My first time in Africa was marked by my arrival in Cape Town on the southern tip of South Africa at some point in mid-November. A week there was more than enough to make me fall completely in love with the city and the South African way of life.
With a friend of mine from Salzburg, we then ventured across the southern part of this vast and varied continent for a challenging and rewarding southern Africa roadtrip that would see us exploring six diverse countries and having life-changing experiences. We undertook such an intense adventure, witnessing surreal landscapes and facing adverse struggles, that we both came out of it exhausted and pushed to the very limits of our comfort zones, yet utterly grateful for the privilege of such an experience.
Nikias was headed back home to Europe immediately following the roadtrip, yet I was facing another solo month on the continent. And so the struggle to decompress and comprehend the wildness of our roadtrip and process what we'd been through laid the foundation of my week in Johannesburg, the end point of our southern African roadtrip. Nikias dropped me off at the Curiocity Hostel in the heart of Maboneng before he made his way back to the airport.
All of the safety warnings and fears we had had elsewhere on the continent paled in comparison to the stomach-dropping feeling we felt as we entered JoBurg. At one point Google Maps directed us off the highway into the smaller streets to reach the hostel; immediately, signs of "Smash & Grab Hotspot" and "Car Hijacking Hotspot" at intersections, in combination with the red lights being turned off so as to not make drivers linger for too long, and groups of men standing idly roadside heightened our senses and we knew immediately we needed to get back on the fast-driving, no-stopping highway for as long as we could before we had to turn off for the hostel.
We hated it. Johannesburg is notoriously ranked one of the most dangerous cities in Africa. Unfortunately, the lawlessness of the city and the corruption at every level of society, in combination with rampant poverty, has provided a breeding ground for crime. The moment I checked into my hostel and was left behind by Nikias in tears and feeling shocked at my sudden loneliness on this continent, I was warned by the receptionist to never go out alone and if I did, to not bring anything with me that could easily be plucked away by pickpocketers with hungry fingers.
And so, I faced a week indoors. Thankfully, the hostel was a little haven in the city. JoBurg Airport is one of the busiest on the entire continent, providing connections to many destinations, so travelers are many here. However, most, sensibly, use it simply as a stopover.
JoBurg is the largest city in South Africa and the downtown core is said to be the richest square mile on the continent. Historically established as a prosperous gold mining city, the gold mines are now legally closed down and many now occupied illegally by gangs with very territorial notions. JoBurg was the home of Mandela and Tambo's law firm, the first black-owned law firm in the entire country. Nelson Mandela is of course world famous, with his arrest for treason linked to the creation of the ANC and his subsequent 27-year imprisonment on Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town. The Curiocity Hostel where I stayed was actually the home of the Pacific Printing Press which, during apartheid, published materials for the ANC and Black Sash even claiming to offer refuge to the likes of Mandela himself.
The one time I left the hostel was on that first hot Sunday afternoon in a guided tour group led by a local JoBurg-ian who masterfully led us through the streets, showing us the rampant poverty and issues of the city, but also attempting to highlight the places were local investments are providing a space for safety, art, culture and livelihoods to thrive, such as the Maboneng district itself. This was marred by him pointing out the buildings that were knocked down due to murders, or the adjacent buildings where all the electricity and water had been cut but was bursting to the seams with illegal squatters in the drug trade. It was a jarring experience.
In summary, I wouldn't recommend JoBurg to anyone, yet I am grateful to have witnessed it for my own eyes, to have had a safe space in the city to spend many hours processing and writing blog posts of our cross-African roadtrip, and read hundreds of pages of my books in peace and quiet - and also because up to twelve hours a day of loadshedding (aka planned power outages, including no internet) forced me to.
Here are some photographs of the one time I stepped outside - they do not do justice to the many complex layers of this city but they provide a glimpse of what I saw.
