Category Archives: South Africa

Crazy Taxi – South Africa Edition

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Try to Avoid it...

Try to Avoid it...

Why did we do it? We had little choice. Was there no other option? No, there wasn’t. These are only a few of the questions we found ourselves asking one another as we took our first African “Public Taxi”.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start at the beginning: LeeAnne and I realized that our passports where slowly filling up. In fact, we probably wouldn’t have enough room for all the immigration stamps we’d get before returning to the states. The solution seemed easy enough – we’d go to the US Consulate in Cape Town and have them add extra pages, it’s a free service and it take 20 minutes.

Now, the issue is the location of the consulate. Despite all the empty office space downtown the US Consulate is located way, way, way out in the suburbs, past the train lines. We’d have to take a train, then a cab to get out there. Okay, no problem – we hop on a train and head out to “Retreat Station”.

Now, downtown there are cabs and buses flying left and right. Not so out in Retreat. Here there are only “Public Taxi’s”. So what is a Public Taxi? Public Taxi’s fill the void between Cabs and Buses, they’re independently operated like cabs, but carry a lot of people like buses. And in many African cities where public transportation is sparse they are the only option.

Here’s how it works: The Taxi’s are really vans converted to carry as many people as possible. Imagine 15 to 18 people in a minivan. They run set routes like buses, so don’t expect to get in, tell them where you want to go and have them drop you off there like a cab. You’ll have to whistle or yelp to get the drivers attention when you see where you want to get off.

From the train station you go to the taxi stand and ask someone which taxi will take you to a certain part of town. From there you load up and wait for the van to fill up, the driver won’t leave until he’s full. When you’re off on the road, keep an eye out for your destination (hard to do when it’s your first time in town), as the driver is not looking out for you.

We made it out to the embassy in something like a timely manner, had our pages added in nothing flat and then had to figure out how to get back into town. We were very open to non Public Taxi options so we consulted the good ladies at the Consulates main gate. “Where’s your car?” was their first question. They then gaped at us in disbelief as we explained we took a public taxi out – it seems there aren’t a lot of white tourists taking Public Taxi’s to the Consulate these days.

After taking a moment to grasp what we said they gave us directions to the nearest public taxi pick-up, told us not to pay more that 4.50 Rand and wished us the best of luck.

Overall, I’m glad we did it. It’s good to see how normal folks get around when you travel, but I’m glad we don’t have to go out to the Consulate again. Thanks Crazy Taxi.

Poverty & Apartheid

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Kliptown, Soweto

Kliptown, Soweto

Despite the bad wrap and the inconvenience of being a tourist in Johannesburg, a trip there is well worth it to be able to visit Soweto and spend time in the Apartheid Museum. I would recommend, however, that you do not visit both in the same day like we did. It’s a tremendous amount of information and emotion to absorb in one day.

We visited quite a few landmarks throughout Soweto, but one highlight was certainly walking through Kliptown with Bob and learning about his work with the SKY Foundation. Kliptown is one of several townships that make up Soweto (South Western Townships). At the surface it didn’t seem significantly different than some of the squatter settlements that I have visited in South America. People live in varied housing from more established brick houses to small tin shacks, the water and sanitation services are limited at best (there are 18 water faucets for 45,000 people!), and there appears to be some sense of community and self help support.

The real difference seems to be that the townships were intentionally set up as part of a state strategy. These communities are not just the result of people leaving the countryside to look for opportunity in an urban area. Some of the first inhabitants of Soweto were forcibly removed from Sophiatown, a vibrant black community closer to Johannesburg. Once the houses were bulldozed, a new white suburb replaced Sophiatown.

I’ll admit that for me, Soweto was just the name of a township where I imagined a lot of poor black folk live. I had no real sense of how it came to be or the important role that it played in the fight against apartheid. (Did I miss this day in school? Probably not.) Similarly, I can remember talk of apartheid and the boycotts against South Africa back in the 80s, but I could never have grasped the extent to which people were oppressed.

Though this trip is equal parts fun and adventure, it’s also been an opportunity to better understand other peoples’ history and their struggles. No matter how much we learned (or didn’t learn) in school or by reading books, there’s no substitute for seeing, listening and experiencing first hand.

The Viewing Game – Krueger National Park

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Giraffes!

Giraffes!

After a little taste of wildlife viewing in Zimbabwe and Botswana, we were pretty psyched to head to Krueger National Park in northeastern South Africa for a four day safari. We were even more excited to be sharing the experience with friends from the States. Our friends Mary, Paul and Jack met up with us in Johannesburg for a week of sights and safari before they head to Uganda for a two week cycling trip. (Very cool!)

The thing about Krueger is that it’s huge – the size of Wales. As a result, you have to be extra patient while you ride about in an open vehicle with every ounce of clothing on wrapped up in a wool blanket. It is winter here. The chilly mornings and long drives are definitely worth it. Krueger has the greatest variety of animals in Southern Africa and is home to all of the “Big Five” – lions, leopards, buffalo, elephants and rhinos. Did you ever wonder why they call them the Big Five? I didn’t know and couldn’t figure out why the buffalo rated as one of the Big Five. I mean, we have buffalo in the U.S. Big deal. Turns out Big Five means the five most dangerous land mammals – or so I was told. Mr. Buffalo is big and bad.

While we didn’t spot any rhinos or leopards, we had many encounters with elephants and buffalo along with many other animals and birds. But perhaps the biggest highlight of our time in Krueger was watching lions. Our first sighting was on a night drive. As Dave was holding the spotlight in search of eyes glowing in the dark, we rolled right up on a pride of 10 lions laying at the very edge of the road. We were speechless. Uh, uh, uh stop please. No wait. Move ahead just a little. It just didn’t seem right to be sitting in an open vehicle feet away from these guys. Really amazing. And we were just about to give up on the night drive which until the lions had only resulted in seeing the glowing red eyes of the bush baby hopping from tree to tree. Not that I am underestimating the bush baby. he was cute too.

It always seemed kind of strange to me the whole idea of going on a safari. Like something you have to have a lot of money, khaki clothes and a funny hat to do. But observing wildlife in its own environment is absolutely fascinating and can be done for a resonable amount of money. Of course sometimes the animals don’t always stop and pose for you, but just watching a giraffe chomping on leaves is entertaining. These animals are just surreal. Well, ok not the buffalo so much, but we’ll still respect his bad-assness.