Tourism in Johannesburg

Soweto

The second weekend I spent in Joburg, I was a lot more comfortable traveling around and so visited a couple of touristy places nearby. The first was the township of Soweto. It stands for SOuth WEst TOwnship and is one of the remnants of the Apartheid era. Soweto is spread over 100+ km square and houses more than 2 million people.This is a huge township by any standards, and was created for the African people to stay in. It started out as a place where the gold and diamond miners used to stay close to the mines but then it was forcibly converted into a African area only. Its location was also strategic, away from the city of Joburg, behind a hill so that it wasn't visible from the city!

A visit to Soweto is recommended if you want to get an idea about what Apartheid was about and what it meant for the local people. The basic aim of Apartheid was to segregate society based on colour but it led to much more than that; very congested and low quality living conditions for the local Africans.

Soweto

Today, its visited by tourists and over the years has changed a lot; still there is a long way to go to get it to par with the other areas of the town. As you drive there, you can see all levels of housing. From the barely there shacks to better constructed houses of people who could afford loans. Nowadays, there is government housing provided to the people based on how much they can afford: simple one-bedroom houses to slightly bigger ones. The new immigrants to South Africa stay in the shacks and as they go up in status, get bigger and better houses to stay.

Mandela House

We drove around the general Soweto area and stopped at three places on the way.  One was Mandela House where Nelson Mandela stayed before he was jailed for 27 years.

Pieterson Museum

The second was the Pieterson museum where Hector Pieterson, a 12 year old was shot dead by the police along with 600 other students who were peacefully demonstrating against introduction of Afrikaans as the means of teaching in schools in Soweto. It is said that it was this incident which brought world attention to Apartheid which had been going on quietly in the country for many years. It was this brutal act by the South African government which made governments across the world take notice, protest and put sanctions on South Africa.

And the the third place we stopped at was where the freedom declaration was made. Reading about what was included in the declaration makes you wonder how such basic rights also needed to be fought for!

Freedom declaration

Other than that, Soweto felt like a bustling area with lot of people; small and big businesses springing up everywhere. People from all over Africa come here to make a living. Some while away their time, while some try to make ends meet and go up in life. My guide related closely to Apartheid times and gave me a lot of his personal views.  He had been a part of the fight against Apartheid and reminisced of those times. He thought his people have moved on from those times and want to go up in life.  He realised education is most important for them now and and hence his community now wants to focus on that. He also felt that even though they were badly treated earlier, even now the whites did not consider them as part of the same country. He had also been part of the uprising and was proud of where his people had reached. But still thought there was a long way to go.

Another thing I realised when there was that in the different rungs of society, the Indians in South Africa had fared a lot better. Even though they were also segregated, they still got education and were able to get decent jobs. That is one of the reason, they did not protest as much against Apartheid, and that is why even today, they are doing better than the local Africans.

After the trip to Soweto, I spent a couple of hours at the Apartheid Museum. I had heard a lot about the Museum, but honestly was not impressed. Its a huge museum There is a lot of information in the Museum, it is just not presented in a great manner to create maximum impact. There is a lot of text written everywhere, but not as many exhibits to take the message forward.

Apartheid times

I liked the photo exhibition they had on what life was under the Apartheid Rule which I liked. And of course the entrance, where there is a separate entrance for you depending on the colour you belong to. It kind of gives you a sense of how it might have felt during those times, everything in life separated on colour and of course, quality of those things too!

I also got a chance to look at diamonds and tanzanites which are a speciality of South Africa and Tanzania respectively. The diamonds were the same as they usually are, but the tanzanites were something else. They are blue coloured rare stones found only in a mine near Kilimanjaro, and once exhausted, the stone itself will finish. I checked a couple of those in the Sandton City mall and other wholesalers there, and was impressed. An interesting buy, especially if its going to be extinct soon!

The next day, I visited a historical site, the Cradle of Humankind about an hour away from Joburg. Its the site where fossils of the oldest humanoid have been found. We did a tour of the Sterkfontein Caves, and the guide took us through the archeologists finds over the century and seemed proud of the fact than humanity had originated out of Africa. The cave he took us through was a usual one, with stalactites and stalagmites and some fossil remains still inside. However, what I found interesting was the underground lake that we saw inside the cave, apparently its depth is unknown and after 40 meters, divers had stopped searching for its end. I for one have never before seen an underground lake, so found that most interesting in the tour.

After the caves, I visited the Lion Park nearby. Its almost like a zoo with a couple of animals like cheetah, lions, meerkats, hyaenas, leopards and black leopards kept in cages. It also has a game drive where you can see white lions, plus activities like walk with the cheetah and feed the giraffes. So I would say a pretty commercialised zoo. However what drew me to the park was that they have lion cubs there with whom you can play and get photographed with!

I stood in a queue for half an hour to do just that. We got two minutes in an enclosed area where there were three cubs to play with. They were soooo cute and even more lazy, so not at all enthusiastically posing for photos. And surprisingly, their coat is not as soft as it appears to be. I feel for the cubs though, how irritated would anyone be if all day, people come and play with you. But I still loved it:).

That was mostly what touristic stuff there is to do in Johannesburg. Wasn't something out of this world, but was good anyways for a nice hectic weekend. The high for me was playing with the cubs and shopping for tanzanites though:) rather than the historical stuff.