Welcome to Jo-Burg. And watch your back.

Monday, Nov. 3
Johannesburg, South Africa

I stood in the arrival gate of the Johannesburg airport feeling a bit sheepish.

A friend of a friend had offered to pick me up, but I had no idea what she looked like. I had told her how to find me: I’d have my light brown hair in a ponytail, I had written in an e-mail, and I’d be wearing a large blue backpack and carrying a small red one.

But no one approached me after I passed into the waiting area, and I realized as I rummaged through my bags that I didn’t even have her number. What were you thinking? I mumbled to myself.

That’s when I heard it: “Lexi?” A woman with large blond hair — she could have been Texan — came toward me.

“Marilyn?” I asked.

“Oh, no, I’m her mother,” the woman replied. “Marilyn is over there, looking for you.”

Lexi and the kids!

So I united with my escorts, natives of Jo-Burg. I had just one evening in the city while I waited for an early morning flight to Madagascar, and Marilyn and her husband Julian helped me see it from the perspective of a local. After lunch with their three kids and Marilyn’s parents, the couple gave me a driving tour of the city, including a quick stop in Soweto, a former African township.

The parts of Jo-Burg I saw were spread out like a suburb, and trees with beautiful purple flowers lined many of the streets. It was modern and westernized, certainly not the Africa most Americans imagine.

What struck me most was the security. Everyone says Jo-Burg is unsafe, which is partly why, as a solo female traveler, I spent most of my time in Cape Town instead. But I didn’t expect the presence of crime — or, more accurately, the effort to stop it — to be so visible.

 

A brilliant anomaly

Saturday, Nov. 1
(Happy Birthday, Dad, my biggest supporter!)
Cape Town, South Africa

So why, I asked, are many of the people in South Africa wealthy, their lifestyles modern, while much of the rest of Africa is poor and primitive?

The South African man looked at me, taking a few seconds to respond. “I’d never thought of it,” he replied.

Indeed, South Africa is a brilliant anomaly on this continent. (Why? I wasn’t there long enough to understand it entirely, but it has to do with the way the country was colonized; Europeans stayed there, while colonizers took from other countries and left.) In Cape Town, I enjoyed hot showers, washing machines and all the European and American food I could eat in three days. I also added the city to my list of Places I’d Like to Live.

Cape Town is absolutely beautiful, with ocean on one side of the city, mountains on the other. It’s paradise for the active tourist, with cycling, diving, hiking… The list goes on and on.

But the city also is interesting for another reason, one completely unrelated to the normal tourist traps: its recent history of apartheid. I knew little about the problems the country has faced, so I soaked up all I could about the struggle for equality. The city still seems to be in transition.

And yet for everything I learned about the racial tension there, I actually found it refreshing to be in an African country and see people of all colors hitting the bars together. (My hostel was on the main bar strip, so that was my reference point.)

A few highlights of my short visit:

Nelson Mandela's prison cell.

* I took a ferry to Robben Island, which holds the former prison where Nelson Mandela, who would go on to lead his country, was locked up for decades. Part of the reason the tour was so fascinating was because the tour guide was an ex-political prisoner, and he shared details about his experience there. We got to check out the cell that served as Mandela’s home.

 * Below, you’ll see a view of Table Mountain from the waterfront, where I caught the ferry. Beautiful, right? Two days after taking this photo, I climbed the mountain, visited the restaurant on the top, then caught a cable car for the descent. 

View of Table Mountain from near the waterfront.