Weekend 4: Johannesburg

For my last weekend in South Africa, I headed to Johannesburg, or, as most people call it  “Joburg,” or “Jozi” if you’re really local. Downtown Joburg is only about an hour’s drive from Pretoria, so it really wasn’t much of a trek. Some people even do the commute daily, especially if they work for the government or NGOs in Pretoria and want to live in more of a bustling city.

My good friend had gotten his MBA at Duke with an American fellow named JC, who started a job in Joburg just after I arrived in Pretoria. Our mutual friend put us in touch, and I planned to visit him in Joburg on my last weekend here, so he could show me around and I would (gratefully) have a place to stay. So I hopped on the Gautrain on Saturday morning and our adventure began!

Bungee jumping in Soweto

He picked me up around 9AM, and after dropping my bags at his spacious apartment in Illovo (a lovely neighborhood), we met up with a bunch of his coworkers to head to a big soccer game at FNB Stadium (also called Soccer City) which was built for the World Cup. We first stopped at a sort of makeshift restaurant and bar called Chaf Pozi, which was located underneath the famous Soweto landmark of these two former nuclear reactors that have since been painted with beautiful murals, and a bungee jump bridge has been erected between the two. So we hung out, had a braai lunch, drank some beers and watched the bungee jumpers. Then all 40 of us piled into rented taxi minibuses, and headed to the stadium to see the Orlando Pirates play the Kaizer Chiefs.

These are apparently the two most popular soccer teams in the South African league, and they both happen to come from Soweto – the biggest township in the world (and a fairly impoverished mini-city on the outskirts of Joburg). This game was actually an exhibition sponsored by Carling Beer and didn’t count toward any standings (kind of like the Beanpot in Boston – it’s really just about winning bragging rights/team pride), but it was exciting because the fans actually got to vote for the starting lineup of their team via SMS, and could make substitutions throughout the game via SMS as well. Kind of crazy when you think about it, but definitely kept everyone engaged. So as you can perhaps imagine, it was about 4 hours of total mayhem – fans painted from head to toe in team colors, wrapped in team flags, wearing crazy hats, doing crazy dances, and NONSTOP vuvuzela blowing. Remember hearing it droning in the background constantly during the World Cup games? It is deafening in person. I had an absolute blast watching the spectacle, but I came home with a splitting headache. I don’t know how you could avoid it!

Soccer City stadium 

A Chiefs fan getting into it

The group that I was with!

After the game, we headed back to JC’s place to rehydrate and recover, and headed to dinner at a nice little Italian place in Illovo. We then met another group of his friends at a bar next door called the Griffin (which was super cool and could have been straight out of downtown NYC), who were celebrating his roommate’s birthday. It was a great group, and we spent the evening laughing about strange English South African-isms (like “shame,” which people say all the time and can literally mean “what a shame” or, some bizarre positive reinforcement, like “what a cute baby, shame!” or “sharp” which is pronounced more like “shop” and means “cool” or even just “yeah”). Everyone was so supportive and interested to hear about what JC and I were doing in South Africa. South Africans really seem to be touched when they find out that foreigners, especially Americans, have visited their country to try to lend a hand in development. A few of the group were doctors and nurses, and when I told them about the booklet I was working on, they were quite excited and encouraging, which was really nice to hear. It was a great night of meeting new people and having some really fulfilling conversation.

The next morning, we hit Market on Main, which is a Sunday food market that is part of Arts

Market on Main

on Main, an up-and-coming artsy “hipster area” in downtown Joburg that I had heard people raving about. And it was AWESOME. It reminded me so much of an indoor Smorgasburg (part of the Brooklyn Flea Market), with cute little signs everywhere and a lovely display at each stall with very appetizing food and drinks. After doing a few laps we settled on breakfast burritos, which were fantastic, and some delicious coffee. We took our breakfast to a little outdoor seating area and feasted in the warm sun.

World's smallest microbrewery?

Once fed, we wandered around the rest of Arts on Main, which had a little microbrewery (of course, what’s a hipster market without a microbrewery?) and a few art galleries with really cool work. There was also a great little clothing boutique, with not-so-great New York prices (like a $70 sweatshirt). We also walked around outside a bit, and the neighborhood continued to remind me of the Williamsburg waterfront – great little shops and restaurants everywhere you turned. We also saw a woman hosting a guitar class for little girls on the street, teaching them how to play “Diamonds” by Rihanna. It was adorable. And we passed this great chalkboard wall (which I’ve actually seen photos of elsewhere in the world) where people could write what they want to do before they die, and I was humbled to see that more than a few said “see New York City.” I guess I’m pretty lucky to be heading there on Thursday and calling it home.

Awesome painting of Soweto life

"Before I Die..." chalk wall

Impromptu guitar class

The next stop was the Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve, about an hour’s drive away. After getting fairly lost (thanks for nothing Google Maps), taking a few detours through the kid-filled unmarked streets of Soweto, and driving through the Cradle of Humankind (where some of the oldest human fossils in the world have been found), we finally made it to the

Oryx  and some black wildebeest

park. It’s a big reserve that does have some accommodation and game drives, but mostly people seem to come for the day and do self-drives through the reserve, like we did. We saw sable antelope, waterbucs, buffalo, hippos, oryx, black wildebeest, white lions, rhino and more than I’m sure I’m forgetting – all awesome, again!

We slowly made our way up to the end goal – the Animal Creche, where some endangered and baby animals are kept in enclosures and you can play with them! A little sad to know that they weren’t out in the wild with their parents, but at least it was better than an awful zoo with concrete floors and bars on their cages. Here they were just kept in large penned-in sections of the reserve. We saw lots of adorable baby animals, including a sleeping leopard (all of these cats are seriously lazy), cheetah, more lions and tigers (randomly – what are Bengal tigers doing in Africa?). And THEN it was time to play with the lions. For a mere $3 we spent about 10 minutes with four brown lion cubs and one white lion cub, and they were awesome. Seriously the cutest things ever, with humongous paws (and sharp claws, which I managed to avoid and JC did not) and big curious eyes. Their fur is very coarse and thick – I imagined it being softer, probably because they were acting like (fairly) domesticated animals. They played around with us just like puppies, we snapped as many photos as we could, and then sadly our time was up.

Sleeping baby leopard. Look at those paws!

Cheetah having a staring contest with me

SO HAPPY to be petting a lion cub

JC befriending the white lion cub

We then took a quick spin through the reptile area, wore a boa constrictor for a minute (insanely heavy snake), and made our way back to the car. We drove through the “predator area” and saw lions feeding on a buffalo or red hartebeest carcass (couldn’t tell which, it was mostly just flesh and bones...ew), and went looking for cheetah. Just as we were getting frustrated that we couldn’t find any, we noticed the car ahead of us had slowed down, and sure enough, a large cheetah walked right up to our car! It sniffed around the tires for a bit, stared at us, and walked away. Wild (literally!).

Slowly being strangled by the boa constrictor

Lion having lunch

Cheetah about to hop in the car

At that point it was time to say goodbye to the animals, and we got back on the road to Joburg where JC dropped me back at the Gautrain station. It was a most excellent way to spend my last weekend in this awesome country.

I can’t believe that my last week is officially here. I have 3 days of work this week, and then I'm visiting the Apartheid museum on Thursday before my evening flight (since I wasn’t able to get to it this weekend, and it’s supposed to be a must-see).

Today I’m working on finalizing my recommendation for the re-branding and signage overhaul at one of the local clinics here, as a pilot (just a quick side project that I was given last week), which the Dept of Health will then roll out to the other 48 clinics in the country if it works well. I’m crossing my fingers that I can be as productive as possible during these last days – although of course, as luck would have it, I won’t see the first draft of the booklet from the design agency until Wednesday afternoon. I knew things would start moving just as I’m getting ready to go!

More to come, likely from the plane home!