South Africa Journal

Day 17

Johannesburg
1.2.18 - 49 miles

Apartheid Museum Maboneng Johannesburg Swaziland

Lesotho

Cape Town

above left and middle: Apartheid Museum snapshots;
above right: a heavy break at the museum restaurant
for lunch (Lorene’s last bobotie); opposite: a museum
walkway with life-size cut-outs of generations of apartheid
survivors



top left: Gisa’s final stats; bottom left: an example of the old
and new juxtaposition of buildings in Joburg; right: an up-close
of Ponte Tower on our way back from returning Gisa; opposite:
Travis looking sad to part with Gisa



DAY 18

Johannesburg - Soweto

01.03.18

Thanks to a recommendation from Senzo, we signed up for a walking tour of Soweto today with neighboring Curiocity
Backpackers in Maboneng. Before departing with our group, we walked the neighborhood to try to find breakfast, but found
many restaurants closed for the holiday season. It’s clear Johannesburg is quiet this time of year, with many restaurants,
shops, and museums closed from mid-December to mid-January. From all we heard about traffic problems (comparable to LA
and Mexico City), at least we avoided this aspect of the city during our stay.
At Curiocity, we met our tour guide, Tshepo, and 10 others for our tour. Soweto, an acronym formed from “south-west townships”,
is a former segregated neighborhood of Johannesburg and was the scene of violent anti-apartheid riots in the 70s and 80s. It
also contains some of the poorest areas of the city. Born and raised in Soweto, our guide Tshepo is a young, personable guy
and happy to share the history and culture of his neighborhood with us. Due to his association with a local orphanage, Little
Rose, he could walk our small group into the poorest area to witness daily life here.
Packs of children quickly ran up to us and grabbed our arms – asking that we pick them up and swing them, touching us to see
if we’re painted because our white skin is so foreign to them. A few also yelled, “Shoot me! Shoot me!” wanting us to take their
picture and show them the image. The children walked with us as we entered narrow walkways between homes made from
scraps of tin, corrugated metal, even road signs. People are clearly industrious with what they can find and use. Front porches
are enclosed with spring-coil mattress frames, and metal roofs are secured down with large rocks. The only running water and
toilets are in central crossings which amount to a few port-a-potties and a water spicket. The only way residents have secured
electricity is by illegally tapping into the nearest street light poles at the edges of their neighborhood. Along the roads, people
block traffic hauling large bags on wheels (8’ tall at times) filled with plastic bottles for recycling. For many it is their main form
of income. This walking experience was incredibly eye-opening and humbling. So much runs through your mind as you witness
such poverty, yet the children have huge grins and find great pleasure in the simplest things. It certainly made us rethink what
is necessary in life, and what is truly life-giving.
After this walk, we went through the Orlando neighborhood of Soweto – an area rich in history during apartheid. Both Nelson
Mandela and Desmond Tutu lived here and it’s home to the Hector Pieterson Memorial. A pivotal riot took place here in 1976
when students protested against a new government mandate that all schools use Afrikaans as the language of instruction in
black secondary schools. Out of hundreds of students, Hector was the youngest killed on this day at 12 years old.
Tshepo took us to an authentic “shebeen” for lunch called ‘The Shack’. A shebeen was the term for an illegal drinking
establishment during apartheid, as blacks weren’t allowed to drink. Here, blacks fermented their own ‘Joburg Beer’ in 3-4
days by using sorghum, corn, and water with yeast. While it smelled like sweaty feet and swallowed like the thickness of milk,
we all took a sip for the experience. We were also given a traditional lunch consisting of packaged meat and cheese on top of
fries all squished between a large po-boy type of bun. Not light fare, that’s for sure, but surprisingly good.
After our day in Soweto, we enjoyed a late afternoon snack and more fancy gin & tonic in Braamfontein, another up-and-coming
neighborhood in central Joburg. We then returned to Maboneng for our last evening out. Tshepo invited us to a rooftop cookout
at Curiocity for the evening. We were treated to a free braai and cocktails on a roof overlooking the entire skyline at sunset.
After talking at length to a Dutch couple who were also on the Soweto tour with us, we ended our evening at a hookah lounge
near our apartment. The night couldn’t have been a better conclusion to our trip and particularly Johannesburg.

Day 18 Johannesburg Swaziland

Johannesburg Lesotho
1.3.18

Braamfontein
Maboneng

Soweto

Cape Town





previous spread: The view above the poorest
neighborhood in Soweto, as seen from the second story
of the Little Rose orphanage; above: serious eyes to huge
smiles; opposite: makeshift buildings find electricity by
tapping into nearby streetpoles



top left: Nelson Mandela’s former house (now museum) in Orlando;
top right: traditional lunch (thick white bread wraps french fries,
processed cheese and meat); bottom left: Hector Pieterson
Memorial; bottom right and opposite: Tshepo takes us to a
traditional shebeen and offers us a (very small) sip of Joburg Beer



top left: Senzo, our Maboneng AirBnB host, and neighborhood wheeler & dealer; top
middle: I call this one ‘Travis in an elevator’; top right: one last white taxi framed by
the Joburg skyline; bottom left: a new Maboneng condo building made of shipping
containers; bottom middle: Travis trying to teach me how to hookah; bottom right:
the struggle is real to find drinkable water at times; opposite: last night in Joburg



above: sunset view from Curiocity’s rooftop braai;
opposite: Tshepo, our Soweto guide and rooftop host



DAY 19

Johannesburg - Ponte Tower

01.04.18

Yesterday we realized Tshepo is a well-connected local, so we asked him if he knew anyone who could give us a
tour of Ponte Tower. He immediately put us in touch with a friend of his who could. The tower is a defining feature
of the Johannesburg skyline and a place of interest to us for multiple reasons. It towers ominously above the
skyline as the tallest residential building in Africa (55 stories). Architecturally speaking, the building is an anomaly
- cylindrical but hollow in the middle. The open center known as “the core” rises above an uneven rock floor. The
tower has a very storied past that mirrors the 20th-century history of a segregated city.
So after finding a storage room for all our luggage through another Senzo connection, we chose to walk to Ponte
from Maboneng. The Ponte neighborhood is still very run-down and mostly social housing, so to say we stood out
is an understatement. After getting thoroughly confused as to how to approach the entrance of Ponte, we finally
found our way onto the top of the plinth on which it sits. After uncomfortably waiting outside for 30 minutes for our
guide to arrive, we met Gilbert, a young guy raised in the Congo who gave us a tour. He explained the building’s
history as one that was initially extremely desirable upon completion in 1976 and entirely white. ‘Mixing’ began
to happen in the neighborhood shortly thereafter, where white and black couples illegally resided. As a result, the
government removed all utilities and public services (fire, police, electricity) from the area. Ponte quickly declined
and its white residents fled to the suburbs. By the 80’s, a building designed for 2,500 white residents with 484
units was occupied by 10,000 black squatters. When apartheid ended in 1994, the situation grew worse as
immigration (and squatting) increased and gangs controlled the building. Ponte became symbolic of the crime
and urban decay of the city. The core filled with trash 14 stories above the rocky ground level.
The city only recently decided to invest in the building after a couple failed attempts by foreign investors. It took
three years to remove the trash from the core, and in the process, we were told 30-something bodies were found
in the toxic waste. Now, the building has a waiting list, the interior glazing is welded shut and the stair along the
internal core is boarded. Gilbert told us a top-story apartment with panoramic views is Rand 6,000 per month
(roughly $430). It was exciting for us to see a unit on the top floor and look down the central core. Gilbert also
walked us down to the bedrock where we could look up to the sky above and imagine the 14 stories of trash that
would have been piled above us only a decade ago.
After spending a couple hours at Ponte, we were back in Maboneng and found Ethiopian for lunch before heading
to the airport. The return flight time wasn’t something we were looking forward to – an overnight 8.5-hour flight
to Abu Dhabi followed by a 17-hour flight to Los Angeles. Landing in LA felt like light years away. The particularly
smoggy touchdown was a relief but certainly bittersweet.

Day 19 Johannesburg Swaziland

Johannesburg
1.4.18
Ponte Tower

Lesotho

Cape Town

above: the first view of Ponte Tower as
we entered Joburg on New Year’s Day;
opposite: we definitely were out of place
on our walk to Ponte from Maboneng. not
recommended but memorable



above left: Ponte hallway; above right: the view from a
top-story apartment; opposite: the view down into Ponte’s
open atrium from the 54th floor (including the now boarded-
up internal stairwell)



above: the site is on a steep hill of bedrock; the
podium of parking and building above were built
on this bedrock as-is



above left: a single unwelded window;
above right: in its worst days, trash piled
up to 5 floors above the criss-cross stairs
in this photo; opposite: view up from the
bedrock



top left: Lorene making it happen in Abu Dhabi at some unknown
hour; bottom left: our last meal, Ethiopian, in SA; right: Travis flying
in style on Etihad Airways; opposite: who knew Tehran had snowy
mountains?



above left: an especially smoggy return
to LA; above right: Lorene, greasy hair,
bloated feet, coffee, and lots of luggage

Los Angeles

Abu
Dhabi

Johannesburg