Soweto Bike Tour

Tshema, Dan, and I took a bike tour of Soweto, which was a great way to see the community. The tour guide was a young, charismatic man who provided a fascinating historical narrative.

Brief History

Soweto, which is an abbreviation of South Western Township, is a large township right outside Johannesburg. The township started as an informal settlement, as many Africans were recruited to work in the nearby gold mines. Following an outbreak of plague in the early 1900's, the British started moving black Africans out of Johannesburg to "evacuation camps" located in Soweto. The British calimed that the relocation was to "protect" these people, but when they were not allowed to move back into the city and were not given any municipal services, the real reason for the relocation became clear. Not sure if everyone has seen District 9, a great film by South African Director Neill Blomkamp, but the story of the Soweto relocation sounds very similar to the events that happen in that movie.

Nelson Mandela also lived in Soweto for several years before he spent time in prison. Desmond Tutu also lived in Soweto. In fact, Soweto claims to be the only place in the world where two Nobel Prize Winners started on the same street.

Soweto was also the site of massive protests in the late 1970s. The protests were in response to the government enforcing education in Afrikaans rather than English. Several thousand protesters marched to a main square in Soweto, where police opened fire into the crowd. A few hundred protesters died and many more were injured. One of the first to die was a young boy named Hector Pieterson, who is seen being carried in the graphic photo below. The intersection where these protests took place is now the site of a memorial and a museum.

"To honour the youth who gave their lives in the struggle for freedom and democracy"

On a lighter note, one of the other highlights of the bike tour was the chance to taste the local beer, which is brewed in Soweto. It's difficult to describe the taste, but it's slightly sweet, sour, and definitely fermented. It wasn't bad, but as you can see from the before/after pictures, it's not exactly good.

Another fun fact about Soweto, is that the famous song from the Lion King, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was originally written and composed in Soweto in 1939! It was originally called "Mbube" which simply means "lion" in Zulu.

Soweto is also home to the largest soccer stadium in Africa. FNB stadium (usually called Soccer City) can seat 90,000+ fans and hosted the 2010 World Cup Finals (Netherlands vs. Spain). There were a bunch of Dutch tourists on our bike tour and the guide repeatedly, and shamelessly, brought up the fact that Soweto was the site where they lost the World Cup. We didn't actually get to see the stadium, but I'm hoping to see a soccer match there sometime in the future.

Nat Geo photo, not mine...

Here are some other random pics from our tour.

Our guide selling us on the beer.

Camping in Magaliesburg

Jolene, one of my co-workers, invited our group to join her friends on their overnight backpacking trek to Magaliesburg. The mountains of Magaliesburg are located about 90km West of Pretoria. It was early in the morning on a gloomy, rainy Saturday when we left. Thankfully, by the time we arrived at the trailhead, the skies completely cleared up. After meeting the crew, we loaded our packs and headed out. 

There were a few members of the group who are very familiar with this hike and were our unofficial guides the area. They informed us it would be about a 6km (~3.5mile) hike to our camping site. My first thought was that 3.5 miles could barely be considered a hike....

Starting the hike on a rugged dirt road.

However, I quickly realized why they expected the hike to take us so long. It wasn't necessarily the distance, it was the terrain. We climbed down into a incredibly steep canyon, then hiked through rocky creekbeds, and then climbed (or crawled) back out of the canyon on the other side. It was definitely the most technical "hiking" I've done with a backpack. Made me regret bringing those 2 bottles of wine in my pack...

Dan is surveying our route. You can see other climbing down the rocks on the right.

Tshema checking out the view from the top of the canyon.

After making it out of the canyons, the trail flattened out and continued through some incredible rock formations.

The weather changes very quickly out here; it went from this....

....to this, in only minutes

Fortunately, it was a quick rain/wind storm that came after we set up camp. We barely got through one game of cards in the tents.

Then the skies cleared up again and we got to see an incredible sunset, while enjoying wine, cheese, and crackers on the top of a huge boulder.

It was incredible to see how many stars were visible out there. This is my first night shot using my cheap tripod. 

Pretoria Life: August

I will try to keep the blog updated with a few of my pictures and experiences while spending this year in Pretoria. This post is already a bit dated, but I'll try to keep up...

Hazelwood Market

A fun little Saturday market that just so happens to be right in my neighborhood. The market is filled with food, coffee, and produce vendors, along with some arts and crafts vendors as well. Even though the people complain about it being cold, the weather was gorgeous, especially for being "winter."

The Hazelwood Market

Not cool. Especially when you don't even have a Mexican making your "Mexican" food.

Frozen kiwis + a sausage making machine = An incredibly delicious and nutritious snack

Hot and buttery breakfast sandwiches

Fact.

Share on Facebook