Johannesburg in a day

It was a 5 hour drive from Drakensberg to Jahannesburg. To start with the scenery was interesting, mountains, escarpments and dams, once we got away from the Drakensberg it was basically straight roads all the way to Johannesburg. I was staying at Bob’sBackpackers, in the east of the city, handily, very close to the airport.

With only one day in Johannesburg I had to make the most of it, so I joined a tour of the city, Soweto township and visited the Apartheid Museum. I had been warned by numerous people that “Johannesburg is dangerous”, “don’t stay very long” and “don’t go out on your own”. I didn’t feel that way when out and about on the tour, but I had taken the tour partly to avoid trying to find out.

Our guide Jabu was very informative throughout the day, he has been running tours for the past 20 years, he was born in Soweto and lives there now with his family. Our first stop was in the city at the Carlton Centre, which had a lift to 45 floors up, where you could get great views of the city. In cities I always like to get as high as possible to get my bearings, see the layout of the city and pick out the top spots to visit.

Soweto, coming from “South western township”, was created in 1904 as a place to move non-whites to, out of the city, but allowing them to be close enough to use for work. The population of Soweto is over 4 million, while Johannesburg itself is only 1.5 million. Today there are still tin roofed shacks, but alongside them are purpose built housing schemes and private built houses.

We visited the Orlando Towers, visible form all over Soweto. They are two old decommissioned coal fired power station towers that have been painted in colourful murals depicting events in South Africa and corporate branding. You can bungee from between the two towers if you want!

On the road Orlando West, is the original home of Nelson Mandela, now a museum telling his story from when he lived in Soweto, and just round the corner on Vilakazi Street, Desmond Tutu has his Johannesburg home. We had lunch nearby at a restaurant called Sakhumzi, it was a buffet of all different types of South African food.

The afternoon was taken up visiting the Apartheid Museum, at first I though an entire afternoon was too much time to spend in a museum, but I was wrong. The museum was very informative, powerful and moving. The museum tells the story of the rise and fall of apartheid. There are 32 exhibits, with some temporary or visiting exhibitions, all laid out on a very easy to follow path. When you are issued your ticket, you are randomly classed on the ticket as white or non-white, this dictates which entrance you use and which path you take through the first exhibit.

There was an extensive exhibition based on Nelson Mandela which was very interesting and told his life story in pictures, videos, words and effects. It was interesting seeing this having visited Robben Island in Cape Town and having visited his house at 8115 Orlando West earlier in the day.