Tales From the Chicken Bus

Day 242

We spent yesterday hanging out in the trendy Melville area of Jo’Burg and booking some travel plans. This part of Johannesburg was certainly not the bad you always read about. It was full of independent shops, great second hand bookstores, bars and restaurants. We also noticed a good mix of black, white, brown and any other person you could think of. Melville was refreshing and different than anything else we had experienced in South Africa. To common a “nicer” area in South Africa merely means white up scale shopping malls, filled with chain stores and chain restaurants. However the small area of Melville was certainly not that. Of all the South African cities we’ve been to it was our favourite spot hands down. Right, so you heard it here. As is the case in any large city, if you stay in the right neighbourhood in Johannesburg you can easily enjoy the city and dare I say even like it.

We were enjoying it, also staying at iDube helped. The great pool was very welcoming in the 32 degree heat. Today however we were off to see some sights. Transportation may be the biggest issue as a tourist here. Public transit is almost non existent and the transit that does exist is considered to dangerous to ride. So Jordana and I have rented a car. Yep, call us crazy but it is easily the best way to get around and outside the city the highways are just like home.

We jumped in a cab to pickup to car which was downtown at Budget Car Rental. Tim, an American from D.C. came along for the ride as we were going to drive to the Apartheid museum after. Everything went smoothly at the office and soon enough I was climbing into the unfamiliar right side to drive off. Oh and as the cars here are all manual transmission that was another challenge, I drive an automatic at home. Although when I was 21 I worked a summer as a car jockey at a dealership, so I drove manual there. Besides its not that hard. I climbed in to the brand new Toyota Yaris, it only had 3250 km on it, adjusted my mirrors and started the car. So far so good. “Ok, first gear and let’s go!” I drove out of the garage and into the madness of downtown Johannesburg.

“Really? You haven’t ever driven stick”? Tim commented as I explained my lack of experience. I think he may have been worried. Actually I was doing OK, the toughest thing was getting used to shifting with my left hand and of course driving on the left-side! “Left, left, left”. I kept repeating in my head everytime I turned a corner. Which was often since we couldn’t find the on ramp for the M2 south. Soon we did and 10 minutes later on the edge of Soweto we arrived at the Apartheid Museum.

We paid our entrance and entered the large and impressive structure. We were assigned a race as we entered. I was “non-white” and Jordana “white”. Each of us had to enter via separate doors and start the museum separately. Instantly the smiles we may have been wearing as we strolled in were wiped from our faces. This museum was incredible. Beginning with the arrival of the first Europeans they traced the policies that led to apartheid. Also shown were intriguing movies of life under apartheid, British news interviews of a young Nelson Mandela before going to prison and propaganda videos from the National Party on why apartheid was needed. Actually they called it a form of “togetherness”, I’m not sure what that means though. Walking through I was left depressed, confused and filled with anger. Yet inspired by the end of it. The museum finishes with the release of Mandela, apartheid finally ending and of course the first democratic elections in 1994. When you see how hard the struggle was and the never ending will of those involved you can’t help but be inspired. I’m not going to go into the historic details of apartheid here but I can tell you that I never really understood how far reaching, organised, sick and disturbing apartheid was. Although the more I knew about it the most confused I was about South Africa, to say its a complex society is an understatement. As we left the museum I was reminded again what has made travelling in South Africa exciting for myself. Even though I’ve sometimes have said the tourist sights are a bit bland, the really interesting thing here has been observing the country. Democracy, an apartheid free country, all these are so new here you really are watching history in the making in South Africa.

We spent 3 hours at the museum, most of the day. We safely and easily drove back to Melville and went grocery shopping. In the morning we are off on safari in Kruger and planning to self cater as much as possible. After shopping and before the evil of darkness fell (I’m exaggerating about evil, kinda) we were back at iDube for a swim, dinner and looking at a map for our 500km drive towards Kruger in the morning.

Day 229

The main reason I wanted to spend 2 nights in Port Elizabeth or PE as its referred to locally, was to do a tour into the townships. There are tours into the townships in several other cities but the history here in Port Elizabeth had me interested. Finally we were going to get a look at how much of South Africa lives and hopefully learn something along the way.

Before we could do any of that however we had other things to deal with. Jordana walked out of the shower and found yet again a tick in her. In case you are keeping score at home, this would be the 4th one of the trip for her. This bad boy had embedded himself in her arm. Since I removed 2 others quite easily in South America I grabbed the twezers and figured this would be easy. I grabbed its body and wiggled. The trick is you don’t want to pull and snap the tick. That way you leave the head inside of you and bad things happen. Wow, this tick was really hanging on. I couldn’t get the tick out so I stopped. I figured we could just go to a doctor. That’s when Jordana decided to try for herself. Two tries and she managed to snap the tick, leaving the head inside her arm. Great! So our plans had now changed for the day. We were to leave for the tour at 1:30pm. First we asked about a doctor to figure out what to do about Jordana and her tick.

We were directed to a doctor office not far away. African ticks are actually less dangerous than American ones. Lyme disease is not present here but you can get tick bite fever. Which is a bad fever, not life threatening mind you. “Oh dear, in a few days you will be very sick and won’t be able to lift your arm”, said the receptionist. Well thanks that’s just what we needed to hear. Actually its not so bad. We received some info on tick bites and picked up a rub to clean the area and some pills in case Jordana develops a fever. The other treatment is Doxicyclin, a strong antibiotic that we just happen to have loads of since its also an anti-malarial. Jordana was to take 2 a day for 10 days. So with that we were off and comfortable that everything should be just fine.

With the doctor visit taken care of quickly we were now ready for our tour. Simbosy picked us up from our hostel and we climbed into his van. The tour was to be just the two of us. We began in Park Town, an upscale neighbourhood near the centre of PE. We stopped near a small park overlooking a river behind a residential area. Our guide explained how the British had settled here and just over the road was where traditional African life went on. People lived in huts and their cattle roamed freely. This was a problem, the rich Europeans didn’t want all this mess from the cows so when the plague hit PE they claimed the Africans were to blame. Claiming they lived in dirty conditions that spread the disease. Someone must have missed the part about the Europeans introducing the disease to Africa. So, this led to the first African township in 1902, New Brighton. By the way, the word “township” simple means a town has been shipped, township. The Africans were forced out to this new unfamiliar home. The beginnings of apartheid.

From here we traced the history of forced removals through to the 1960 and ’70’s. Driving through the city it was hard to imagine being told you had to leave your home, especially for people who had lived off the land for so long. Eventually we reached New Brighton about 7km north of the city. The South Africa we had been in for the last 2 weeks felt a world away. Shacks stretched across the bleak landscape. We drove on a paved main road, all the others were dirt and mostly mud with all the rain there has been. The streets were full of life, stalls selling food, SIM cards for phones, clothing and anything else you could imagine. I realized how easy it was to travel in South Africa and not see this side of it. Half of PE’s population lives in the townships.

Our guide gave us the history of the area with a strong emphasis on the local struggle against the government. It was here in Port Elizabeth that the first place to stage passive resistance to the pass laws and the birthplace of the MK, the ANC’s (African National Congress’) armed wing. Current president Thabo Mbeki’s father was from here. Govan Mbeki, one of the founders of the ANC. Consequently Nelson Mandela spent a lot of time here. We came to another stop at the Red Location Museum of the People’s Struggle. Located in Brighton but referred to as Red Location due to the rusted corrugated-iron shacks located here.

The museum was incredible. An impressive building designed by Swedish architects and actually won an award, the Lubetkin Prize given to the most outstanding work of architecture outside the European Union. The best part is that is located right in the township, definitely striking set amongst shacks. Inside we were guided around the excellent displays on different events, tragedies and massacres that occurred here. All in the fight to end apartheid. It was an eye opening experience to say the least. The museum also functions as a community centre for youth in the area.

We moved on through some other townships while we asked questions about what life is like here. Its a strange thing, you would think people would leave the first chance they get. They don’t though. From what I gather the race divide is still so huge here that even if someone from a township had the means to move they just wouldn’t fit in a white neighbourhood. So generally people have their lives here now, their friends and family. To an outsider like myself its really hard to understand how a society can function being so split apart.
At the end of the tour we were dropped off at back at our hostel. Our guide was perfect, filled with information and open to any questions. It was an added bonus that he was actually from New Brighton, grew up there and owned his travel company. I would rate the day as one of my most enjoyable. As beautiful as South Africa has been so far it all feels a bit glossed over at times. Today I felt we finally saw the way most people actually live in this country. I all the places we’ve travelled I’ve never seen such a division between rich and poor and races.

As the darkness fell the dark clouds rolled in and the rain began to pour down yet again. We made a curry for dinner at the hostel and stayed in our cosy room for the night. Tomorrow we get an early start to head up the coast to the intriguingly named, Wild Coast.