoods and shanty towns, we eventually arrived at the former home of Nelson Mandela. He lived in this house up until he was arrested in 1963. He returned after his 27-year imprisonment but only lived there for 11 days before he realized he had to move due to the constant stream of visitors.

Today, the house serves as a museum. For approximately $3 per person, a tour guide will take you on a 20-minute tour through the 4-room home. Inside the house, there are pictures of the Mandela family, gifts from celebrities, and a display of some of Nelson Mandela's honorary degrees. (He has received over 100 honorary doctorates.) One of the gifts I found interesting was a championship belt from boxer Sugar Ray Leonard. Nelson Mandela was a boxer back in the day.

After our stop at Nelson Mandela's house, we were driven down the street to the home of another prominent South African, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Unlike the Mandela house, Archbishop Tutu's House is not a museum. It is still occupied by some of his family members. There are high walls, fences, and security cameras at this home. The significance of pointing out Archbishop Tutu's house is that this small street (Vilakazi Street) in Soweto is the only street in the world to contain the homes of two Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Before being returned to our hotel, we saw other sites in and around Soweto such as the huge Baragwanath Hospital and the construction site of a new sports stadium (Johannesburg will host the 2010 World Cup Soccer Tournament). I very highly recommend this tour.