So, yeah, I’m in Africa…
After a few hours of sleep and the end of “King King”, we finally made it to Africa. The sun was just peeking over the horizon as we neared Johannesburg, and it was pretty cool watching the shadow of dawn making its way across the ground – Africa, if you will. I saw a pretty neat fireball reflection off some lake (I’m assuming this is what it was) before we turned the other way to make our landing. And that was it; 8 hours later, and I’m in Africa. Now, if they’ll only let me stay…
For an airport immigration stop, I passed this one in record time. Due to my super spot in the front of economy, I was the 2nd person in the “Non-residents” line to pass through. The guy asked the purpose of my visit – tourism – and just let me pass. The days I had put in worrying about my proof of onward travel had amounted to nothing. I pretty much got lucky. I ran on past, gathered my luggage, passed through customs and through the doors to Africa, where everyone watched me as I came out without finding who they were looking for (a brief flashback to when I eagerly waited for Rukman, Pompei, and Eli coming out of that door in Buenos Aires).
I walked around a bit, trying to find someone to change my Brazilian reais; it was becoming more apparent that I was going to be holding on to these reais for a damn long time. Despite a direct flight from Brazil, there was not a single agency that would change them. So, with no American dollars, and about $300 worth combined of Brazilian and Uruguayan currency, I took out some South African Rand and found a place to stay.
Walking around the airport, waiting for my ride, I heard all sorts of different languages; there are 11 official languages of South Africa, most of them native-African languages. The other 2 are English and Afrikaans, which is very similar to Dutch (due to the Dutch colonization). As my ride from the hostel came, he started to talking to someone else in some language. Do you mind if I ask what language you were just speaking? “That was Zulu.” He packed my luggage in the car and reminded me that I now had to sit in the left side of the car – they drive on the right here (left side of the road, due to the English influence).
And what was that language there that you just spoke to that man? He said another language, which I don’t remember. He spoke something like 7 languages, saying that, plain and simply, if you want to talk to other people, you just have to learn their language. Makes sense.
We listened to some hip-hop as we made our way through traffic to the hostel. Is this local, or from the States, I asked. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. Now here” (a new one came on) “you are listening to Zulu hip-hop.” Good stuff.
We got to the hostel, where I unloaded my stuff and never left the whole day. I took the day to adjust to this new beast that lay ahead of me – Africa – as well as catch up on some sleep and get the lowdown on how things work here from some other travelers. I met one girl who had the great idea that I might be able to change my Brazilian reais in Mozambique (since they have the portuguese language relation and lots of Brazilians vacation there), so I considered that a possibility. I really had no plan.
The first thing I knew I had to do though, was visit the Apartheid museum while I was in Johannesburg. The next day, I had someone drop me off there (since Johannesburg is a dangerous city, you pretty much have people just cart you around from place to place; the hostel was somewhere in the suburbs, where most people live). I spent nearly 5 hours in the museum, which was full of information, videos, pictures, and the like. They were shutting the lights off as I ran down the last hallway, trying to read the last of the boards. The information stopped at the election of 1994, the first election that blacks, who are by far the major race in South Africa, were allowed to vote in. This is considered to be the end of Apartheid, when Nelson Mandela was elected president, but I was learning that it wasn’t really over.
What I found to be the most interesting about the museum was to have in front of me similar images of segregation (Blacks Only, Whites Only signs, etc.), that mirrored what was happening in the United States as well; Nelson Mandela was a contemporary of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and all the others. But, somehow, the black population in the United States was able to make amazing progress compared to that in South Africa. I have really thought about this a lot, and I can only conclude that this must be because the black population in South Africa is a majority, something that scared (or scares) the white people; giving the blacks equal rights and opportunities could only mean they would push the white people out of their positions of wealth and power.
After being carted back around town, first enjoying a nice Thai meal, then back to the hostel (where the owner of th Thai restaurant dropped me off, so I didn’t have to walk at night), I decided to leave the next day. I was in Africa, and for me now, it was all about seeing the wild animals, something I had been dreaming of for as long as I can remember. I had to just get it out of my system. The next morning I was carted to the bus station, where I learned I had missed all the buses leaving to where I wanted to go, so I rented a car (something I would need to do anyway to enter the game park) and headed to Kruger National Park.
Tags: South Africa, Tag Index
Tania