Day 11 - Part Two: Johannesburg

We landed in Johannesburg after a short, 40-minute flight from Hoedspruit.  The Joburg airport is gigantic and modern (the product of South Africa hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup).  All four of our bags did in fact make it through to Joburg and, waiting for us after we exited the secure section of the airport, was a friendly gentleman named Wyatt holding an “O’Brien x2” sign, who transferred us to our hotel.  We chatted with Wyatt (a native of Johannesburg) on our way to Houghton – a posh, suburban section of the Joburg area.  As we approached Houghton, the homes got very luxurious looking, but were surrounded by high walls, topped with barbed wire or electric fences.  “In Joburg,” Wyatt said, “you can tell a person’s status by how high his wall is.”

Our hotel was the nicest, most well-serviced hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.  It was a boutique hotel – only nine or ten rooms – and took up two or three lots on a beautiful block in Houghton, but instead of building a single hotel, seemed to reconfigure and connect the three houses that were previously there.  As a result, the interior was a maze of beautiful artwork, decorations, colorful rugs, fish ponds and sculptures.  We literally got lost our first time back through it.  There was an elegant dining room, accompanied by a grand piano and preceded by a beautiful bar and lounge.  Our room was probably bigger than our first house – and included an outdoor shower and tub (something our first house (and current house) also didn’t include).  The staff was beyond polite, responded to any request almost immediately, and dressed formally (including top hats on the gentlemen providing security at the front gate).  This place was gorgeous.  As in, there-was-a-Rolls Royce-in-one-of-the-car-park-areas-that-had-a-red-velvet-rope-around-it gorgeous.  And it wasn’t very expensive – that’s what is weird about South Africa (or at least one of the things): luxury abounds but is somewhat affordable, largely because of the cheap labor force (made even cheaper by the influx of immigrants from other African countries, which has led to a xenophobic phenomenon in recent months).

As impressive as out hotel was, there was something quietly discomforting about it – as if the walls surrounding it were not so much as to keep the hotel safe from any particular criminal element, but instead were a means of separating the haves from the have-nots. They seem to represent in a very patent way the continued existence of a mentality that allowed this country to continue apartheid until nearly the 21st century; a mentality that continues to manifest itself in economic and structural ways that may not be as obvious as a law on the books.

While in Johannesburg we also had the opportunity to see portions of the city from a more traditional point of view through a tour we booked through a company called “Tours By Locals.”  It wasn’t a great tour, in fact, it was a bad tour.  It was very overpriced, at times felt mildly unsafe, took place in a car that had seen better days (to say the least), and the company’s website, communications and electronic payment systems left a lot to be desired.  But, in hindsight, I think we took something away from it – perhaps just from the almost beautiful juxtaposition between the tour itself and the location it began and ended (our palatial hotel).

After checking in and taking a quick shower, we began to wait around for our tour guide, Nathan, who was scheduled to pick us up at 5 pm.  Around 5:15, the concierge told us that someone was outside claiming to be here to pick us up, a hesitant suspicion not well-hidden in her tone.  We went out to the front gate to find Nathan, still trying to remove loose items from the back seat of his dated Nissan (which had a cracked windshield).  Nathan saw us approaching and jumped out of the car with a big smile.  He seemed somewhat unorganized, as if he had just remembered that afternoon the tour I booked in May and the multiple e-mails that he and I had exchanged since.  He seemed rather disheveled and almost awkward.  His English was pretty good, but came via a harsh, throaty voice that was predisposed to local tribal languages, which made his English sound worse than it was.  Against our better judgment, we climbed into Nathan’s car – a stick shift that sounded as if it was threatening to go on strike at the next jerky gear shift (which were frequent in Nathan’s driving style).  As we lined into Joburg rush hour traffic (which was as thick as the worst U.S. traffic, but filled with much more colorful, worn vehicles, many with several dirt-covered men in jumps suits riding in the back beds), Nathan jumped into an oral history of Johannesburg, which we struggled to pay attention to in the midst of Nathan’s driving and the stuffiness atmosphere of an over-allotment of car fresheners.  Rolling down the window helped a bit, but came at the cost of introducing the dusty, industrial grit that seems to hang in the Joburg air at all times.

My view from the back for the first 45 minutes of the tour.

Joburg, the financial capital of South Africa, would not exist if it wasn’t for gold.  The city was built out of gold and still heavily relies on gold mining as part of its economy.  In many ways the city itself is a metaphor for this shiny, metallic element: there are beautiful portions of elegant, rich life that are only available to those who can afford it, but if you look deeper you will find the dirt, sweat and fruitless toil that is required to both mine this precious metal and sustain a high-class way of life. Gold was first discovered in Johannesburg in 1886 by George Harrison (not the Beatle, but rather an Australian wanderer), who later sold his claim for only 10 pounds and was never heard of again.  But the discovery was enough to spark a gold rush, similar to that of California in 1849 (hence the San Francisco 49ers) and the Alaskan Yukon.  Within 10 years, Johannesburg was larger than Cape Town (which was founded some 200 years earlier).  The scars of the gold rush are still in many ways present today: massive mounds of rock and debris that were the extracted waste of gold mines still make up the skyline at the outskirts of the city and the Eucalyptus tree, brought from Australian because of the incredible amounts of water is sucks from the ground (thus making it easier to mine and less likely for mines to collapse) is now considered an invasive species in this arid climate where water is valuable.

With the gold rush came a need for cheap labor and black South Africans came from far away to work in mines on claims.  In 1904, British authorities controlling Johannesburg opportunistically used an outbreak of bubonic plague to an evacuation camp on the site of a sewage field outside of the Johannesburg boundary, which laid the groundwork for the modern day Soweto (which stands for SOuth WEstern TOwnship).  Soweto would be the focus of our tour with Nathan (it is also his home town).

We took an early exit from the highway to get out of traffic (much to the relief of Nathan’s car, I’m sure) and went through the downtown, which includes the tallest building in Africa.  

My attempt to capture the Transnet building - the tallest building in Africa. Instead, I think I captured a better image of what our tour was like.

Businesses relocated to outside the downtown years ago because it was considered too dirty and dangerous.  Today it still looks like an area that businesses would want to vacate, though there are spotty attempts at public art and indications of the possible beginnings of a movement to renew this urban space that has so much potential.  We meandered through industrial parts of the city, seeing a sea of white vans (the most common South African version of a taxi cab) pooled together to collect and pack in groups of workers who were going home to common areas.  A new, impressive-looking bridge with modern white supports was a positive mark on the landscape, but only crossed over an expansive mass of commuter and freight trains that seemed slammed together on at least 30 different tracks.

Eventually we rounded a curve and came to a high point on the landscape and Nathan announced “Welcome to Soweto – this is my home!”  Dusk had fallen on Soweto, but lights were visible for as far as the human eye could see.  This was not the organized, matrix-like series of lights that one sees when landing in Chicago at night or when looking downtown from an office in Manhattan.  There was a perfect randomness to these lights.  They were patternless, and all low to the ground, each light marking the residence of a family group – their own little piece of land and place in this seemingly endless landscape of tiny dwellings.

We drove into Soweto as night fell.  It was alive and vibrant, full of smiling people greeting one another and an inherent energy that can only come from a group of fundamentally human persons all getting along in common hardship and with very little possessions.  Women sold fruit on street corners.  Little restaurants, bars and roadside meat stands were on every block.  As you drove past a house, you could look inside for a split second as the car passed and catch a glimpse of a mother and daughter cooking dinner or a family sitting down to eat together.  Inside one small building there was a man cutting a little boy’s hair while a couple of other guys sat in the background appearing to tell jokes. 

Even within Soweto there are separate neighborhoods – some with relatively nice houses, others were the common floor plan still lacked an indoor bathroom.  Nathan pointed out one section of government-provided housing.  When we asked how long it takes to get government housing, Nathan laughingly replied “years and years” in a way that indicated it was impossible.  For those with government housing, Nathan pointed out that nearly all of those properties were since accompanied by metal shanties on the back and sides of the government-built house, in which extended family members live, or other boarders rent for a meager supplemental income to the home owner.

I asked Nathan if it was safe here – and what would happen if a white guy like me just happened to be walking around at this time of night.  He said that people would look at me and wonder what I was doing, but that I would be safe.  That there is a civilian code outside of the law here and that people who rob one another or assault one another are themselves subject to “peoples’ justice” and would themselves be chased down by a mob of civilians and beaten.  He said that the police here are not helpful and are not trusted, so as a result the people police themselves and help each other.  It sounded nice, and I took his word for it.

We drove by the Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital, which is probably the tallest building in Soweto.  Nathan said that until China built two hospitals, this was the largest hospital in the world (and is still the third largest).  He said that even today physicians come here from the around the world to study advanced medical techniques and test cutting-edge cures and vaccines.

We then headed to the Orlando section of Soweto, which was behind one of the few walled sections of the area and was rather dark and unsettling.  We drove through a gate, which looked as though it had not been functional for several years (if not decades), where little dancing, barefoot kids eating mouthfuls of fruit had replaced the guards.  We weren’t sure where Nathan was taking us – and he didn’t seem to understand my question when I asked – but it soon became clear that he was showing us two enormous, mural-painted cooling towers from a closed-power station.  Orlando, he explained, had been a power station – the brick homes that we drove by were once those of the workers and engineers; the surrounding wall used to keep the Soweto locals out.  When the station was in commission, it supplied power to much of the surrounding area, but purposefully and completely bypassed Soweto.  Today the towers are a beacon of color, beauty and art that celebrates the Soweto way of life.  Nathan explained that several years ago a student took his would-be college loan and opened up a bungee operation that drops from a small footbridge that extends between the rims of the two towers.  Inside of the towers there is a massive trampoline and you are lifted and then dropped onto it.  Surrounding the towers there are go-kart and dirt bike tracks.  Soweto has retaken its own land that it was once walled apart from and turned it into an energetic, entrepreneurial enterprise.

Our nighttime view of the towers

An online image...the picture I would have liked to have captured.

We told Nathan that we wanted to head back to Houghton and he insisted that he show us one more thing: Vilakazi street, the only street in the world that housed two Nobel prize winners.  

We drove over to Vilakazi, which was populated with tourist traps and little restaurants that had shut down for the day.  Nathan insisted that during the day this area is full of tour vans and buses and is gridlocked.  On one side of the street was the home of Desmond Tutu, a social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop. 

On the other side of the street stands the home of Nelson Mandela, which is now a museum.  The Mandela Family Restaurant, owned by his ex-wife Winnie, still operates next door. 

Nathan insisted on taking this picture of us.

Soweto is truly a unique little section of the world and it is hard to describe in words.  Having only driven through for one hour at dusk, we only got a hint of a glimpse at what this community is like.  With its vibrancy and its bondedness, it is clear why this was the heart of the movement to end apartheid.

We drove back to Houghton (a setting on the opposite end of the spectrum to Soweto) and discussed American politics and the role that large American banks played during the recession (all questions prompted by Nathan).  When we got back to Houghton, we said goodbye to Nathan (after some negotiation as to how much money I owed him) and then Jen and I went back inside to our luxurious accommodations.  We decompressed a bit, having been out of our comfort zone during the tour with Nathan at times. 

We ended our night with some delicious wine and small bites down in the fire-lit lounge of the Residence at Houghton, capped with a digestif that tasted like Amarula and Crème de Menthe (but which the bartender would not reveal) – which was truly a treat and felt even more special considering the wide range of humanity we had encountered during the day.

It was a long day – which started with an amazing game drive where we touched a rhino, included a flight and a tour of Soweto in the middle, and then ended back at our hotel with a delicious, warm meal and wine.  Tomorrow we get up early for a transfer back to the airport and continue our adventure, now in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Madiba's portrait was hanging at the entrance of our room to welcome us home for our night in Joburg.