South Africa - Cultural Enlightenment in Johannesburg

This city is one that is layered deep with history that has shaped the unique culture you can experience here, and I think it is impossible to truly understand and experience it all in just one day, but we sure tried.  We were also incredibly fortunate to have had the best private tour guide anyone could ask for, a fellow friend we knew from Dallas who had relocated to Johannesburg as an expat two years prior.  He clearly has a passion for travel and exploring new cultures, and he was extremely knowledgeable about the city he currently calls home.  He also graciously offered up his personal home to us and drove us around to the critical things he felt we should experience with less than 24 hours in Johannesburg.  Everyone in our group was so thankful for this opportunity to learn from a local.

Trip Type

This city tour was too short – we visited on our way home from the trip main event, safari in Kruger National Park.  We stayed with a friend, Gad, and had just 19 hours on the ground.  All the activities we did centered around understanding the history behind the culture that drives South Africa, and especially Johannesburg.  We visited a museum and some historical spots, and then lived like a local at some of the currently trending places in Joburg.

Timeline

Friday PM – Start travel to Africa

Saturday – Doha, Qatar

Sunday – Cape Town, South Africa

Monday – Cape Town, South Africa

Tuesday – Flight to Johannesburg and then drive on straight to Kruger

Wednesday – Kruger

Thursday – Kruger

Friday – Kruger

Saturday – Kruger

Saturday 11:30 – Head to Johannesburg

Saturday 15:00 – Blyde Canyon

Saturday 17:00 – Dinner at Nando’s on the way to Johannesburg

Saturday 22:00 – Arrive in Johannesburg, second dinner with Gad (yes, you read that right, SECOND dinner…)

Sunday 09:00 – Breakfast at Tasha’s in Sandton Mall

Sunday 11:30 – Apartheid Museum

Sunday 14:00 – Soweto – Visit Nelson Mandela & Desmond Tutu houses & lunch (yes, more food)

Sunday 13:30 – Maboneng Precinct – visit market and have a rooftop farewell drink overlooking the city

Sunday 15:00 – Arrive at Johannesburg airport

Sunday 19:00 – Flight from Johannesburg to Frankfurt on Lufthansa

Monday 05:30 – Arrive in Frankfurt

Monday 11:00 – Flight from Frankfurt to Dallas on American Airlines

Monday 14:00 – Arrive home in DFW

SAFETY

Most of you have probably heard that Joahannesburg is not a safe city, which is fair because any Google search will tell you at the worst end of the spectrum the U.S. Department of State Overseas Security Advisory Council has deemed it a “critical threat” location, and at best the current travel advisory rating is “Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution.” These ratings stem from mostly the violent crime that is prevalent there.  Armed robbery and car jacking are very common, and South Africa has one of the highest rates of rape in the world.  I will say that on this trip I never really felt unsafe or uncomfortable until we started exploring Johannesburg.  Most surprising to me was how dangerous in could be in some areas of the city, but then incredibly upscale and seemingly safe in others.  For example, Gad’s area of town, Sandton, looked and felt pretty safe.  Though there were still beggars on the streets and barbed wire and electric fences at the tops of every walled-in property, everyone in Sandton was driving an Audi, BMW or Mercedes Benz.  You certainly did not feel like you were in a second/third world country in these parts of town.  However, there are some parts areas of town that are considered really dangerous, like downtown and some of the townships.  Just driving through these places I could say you definitely don’t want to get out of the car there.  Gad was very good at warning us about these places and the potential dangers that could happen there.  He was also realistic with us about the common types of crime that we could run into like carjacking and petty theft.

Carjacking is a huge thing in South Africa – the statistic in 2015 was that a car is stolen in South Africa every 9 minutes, with the highest concentration of car jackings occurring around Johannesburg.  As recently as while we were in Kruger a couple days prior some 18-wheelers were hijacked on the highway in Johannesburg and set on fire to create a barricade that would shut down the freeway for protestors to lobby for higher wages.  According to Gad it used to be much worse up until about a year or two ago.  Criminals devise many tricks to get to your cars.  It is common for many car jackings to occur at stop lights or stop signs.  That is why in South Africa is it okay for you to just roll through stop signs after 8 pm – to avoid being approached.  We actually figured this out for ourselves on our 7 hour drive back from Kruger to Johannesburg.  As soon as it got really dark and we got off the highway and onto some slower streets through a smaller town near Johannesburg everyone was blowing through stop signs.  So, with no cell service to research this road phenomenon, we just decided it had to be a commonly accepted practice and copied them, later to find out this rule of thumb from Gad. 

When you drive around South Africa you will see tons of people on the sides of the roads hitchhiking – this was the thing that stood out the most to me upon my first impression of the city.  There are also lots of people on the streets and in popular public areas asking for money or food.  The people asking for something from you will walk all around your car and motion to you.  There are also children who will dance in front of your car for some money – some warn that criminals often use displays like this as a distraction to direct your attention while they approach your car unexpectedly.  Also, criminals have ways that they intercept your key fob as you are trying to lock your car, so it is good to just double check that your car is, indeed, securely locked (also a tip from Gad).
 

Furthermore, Gad shared with us that cell phone theft is extremely common in South Africa – in the 19 months that he has been living in South Africa he has had his phone stolen right off of his person in a common eatery or bar twice.  Both times it was taken straight from his pockets, even once his front pocket, and he never felt it or realized it was happening to him.  Given that I had already had a phone incident on this trip I wasn’t about to have another, so I was extra safe and zipped Zach’s phone that I was carrying for pictures away into an inner pocket of my cross body and kept it in front of me.

Personally, I felt a little out of my safety comfort zone we were in Soweto, and especially in Meboneng.  These two areas are just recently regentrified areas – as recent as within the past year or two, so being able to travel to these areas and visit nonchalantly is very new.  Gad, however, felt extremely comfortable here, and Mehartaaj, too.  I did notice that Zach defaulted to his military surveillance techniques, which made me feel a little more justified for feeling unsure. Ultimately nothing happened to us in both places besides being approached for money, to which we gave out leftover road snacks and groceries from our Kruger road trip as well as some change. 

I did have a bit of a scare when we were driving through a couple of known-to-be-unsafe streets downtown on the way to the Meboneng District – my heart skipped a beat when I saw two men on the side of the road point to Gad’s Mercedes Benz and advance towards our car.  Luckily the light was green and we continued on – more likely I was just paranoid from all the car jacking stories and they probably were just impressed by the car, but after all the warnings that’s the first place my mind went. 

Quiet streets of downtown Johannesburg - street sign on the left saying don't stop at the light during certain hours

According to Gad, the conditions in South Africa, and especially Johannesburg, are always changing, and are doing so very quickly, so you just never know what’s going to surface next, especially as the city continues to settle and recover post-apartheid.  After apartheid violence was extremely common, especially black violence against whites, seeking reparation for extreme violence and oppression during apartheid.  Many of the people that lived through apartheid and post-apartheid are still in the city today and still harbor many feelings around these subjects.  The proverbial dust is only now just beginning to settle and the city is just beginning to rebuild.  It has only been around 20 years since the height of the violence after apartheid ended – this is still fresh for so many and will likely take generations to quell.  Remember this when you visit and be respectful of the sentiments this town still feels so deeply today.

LOGISTICS

Since we were coming from safari in Kruger National Park we had our own rental car, which was a larger van.  This was fine in Johannesburg as the roads were wide and there was ample parking, unlike in Cape Town where you would probably want a smaller economy car.  We did not, however, drive ourselves around Johannesburg once we got there, as our gracious host offered to chauffeur us around to some of his favorite spots. 

Personally I would not recommend driving yourself around Johannesburg because of how dangerous some areas of the city can be.  If you are not a native to the city or have a local with you to guide you, your Google Maps will definitely route you through some areas of town that are known to be dangerous.  On our way to Johannesburg we drove through some of these areas, not knowing any better.  I absolutely would say that downloading offline Google Maps is essential.  It seriously saved us because service is not fast or reliable across where we were driving.  Once you hit the outskirts of Johannesburg you will be driving past all the townships, and the service we experienced there was very spotty.  I also recommend that at least one other person in your party downloads the offline Google Maps in case something happens to your phone, like what happened to mine on safari, or in case it gets stolen or even just runs out of battery.  Luckily Mehartaaj’s phone was the one with the offline maps and it was safe, but having my phone destroyed made me consider always having a backup just in case.

Instead of driving yourself I highly recommend Uber, which is ridiculously cheap there.  Many Uber drivers also won’t object to taking you to some of the more faraway places on the outskirts of Johannesburg like the Cradle of Humankind and the Lion and Safari Park. 

As an added benefit you won’t have to deal with the anxiety that comes from navigating city roads on the wrong side of the road at ridiculously high speeds!  The speed limits in South Africa are INSANE.  I mean completely ridiculous – most highways are 120 kmph (75 mph) and narrow city streets range from 60 to 80 kmph (40 to 50 mph).  Most people drive faster than these limits and will cut you off and pass you so quickly it will make your head spin.  Also, the roads are pretty winding so you will certainly feel like a speed racer just trying to keep up with posted speed limits. 

South Africa drives on the left-hand side of the road and has right-side drive cars, which definitely was a mental challenge for me to get adjusted to, especially driving a manual there!  It didn’t really get a whole lot easier throughout the week there.  I constantly had to focus to remind my sleep-deprived self of the switched side road rules, but when Zach drove he seemed to adjust to it just fine.  Again, it must just be me. 

Manuals will be your cheapest and most common rentals – automatics will cost you about double what a manual will.  With a right-side drive manual your clutch, brake and gas pedals are all still in the same positions as you would find them in a left-side drive car (from left to right you have the clutch, then the brake and then the gas). But the most annoying thing is the positon of your indicator stick.  Instead of being on the left side it is on the right side.  Which meant that out of habit I constantly went to hit the left side stick instead of the right to indicate, which promptly activated all my wind shield wipers.  Other than that, driving a right-side drive manual was kind of fun, and actually a bucket list item for me.

Lastly, Johannesburg does have public transportation in the form of a tube that will take you from places like Sandton to the airport, but based on how Gad described it most tourists don’t use this system, only locals.  He says it’s very convenient for him to get to the airport, but otherwise he drives everywhere. 

And now about our air transport, my favorite part!  We were coming from Cape Town when we first flew into the city, and we flew standby on British Airways, operated by Comair Limited.  Comair is a franchisee of British Airways (and therefore also part of the Onewold Alliance), but also operates under their own low cost carrier brand, kulula.com.  Interestingly enough the plane we flew on was an older Boeing 737-800 in British Airways livery.  

BA6400, 737-800 in BA livery, en route from CPT to JNB

Comair also has some newer planes in their own bright Kulula livery, though not as brightly colored and patterned as Mango Airlines, another South African low cost airline that is  state-owned subsidiary of South African Airways.

The flight we took to Johannesburg was BA6400 which departed at 6:15 in the morning.  It was a short and comfortable hop from Cape Town (CPT) to Johannesburg (JNB) because everyone in our group was upgraded to Club (business class).  

Our Club seats

This usually isn’t very common for staff flying standby on other airlines (airlines other than the one they work for) but sometimes can happen on shorter-haul trips, so we felt super lucky.  We got to enjoy a passion fruit smoothie before take-off and a big breakfast in the air that had both continental-style yogurt and granola and a full plate of fruit as a starter and then the tastiest omelette I’ve ever had (with British back bacon…cue melting Dani).  

 Passion fruit smoothie & upgraded seats

 Yogurt & granola and coffee

The best omelette ever and super fresh fruit

We were so stuffed by the end of the flight, especially after also visiting the Priority Pass lounge in Cape Town and having a few bites there before our flight.

The Priority Pass Lounge at CPT

Pre-flight Breakfast at Priority Pass Lounge

Headed home from J-burg we were fortunate enough to be able to have seats assigned to us on the Lufthansa flight from Johannesburg (JNB) to Frankfurt (FRA) several hours before the flight – it is always a great thing when standbys can know they have a seat any amount of time in advance.  This was my first time flying Lufthansa and it was an awesome experience!  They are so efficient and so easy to fly staff standby on.  The flight was open enough that they gave us a seat assignment upon check-in about 9 hours prior to the flight.  They sent us an email reminder with a link to check-in, and after you clicked the link and filled in the passport information and personal details you were all checked-in and sent a boarding pass via text, with seat assignment.  When we arrived at the airport we were able to access a kiosk to change our seat assignments.  We changed ours to be aisle seats with two empty seats between us and the next person.  Then we were able to carry on our backpacking backpacks/duffels and smaller personal item (backpack for three of us and camera case for Zach) since we didn’t have to visit the ticketing/baggage counter. 

Lufthansa 747 from JNB to FRA

The coach service on Lufthansa was on point.  As soon as the flight was up in the air they came through the aisles to provide us with overhead headphones that were actually decent quality (much better than the flimsy ear buds offered by our US carriers).  Then they came through the aisles offering hot towels for face and hands prior to dinner (not done at all in coach on US carriers).  Then they offered free cocktails, including hard liquor (also not done in coach on US carriers).  I had a gin and tonic with dinner – the flight attendant was super generous with the gin, almost too generous...  

The dinner options were chicken with potatoes, carrots and broccoli or pasta.  I ordered the chicken and it was super flavorful and tasty, far superior to other chicken options I’ve had on US carrier international flights.  It also came with a zucchini side salad in a tangy vinaigrette, and, of course, bread. 

Chicken dinner on Lufthansa

The in-flight entertainment was extensive – with many foreign films represented from various European and Asian countries.  They also had a good selection of children’s movies – I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I started to watch the Lion King because I wanted to see all the animals we had just witnessed in person in Kruger…almost embarrassed, but not really.  

I didn’t finish it though because I was fast out and didn’t wake up until they served our next meal.  The quality of the coach pillows is notable – they were down pillows!  I’m sure this contributed to how long I was able to sleep on that 10 hour flight. 

A whole row to ourselves, with multiple down pillows to stack

Breakfast was delicious scrambled eggs, British-style back bacon, grilled tomato and potato wedges.  It was probably the tastiest breakfast I’ve ever had in coach service (definitely far superior to our American Airlines muffin tops and yogurt).  The breakfast also comes with bread and yogurt.  

Breakfast on Lufthansa

All-in-all it was a super easy and comfortable flight.

Once we got to Frankfurt we hit up the Priority Pass lounge there for some coffee and more food (!).  We had a few hours to kill before our next flight, but we were all too tired to want to go into the city.  In the lounge we discovered that we accidentally left our South African chocolates on the Lufthansa plane, so I dealt with that depression was for a little there where free food and drink could ease the pain a little.

The chocolates we accidentally left on the plane - at least we broke into one of the boxes pre-flight

All of us lucked out and got seats in business class on American Airlines home from Frankfurt to DFW – all seated together, too.

We enjoyed the food options on American, the service was fantastic (they even came back to give us extra warm nuts!).  I pretty much just ate and slept the entire flight back, all tucked in with my uber-comfortable Casper blanket and pillow (#donotdisturb).

American Airlines Flagship Business Class menu options on FRA-->DFW

 The orzo salad and salmon starter

 The gnocchi main

The super food power bowl light meal before landing

ATTRACTIONS

Sandton Neighborhood – Sandton Mall & Nelson Mandela Square

Ceiling decor in Sandton mall

This neighborhood is one of the poshest (and therefore safest) in town.  Many South African celebrities live in this neighborhood, and most of the Fortune 500 companies have their African head offices situated here.  This is where our friend, Gad, lives & works.  This is also where Oscar Pistorius lived with his girlfriend when she was murdered.  Many other South African celebrities live there today.

The main activity we did in the neighborhood of Sandton was the Sandton mall, called Sandton City.  Much activity and entertainment in South Africa revolves around the malls.  Malls are a place to conduct business deals, to enjoy fine dining, and to engage in shopping or meeting up with friends.  Malls in South Africa contain stores for anything you could ever need.  It may even be that the closest grocery store is located inside of a mall!  (We were a little perplexed when we searched for the nearest grocery store to pick up supplies before heading to Kruger and found that it was located well into the heart of a mall.)  Furthermore, gyms are also located in malls, and, according to Gad, gym culture is very huge in South Africa.  So basically this all means that the mall is the center of life for South Africans – from work life all the way through personal and social life, it all happens in the mall.

One of the most notable attractions in the Sandton Mall is Nelson Mandela Square.  This is a square in the middle of the mall, out in the elements, with a very large statue honoring Nelson Mandela, the late South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 as the first black head of state.  He lived an amazingly fascinating and honorable life, and many places in South Africa honor his legacy.

This square attracts many visitors who want to witness the legacy of Nelson Mandela, and also who want to engage in some of the most popular dining and shopping in all of the Gauteng province.  Gad told us that this square also becomes the equivalent of Times Square in New York City on New Year’s Eve.  We visited the statue and then headed next door to Tasha’s for brunch.

Apartheid Museum

After brunch at the Sandton Mall we headed to the Apartheid Museum to basically set the stage for the rest of what we would experience for the remainder of our time in Joburg.  Apartheid history forms the very fiber of Johannesburg’s makeup.  You can only understand why things are the way they are in Joburg (and in some cases all over South Africa) after you understand the backdrop in which it evolved, which was apartheid and racial segregation. The Apartheid Museum gives you just that and sets the context for experiencing the rest of the city.  I would highly recommend that this is one of your first stops on your visit to South Africa.  Only after we learned about the rise and fall of apartheid were we able to understand so much of what we had already seen on our trip.  

For example, the Cape of Good Hope in Cape Town used to have a sign that was in both English and Afrikaans, but in the past two years or so the sign was changed to just English.  This is because Afrikaans was the language of the white supremists that was forced upon all the colored people and blacks, and all around South Africa they are trying to get rid of reminders of apartheid oppression.  

Additionally, we learned that the rest of the world cut off South Africa from trade in a response to their clinging to apartheid.  This trade situation was what caused South Africa to need to invent their own kind of electrical plug that is so different from the rest of the world.  It is this kind of context that will help you understand the little things you will experience in South Africa. 

South African electrical plugs

The Apartheid Museum truly needs more time than we were able to give it.  There is just so much history there and so many historical events to learn about that you can’t really let it sink in and get the whole picture in just an hour and a half, which is the amount of time we spent there. 

When you purchase your ticket at the front of the museum the back of your ticket designates whether you are classified as a white (“blanke” in Afrikaans) or non-white (“nie-blanke”).  Then you are separated as you enter the museum, based upon the race designated on your “identity card” (ticket), just like South Africans used to be segregated based upon the race identified on their identity cards.  

This separation is just a sobering introduction to the reality of how discriminating apartheid actually was.  As you process through the entrance of the museum you are exposed to facsimiles of identity cards from real people, and anecdotes about each and how they were classified as that specific race.  This was incredibly interesting to me to learn that the people that really had the most power in the apartheid movement were the census takers, who would ask a series of questions and then denote what race you must be based upon those answers.  These census takers were largely uneducated, and many were highly biased individuals.  The decision they made on your race determined your destiny.  This was sobering, and really set the mood for the rest of the museum.

Once you process through the identity card entrance you reunite with your separated group and walk through several beautifully designed and landscaped outdoor pieces on your way to the actual museum. They contain a lot of thought-invoking quotes from some of the key players in the anti-apartheid movement and also from every day people that were caught up in it.  You make your way through mirrored portraits of all these people as you consider the gravity of their quotations in light of your own reflection in the mirror.  I thought it was a great artistic composition that really evoked a feeling of engagement with the exhibit and made you face your reflection and consider how you may have behaved in such a context.

Once you make your way to the museum proper there is a plethora of information all over the walls.  It was so difficult for me to focus or be able to place each piece of information I was reading on a timeline because there was so much of it and not all of it was represented chronologically.  Plus, the gravity of each historical event was contributing to make the overall experience quite overwhelming.  

In the beginning I spent a good deal of time reading each of the summary paragraphs on the stands that were presented with the exhibit – the exhibit presents to you a tall standing plaquard that has a summary of information in bolded white text at the top and then a detailed description below in black.  I was trying to read through each of the summaries on every plaquard, but it was just too much.  It helped to skim it for context, but most moving and impactful was the video footage.  

The museum does not provide the option for an audio tour, so your closest media to that would be the videos presented here and there throughout the exhibit.  These, I felt, truly drove home the reality of apartheid and the impact it had on the development of South Africa.  If you are pressed for time I say spend all of it on these movies and video clips, which contain real live footage from all these historical events, and commentary from those involved in them.  Most impactful to me was footage of torture of the protestors, riots and testimony for amnestry from Winnie Mandela.

The museum does a good job of presenting all facets of history – from white violence against blacks to black uprising and looting of white property post-abolition of apartheid.  The museum detailed the geographical separation of whites and blacks into townships for the black people, whereby whites would live in the center of the city that was nice and well-maintained.  Blacks in the townships would live on the outskirts of the city and would have no running water or electricity.

The museum’s depiction of black uprising at the end of apartheid in 1994 gave so much context to the current state of Johannesburg, where you can find that only 20% of the downtown buildings are inhabited.  The other 80% of downtown is completed abandoned, rooted through and in shambles as a result of these uprisings 20 years ago – homes, businesses and neighborhoods that were predominantly white were destroyed in an attempt to regain the property that was stripped from them during apartheid.

Downtown Jo-berg, 20% inhabited

The design of the museum itself was very clean, modern and semi-industrial.  The corridors are wide and there is plenty of room to process through it, even on a busy day. 

Tickets to the museum only cost 95R (~$8 USD) per adult person, and you could spend the whole day there if you would like.

We left the museum very quiet, and with new context in which to understand the city.

Soweto – Nelson Mandela’s & Desmond Tutu’s Houses

The main street in Soweto, Vilakazi St

After the Apartheid Museum we headed straight to a township called Soweto, which is where Nelson Mandela lived and where the Tutu family still lives today.  

Placard on the back garden gate of the Tutu family home

Driving to Soweto you slowly see the topography change – the landscape becomes treeless and drier.  This is because when the Dutch came to Johannesburg they thought it needed more trees, so they planted thousands, which is now colloquially known as the “Joburg forest”.  These trees made the city center prime desirable territory, and therefore was declared for the whites during apartheid.  The blacks, coloured people (mixed race black and white), Indians and Asians were forced to the outer rim of the city where the land was dry and poor, and infrastructure was not built up.  

This is still the case today – most townships have no running water or electricity, and inhabitants burn their trash as there isn’t a great overarching sanitation system.  Because of this the pollution in Johannesburg is very bad – a thick gray brown haze hangs over the city from the surrounding townships.

Soweto has only just recently been built up as a touristic place.  Now there is running water, electricity and sanitation, and Soweto has become a new eclectic cultural hotspot where you can experience a taste of the black and colored culture that filled these townships in the days of apartheid.  When you come to Soweto you will experience people selling knick knacks and clothing on the side of the streets, as well as African music all over each street corner.  The township is bustling with energy, and has lots of new eateries and bars. 

We visited Nelson Mandela’s house, where there was a memorial set up to honor Winnie Mandela, his ex-wife, whose passing was very recent (less than a month prior to our visit).  You can now go in and tour the house for 40R ($3), but we didn’t have time to physically enter the house and the line was long!

In front of Nelson Mandela's house - you enter through the museum (the entrance to the right)

Tribute to Winnie Mandela

We grabbed a quick buffet lunch at Sakhumzi, which is a restaurant right across the street from Nelson Mandela’s house and right next-door to the Tutu house.  

It features traditional South African food like curries with zucchini and sweet potato, chakalaka and malva pudding.  We sat out on the patio out front and enjoyed the bustling crowd, listening to the African drums being played.  

As a side note, I would recommend always having small bills and coins on you at all times in South Africa for tips and for beggars.  The musicians on the street, the children dancing and all entertainment expect tips as they mostly do this for a living. 

Also, expect to be haggled a little by the street vendors (though they were not nearly as bad as what I’ve experienced in Thailand) and definitely by beggars.  We were prepared when we went into Soweto because Gad recommended that we package up all our left over snacks and grocery food to give out as we went through our day.  As we left Soweto we were followed by a beggar and we gave him a sizeable bag of groceries and snacks, to which the parking attendant scolded him to share.  

When in Johannesburg I highly recommend that you save all your leftover food or order extra takeaway so that you have something to give out to those who need it.  Food is so cheap here and leftovers will not go to waste.  According to Gad, the city of Johannesburg actually has spearheaded an initiative to promote just this.

Street vendors in Soweto

Maboneng Precinct

The building we entered to get to the Living Room (on the left), apartments on the right (newly renovated studios for $300 per month!)

After we left Soweto we headed to the Maboneng Precinct in downtown Johannesburg.  This is really the only place in downtown that is safe to go currently.  This place has undergone a recent revival from foreign investment.  There is a super trendy industrial building market, and also several new trending places to eat and drink. 

It was just starting to get busy when we went around 3:30 in the afternoon, right after the brunch crowd started to make their way to the bars.  We first found parking on a side street in downtown.  Traffic wasn’t too terribly bad as the only cars in downtown are the ones headed to Maboneng since the rest of downtown is pretty much off limits due to safety concerns.  Parking was a little concerning to me at first – all I could think was “why are we parking this nice Mercedes on a random street so close to the dangerous parts of downtown?”  But Gad assured me that the men in yellow reflective vests were parking attendants and that they oversee the cars while we enjoy ourselves and there is an unspoken agreement that while they are there overseeing everything no one messes with the cars.  Of course, in exchange you pass them a tip when you leave.

Parking attendants from Soweto, similar to the Maboneng attendants

Once we left the car we made our way to the “Market on Main” in an old industrial building.  The first floor of the market is a food market featuring a variety of vendors and different types of food.  Then the top floor is an art market featuring different local crafts, like one-of-a-kind handmade journals and t-shirts that say “I got shot in Johannesburg” (shot as in photoshoot).  I really wanted this one shirt that said “South African Roadtrip” and had a picture of a van filled to the brim because it totally embodied what we had just done in Kruger.  This market only operates on Sundays, and it is busiest right about when we were transiting through it (around 3:30 pm).

Market on Main entrance

Tour through the second floor boutique in Market on Main

Market on Main courtyard

After we made our way through the market we went to the Living Room, which is a sustainable eco rooftop bar that overlooks all of downtown Johannesburg.  From here we had farewell drinks in a setting of ample greenery and then watched the sun set over the desolate buildings of downtown Johannesburg. This bar was bumping!  

It was so full with trendy young professionals celebrating birthdays and just hanging out.  The Vice President of Operations at South African Airways was even there.  The bar had a DJ that was playing new mixes that fit the scene just right.    It was definitely a place for young professional wanting a change of scenery from the likes of Sandton and Illovo.  The crowd was very diverse – all races were represented, but I would confidently say that most were of similar socioeconomic means.  It was a really cool experience in a very unique venue.

Enjoying our drinks and view of downtown from the rooftop bar, The Living Room

OTHER ATTRACTION OPTIONS

If you had more time and/or desired a different kind of experience in Joberg there are tons of other things you could do.  If I had more time in Johannesburg I would have wanted to do the following: 

Melrose, Rosebank & Illovo

Melrose, photo courtesy of Google Images

These are three other neighborhoods that are like Sandton in that they are upscale and safe.  They also have lots of places to eat and drink, and Gad likened them to going out in Uptown Dallas.  Most of Johannesburg’s top-rated restaurants are located in these neighborhoods.  We did not have a chance to experience them ourselves, but we did drive through them and Gad’s description seemed to fit the bill.

Johannesburg Lion & Safari Park

Photo courtesy of Johannesburg Lion & Safari Park Official Website

Before we really started researching this trip and planning it out this was priority number one for us.  We wanted to get up close and personal with African wildlife.  We wanted to walk alongside and touch a lion (and I’ve always wanted to come face-to-face with a giraffe).   This would have been awesome, and the Johannesburg Lion & Safari would have been able to provide this kind of experience.

The Lion & Safari Park is located a 45 minute drive north of Johannesburg to the direct west of Pretoria (45 minutes west of Pretoria).

Entrance into the Lion & Safari Park is free, you just pay for your tours and activities.  For just $15 USD you do your own self-drive safari through their 600 hectare park (around 1500 acres).   For $26 you can do a “Mini Safari” (1.5 hours) and for $43 you can do a full safari (3 hours).  You could even do a private drive for 2.5 hours for just $114.  They also offer shorter tours with just the predators (lions, cheetahs & wild dogs) for $17 and night feeding with the lions and hyenas for $26.  

Night feeding, photo courtesy of Johannesburg Lion & Safari Park Official Website

Another activity tour you can do at the park is the River Rafting tour down their Crocodile River, where you can view wildlife around the river while white water rafting for $43 total. 

What I really wanted to do was to get up close and personal with the larger predators like the lions and the cheetahs.  In order to book a personal encounter with these animals you must also book a tour.  So once you book the tour you want then for $6 extra you can participate in the lion cub interaction, $7 extra for the cheetah interaction, $63 extra to walk with the lions and $59 extra to walk with the cheetahs.  

 Lion cub interaction, photo courtesy of Johannesburg Lion & Safari Park Official Website

Cheetah walk, photo courtesy of Johannesburg Lion & Safari Park Official Website

To feed the giraffes is only $3!  I almost died with regret after seeing this price and knowing I missed out.

Giraffe feeding, photo courtesy of Johannesburg Lion & Safari Park Official Website

As an almost-lunatic animal lover I’m so bummed we missed out on this, but I also fully understand that you have to make trade-offs when you have such limited time somewhere.  We had seen so many of these animals in the wild for four days straight, so the group decided it was time to experience something different.

Cradle of Humankind

Photo courtesy of Google Images

Zach and I also really wanted to go to Cradle of Humankind, since long before this trip.  We have always been super interested in Anthropology (Physical Anthropology was my all-time favorite class in college), so this place would have been an amazing experience for us.  We could probably spend all day exploring the museum located on the UNESCO World Heritage paleoanthropological site.  

The Cradle of Humanity is a region where 40% of the world’s human ancestor fossils have been found, which is the most early hominid fossils out of anywhere in the world.  It is located 45 minutes north of Johannesburg and 45 minutes to the west of Pretoria (it is just 20 minutes west of the Lion & Safari Park).  The region itself is quite large – 47,000 hectares (116,000 acres), and contains a complex of limestone caves where an astounding number of different hominid fossils were found.  

The region was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999,  and the World Heritage registered name of the site is Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa.

The Sterkfontein Caves in the Cradle of Humankind site were the location of the 1947 discovery of a 2.3-million-year-old fossil, Australopithecus africanus, which is the first classified hominid and the first evidence of an ape to have walked upright (huge evidence for the evolution of humankind). This find helped corroborate the 1924 discovery of the juvenile Australopithecus africanus skull known as the “Taung Child” at Taung (another site in the Northwest province of South Africa), where excavations still continue today.  

The Sterkfontein Caves are one of the most prolific hominid sites in the world, having produced more than a third of all early hominid fossils ever found prior to 2010.

Visiting the Sterkfontein Caves, photo courtesy of Google Images

Australopithecus fossil called "Little Foot" found in Sterkfontein Caves, photo courtesy of Google Images

Nearby the Cradle of Humankind, the Rising Star Cave system contains the Dinaledi Chamber, in which were discovered fifteen fossil skeletons of an extinct species of hominin provisionally named Homo naledi.  This was the most extensive discovery of a single hominid species ever found in Africa.

Maropeng is the official visitor center for the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.  You can buy a combination ticket to Maropeng and the Sterkfontein Caves for just $15 USD!!!  Both places are open from 9 am to 5 pm every day except for Mondays when they are closed.  If you buy the tickets individually it will cost you about $9 for Maropeng and $13 for the Sterkfontein Caves. 

The exhibition at Maropeng Visitor Centre is self-guided, unless you go on a weekend or public holiday when they have guided tours at no additional cost.  Self-guided tours can take anywhere from one to seven hours, depending on how sucked into it you get.  The exhibition explores the beginning of the world and the evolutionary path to humanity.

Maropeng Visitor Centre, photo courtesy of Google Images

As most places in the world tend to do to me, visiting Africa has added more to my bucket list than could be scratched off it.  But Africa has added so much more to my list than any other place I’ve been in the world to-date. I will for sure want to come back one day to do an anthropological tour of Africa, visiting the both the Cradle of Humanity and the Great Rift Valley of East Africa.

Sun City

Photo courtesy of Google Images

Sun City is the Vegas of South Africa – it is a resort with a giant water park and vibrant nightlife/clubs, as well as casinos and posh accommodations.  You can also golf and spa here, and it has the largest permanent maze in all of the Southern Hemisphere – the Maze of the Lost City, which is created to resemble an ancient archealogical discovery.  When night falls, flaming torches light the paths of the chambers, and at the end of the maze is a bar with ice-cold craft beers on tap – seriously, what more could you ask for?!  Oh, and did I mention that maze entry is only $9 USD?!

There are so many other activities offered here that it is almost unbelievable.  You can even take safari game drives or bush walks right out of the resort, as it borders Pilanesburg National Park, home to the Big 5.  Sun City even offers mountain biking with the wildlife, up-close rhino interactions and a hot air balloon safari tour!  

 Hot Air Balloon Safari, photo courtesy of Google Images

Topography of Pilanesburg National Park, photo courtesy of Google Images

It is definitely a more “city-person” type of safari experience, but if you are limited on time and want to be able to do a wide variety of activities this may be the place for you.  It is located only 2 hours from Johannesburg.  Another added bonus is that it is a malaria-free zone.

Getting to Sun City and Pilanesberg via Google Maps

RECHARGE

As I mentioned before, we were so fortunate to be able to stay with Mehartaaj’s friend, Gad, who is living as an expatriate in Sandton.  He had a beautiful and spacious fully-furnished and masterfully decorated two-story apartment with 3 bedrooms, 4.5 baths and a gorgeous small pool on his outdoor deck.  When you entered the apartment you came into the large living room that was set up perfectly for entertaining large groups of guests with a huge couch where we enjoyed drinks together as we looked out towards the pool deck through the all-glass walls and sliding glass door that was left open for a pleasant breeze. 

Gad was the most generous host ever, as he accommodated us so last minute, with a late arrival and even went out of his way to have special food and drink waiting for us when we arrived!  (He had the special dish of bunny chow and South African wine all prepared and waiting for us upon our arrival – how amazing and thoughtful is that?!)  He even had extra room in his driveway for us to be able to park our van, and it was secured and safe since his apartment complex has electric wire and security.  Out of respect for Gad’s privacy I do not have any pictures of his residence or surroundings, but you can imagine true comfort and style and you’ll probably get close to the right mental image.

Seriously this whole experience with Gad really made this city visit for us.

Obviously (and unfortunately) you probably don’t have your own Gad to take you under his wing and show you the way to do the city.  So what you will want to look for is accommodations in either Sandton, Illovo, Melrose or Rosebank, which are all nice and safe neighborhoods, near to central eateries, the highway and activities.  Most hotels in these areas can range from $80 to $120 USD (depending on how far in advance you book). Pretty much don’t stay anywhere else.  As mentioned previously downtown is largely considered unsafe and the further you go outside of the city the more it becomes townships and rural farms. 

FOOD

Bunny Chow

Chicken bunny chow

The meal Gad has ready for us when we arrived was AMAZING.  I wish I already wasn’t fairly full from our stop at Nando’s on the way to Johannesburg from Kruger because I would have devoured so much more of this thing.  Bunny chow ended up becoming my favorite South African meal from this entire trip.

Basically when the first Indian populations immigrated to South Africa they brought with them the influence of their spices and curries.  Some say that when they arrived in South Africa there was no rice for them to eat with the curry, so instead they made bread bowls.  Others say that bread bowls were the most convenient way for them to bring their curry lunches to the mines to work.  

So basically bunny chow is curry inside of a bread bowl.  The soft parts of the bread soak up all the curry, but the outsides remain fairly structural.  There is so much spice and flavor to this dish, which is why I love it!

Tasha’s

Tasha’s is actually a very upscale chain restaurant across South Africa, with a standard menu across all the chains and then a supplemental menu specific to each location.  It was so hard to decide what to get here because everything sounded amazing and was so gourmet.

The standard menu on the right and the location-specific menu on the left

I ultimately decided upon the halloumi fennel and heirloom tomato salad with feta cheese and a lemony vinaigrette because by this point in the trip my body badly needed vegetables.  Also, if you’ve read my post on Australia you’ll know that post my discovery of halloumi there I’ve become obsessed with it, so I order it every rare chance I get (usually only easily found in places that have once experienced British rule).  

But anyways, this salad may have been the best salad I’ve ever had in my life.  I didn’t want it to end.  And it was actually filling!  Portions in South Africa are super generous – I would even venture to say more generous that United States portions, which is saying a lot.  Most of my meals I couldn’t finish so I passed them along to the bottomless pit, Zach.  This salad was an exception though – there was no way I was sharing this.

Halloumi fennel and heirloom tomato salad with feta cheese and lemon vinaigrette

The rest of the table ordered a variety of things, but Hannah’s dish may have been my second choice as it sounded like it would have been spicy, complex and amazing.  She ordered the harissa lamb and the presentation and aroma was incredible.

Hannah's harissa lamb

All five of us each ordered a specialty drink (either pineapple pear ginger juice or chai tea and one strawberry milkshake), plus our main dish and all together our total bill (including tip) was $66 USD, which works out to about $13 USD per person.  That is truly killer for the quality of food experienced here and the swankiness of the atmosphere.

Tasha's swankiness

Chakalaka

I was seriously still full from pretty much an entire week of stuffing myself with hearty South African food, so I didn’t each much at the buffet we went to in Soweto, Sakhumzi.  But, being a veggie and spice fiend, I couldn’t resist the chakalaka. 

Chakalaka is a uniquely South African dish that was born in the townships of Johannesburg.  When the Mozambican mineworkers came off their shifts in the nearby gold mines they would cook produce with chili to produce this spicy relish with a Portuguese flair, usually to accompany pap, which is a South African cornmeal mush (very similar to grits).  It has been a staple for generations of black South Africans and it is a required condiment at South African braais (barbeques).  You may often see if colloquially referred to as “Soweto Chili”.

Chakalaka can be made of lots of different kinds of veggies and produce, but most commonly is made of onions, tomatoes, some kind of bean or lentil, and carrots.  Sometimes peas are added, too, or even cabbage, butternut squash and ginger.  The heated spice comes from curry, and sometimes added hot chile peppers.

Wine

South Africa is known for its world-class wine.  I wish that during this trip I could have experienced wine country and visited a winery, as I absolutely love that kind of activity, but we just did not have the time for that as the purpose of this trip was mostly to safari.

However, I did get to taste some great South African wines.  Mostly the reds were my favorite.  They were, as a whole, very smooth, not too in-your-face bold on the palate and lacked the sharp tangy bite at the backend, which I fully enjoyed.  Also, as an added bonus, wine is cheaper than water in South Africa, so you don’t have to feel guilty about enjoying a lot of it!

Beer

If you're a beer fan the craft scene is hitting South Africa, and you can find lots of craft options.  You also might want to try the local favorite in Jo-burg, Soweto Gold.

WHAT TO BRING

1. You don’t need to worry about mosquitos or malaria in Johannesburg because it gets too cold there.  Gad said that he hasn’t really experienced any mosquitos in the past 19 months of living there.  But usually Johannesburg operates as a gateway to many of the northern safari parks where mosquitos with malaria are present, so most are taking anti-malarials while in Johannesburg.
2. I wish I would have brought a more comfortable, every day casual outfit to wear in the city and around the townships, but all I had was leftover safari gear (Columbia shirts, pants and hiking boots), which made me stick out as a tourist I think.
3. I would say that wearing comfortable shoes around the city is not necessarily critical because you will drive most places.
4. You will likely have to purchase a specific South African outlet converter, because, as mentioned previously, South Africa has its own unique style of outlets.  These can only really be found in the airports.  I suppose you could order it online in advance (you may get a better price deal), but it is likely equally convenient to just pick one up from the airport as you enter the country – there are plenty of stores that sell them.  

SURPRISING

I think in general Johannesburg was less developed than I thought it would be.  I had this preconception that as the business center for all of Africa, and one of the biggest metropolitan cities in one of the most advanced countries in Africa it would be at least more akin to some of the large cities I’ve experienced in South America – like Santiago, Chile or Buenos Aires, Argentina.  But when I first laid eyes on the townships as we drove out of Johannesburg I realized the reality of being in a 2^nd/3^rd world country, which was sobering.  It was surprising to me how certain areas could be so nice and people could live so extravagantly there, and those areas could literally be a stone’s throw away from the exact opposite situation in the townships – with no employment, electricity, water or sanitation.

Prices were the other thing that was so shocking to me.  I had heard that South Africa would be cheap, but I didn’t really understand the extent to which until we started experiencing Johannesburg.  Prices in Cape Town and Kruger were a lot higher than Johannesburg – Jo-burg was definitely the cheapest place I’ve ever been in my travels (see financials below).  To be fair, the US dollar was also very strong at the time we visited, but still the value for money was impressive and most noticeable in Johannesburg. 

FINANCIALS

The currency in South Africa is the South African Rand, which at the beginning of our trip was 0.08 of a US dollar. 

Everyone deals in rands.  The US dollar won’t get you very far here.

It is essential to have cash on you in Johannesburg (and really South Africa in general).  This is because there are very many occasions where you will have to tip the people that provide services to you.  For example, the gas attendants require tips, wait staff at restaurants, parking attendants and then, of course, you will probably want to have small bills to give to beggars that approach you.  Usually a 10 rand note will do when it comes to the parking attendants, gas attendants and beggars, and you can expect to tip wait staff about 10%.

We did find that most places we went had credit card point of sale machines that accepted US credit cards.  The only places that will not accept US credit cards are toll booths on the highway and also national park entrances – they only accept South African credit cards.  Therefore you will want to have enough cash to be prepared for those tolls (unless your rental has a toll tag, which most should) and park entrance fees as well.

At the end of the day Johannesburg ended up becoming the cheapest destination I've travelled to to-date.  Below is the per person, per day (PPPD) cost for the trip we experienced.  Remember, this excludes flights, and in this case it also excludes hotel.

Johannesburg, South Africa for 1 day - May 2018
	For Group (4)	D&Z	PP
Kruger Rental Car Pro-rated for JNB 1 day
Gas Pro-rated for JNB 1 day	$26.37		$6.59
Food & Drink	$77.33		$19.33
Souvenirs		$14.95	$7.48
JNB Living Room Entry Fee (for 5 ppl)	$32.55		$6.51
Apartheid Museum (for 5 ppl)	$38.65		$7.73
Total Per Person	$47.64
PPPD (w/o flights and hotels)	$47.64

If you're thinking about tacking on Johannesburg to a larger South Africa trip, maybe with safari involved, below is the financial breakdown for our entire trip.  This will at least help you get an idea of what to budget for on a longer stay with more attractions.

Whole Trip Breakdown for 10 days - May 2018
For Group (4) D&Z PP Vaccinations - Hep A/B, TDAP, Yellow Fever & Typhoid $495.00 $247.50 Malaria Meds $32.26 $16.13 Flights - DFW-DOH-CPT-JNB-FRA-DFW $959.78 $479.89 Transportation to/from DFW $16.21 Apartment in Cape Town (2 nts) $260.53 $65.13 Kruger Accommodations & Game Drives/Walks (4 nts, 5 dys) $2,145.42 $536.36 Ubers $20.46 $5.12 Cape Town Rental Car (2 dys) $67.87 $16.97 Kruger Rental Car (6 dys) $245.67 $61.42 Gas (8 dys) $158.24 $39.56 Food & Drink $719.39 $113.38 $236.54 Souvenirs $69.73 $34.87 Doha Boat Tour $32.97 $8.24 Table Mountain Tickets $90.17 $22.54 Boulders Beach (Penguins) $24.74 $6.19 Chapman Peak Toll - Scenic Cape Town Drive $4.47 $1.12 Cape of Good Hope Entry $47.37 $11.84 Tips for Safari Guides $133.06 $33.27 Animal Guide Book $42.00 $42.00 Blyde Canyon Entry Fee $8.14 $2.04 JNB Living Room Entry Fee (for 5 ppl) $32.55 $6.51 Apartheid Museum (for 5 ppl) $38.65 $7.73 Total Per Person $1,880.94 PPPD $188.09

OVERALL RATING

Attractions = 5

I give the attractions an average 5 for a few reasons.  First of all, the city of Johannesburg itself offers a very limited variety of activities.  Most activities in the city are centered around shopping and eating out.  The city does offer some unique cultural and educational experiences in Soweto and Maboneng, but there are just too many places in the city proper that are just not safe to visit.  This brought the score down in my book.  However, the areas around Johannesburg (within a 2 hour driving radius) offer such a wide variety of attractions that brings the score back up.  These are attractions such as the Lion & Safari Park, the Cradle of Humankind, and the Sun City/Pilanesburg Safari experience.  These kinds of activities are bucket-list type activities and they are things you only get to experience once in a lifetime.  

Cost = 10

As I mentioned above, Johannesburg is the cheapest city I've ever travelled in to-date.  Therefore it takes the cake with a 10/10 in this category.

Logistics = 2

I rated this so low because there is not a wide variety of transportation choices in Johannesburg - you pretty much have one real transportation option and that is by car (or Uber).  Furthermore, car jackings and roadside hazards make it so that I just cannot rate this much higher.  Winding roads with crazy high speed limits and narrow two-laned, opposite-direction highways brought this score down even further as well.  In addition to the spotty cell service for navigation and emergency purposes, and the likelihood that Google Maps would route you through some pretty dangerous areas.  

The transportation situation was probably the worst of any country I have visited to-date (maybe tied for the worst with Guatemala).  The only reason this was rated as high as a 2 was because of the air transport options to Johannesburg - there are so many carriers you can choose from and a wide variety of service from budget to luxury. 

Lodging = 10

We were so lucky to be able to stay with Gad at his luxury apartment in Sandton.  But as you can see from some of the other information here, housing in Johannesburg is incredibly cheap by U.S. standards, and the same is true for hotel accommodations.  Your dollar can get you some pretty posh stuff here.

Food & Drink = 7

The curries and spices bumped up this score a ton - the spice mixtures in South Africa are incredible, and I'm a spicy kind of girl.  Also, any place where world-class wine and decent craft beer is cheaper than water deserves to get bumped up to the top of the list.  

Ultimately I rated this as just good, not the greatest, because there were a lot of weird meats here that I would try, but that I personally don't enjoy eating a ton of - like venison (springbok or impala typically) and chicken feet.  There also weren't very many vegetarian options, which made it difficult for our friend, Mehartaaj.

Overall = 6.9

This is a solid score.  Of my recently reviewed travels on my blog this is the lowest score, however, not by much.  

Although there are some significant safety concerns and getting here takes a ton of time and effort I really think this visit is worth your while for the cultural and educational experience it can give you.  I feel that I learned a lot from Johannesburg and that maybe I'm a little better off for it.  

I will definitely be coming back in the future.