We all know the Irish can spin a few yarns, but this one I
was witnessing first-hand. Sat in the fusty backyard lean-to of a
township dwelling we watched a sangoma, or spiritual healer,
consult a pile of animal bones and then rub ointment into the
Irishman’s knee.
It was either a trick of the light, or a curl of smoke was rising
from his hair. In the dingy half-light it was impossible to tell
but he told us his knee felt the best it had for weeks.
In certain destinations experiential tourism is an increasingly
important element of the holiday. In South Africa you don’t
have to look very far. We had deviated off our township tour
outside Pretoria and ducked into a township dwelling to have our
‘bones’ read. Quackery or not, it beat queuing at an
NHS surgery.
For many visitors to South Africa, the country’s capital city
Pretoria and its infamous second city of Johannesburg are well down
the tourist pecking order. Jo’burg is still synonymous with
muggings – despite the U-turn in the city’s fortunes in
recent years – and the capital Pretoria boasts none of the
beaches, game parks or winelands South Africa is known for.
But with 11 years of democracy under its belt, South Africa’s
tourism product is one of constant evolution. The black struggle
for equality has rightfully taken its place in South Africa’s
visitor checklist and is giving rise to some of the country’s
most interesting and authentic new tourism product.
South African Tourism trade relations manager Marcus Mckenzie said
the level of interest from tour operators in Jo’burg and the
cultural product is high. A number of operators have visited on
fams, including Thomas Cook Signature and Gold Medal.
“Jo’burg has long been overlooked,” said
McKenzie. “We’ve had some very refreshing feedback with
a number of operators asking how they can include it and what they
can sell.”
Addressing the safety issue, McKenzie added: “I’m not
suggesting people jump in a car at Jo’burg Airport and drive
off into the unknown, but with the great cosmopolitan vibe at the
Melrose Arch precinct and lots of new township product the region
certainly lends itself to some interesting tours.”
Once unthinkable, activities such as brunching alfresco at a
restaurant in Soweto, are now perfectly acceptable. Just a
stone’s throw from where, in 1976, 13-year-old Hector
Pieterson found himself the wrong side of a policeman’s
bullet during a peaceful student march, tourists at Nambitha
restaurant can sit in the sun and order the Englishman in Soweto
breakfast – two sausages, two eggs, bacon and toast for a
mere £2.
Soweto, now home to 25 millionaires, boasts the far superior
statistic of having the only street in the world claiming the
residences of two Nobel prize laureates. Not far from Nambitha are
Bishop Desmond Tutu’s and Nelson Mandela’s former homes
(he was arrested here in 1961). After a peek inside Mandela’s
humble abode, a ‘cold beer and jazz’ vibe awaits at
nearby Sakhumzi, a popular restaurant which now welcomes white
visitors as well as black.
Also on the map is the popular township bar Wandi’s Place, a
former shebeen (illegal drinking house), which began as a popular
hangout for friends to watch football and now dishes up some of the
best-value meals in South Africa.
All of this is a far cry from the legendary Soweto uprising that
made the township, home to 3.5 million people, a familiar news
fixture in the late 1970s. Pieterson’s death was the catalyst
in the bloody Soweto uprising of 1976, a historical marker in South
Africa’s struggle against apartheid. The Hector Pieterson
Museum now depicts the struggle of black South Africa just by the
crossroads where he was killed.
On the outskirts of the capital Pretoria we were guided around the
1940s-built Atteridgeville Model Township by a local 18-year-old.
Just 1,533 houses in Atteridgeville are ‘home’ to a
population of 450,000, with so-called squatter camps –
makeshift temporary shacks without running water – increasing
by the week. It’s gritty, but visitors can open their eyes to
the ‘other’ side of South Africa and, by taking a tour,
inject hard cash back into the community. And the warm welcome from
guides, bar owners and locals is infinitely rewarding.
Mile-markers to democracy are appearing all the time. Last May, to
commemorate 10 years of democracy, a six-metre high bronze statue
of Nelson Mandela, dressed in prison garb, was unveiled in
Jo’burg’s former Sandton Square, now Mandela Square. It
honours the country’s first democratically elected president
and serves as a poignant reminder of the miracle that is
today’s Rainbow Nation. Mandela Square is already a buzzing
shopping and dining hub, with a central piazza housing cafés
and restaurants nudged alongside upmarket shops. And it’s
appropriately symbolic of the ‘anything is possible’
feelgood factor that is slowly but surely permeating the South
African psyche.
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