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Published: November 1st 2015
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Witkoppen Road
Credit: Lindsey Fillingham Three weeks in the Slow Town was quite enough for a pair of global travellers. The time came to leave and we found ourselves at the tiny airport of George saying goodbye to Sharon and Gandalf after a frantic morning of packing and cleaning. This airport was to be our playground for the next 6 hours. It has a Wimpy, a coffee shop and not much more. One thing it does have though is a wifi signal. The time went rapidly.
After a smooth two hour flight we emerged in Africa's biggest international airport, Johannesburg. We had two main priorities... Getting food and picking up the hire car. We found an indifferent Asian fusion "restaurant" and whilst Lindsey ordered for us both and watched our baggage I went to find the car. I followed signs for car hire which took me down a floor and then into the midst of a sea of cars amongst which there was no sign of a single human being. There were thousands of cars, many parked bumper-to-bumper. Each was sitting under a sign proclaiming its allegiance to one of the global hire companies. All of the big names were there, as well as some
Half-hearted Police Action
Credit: Lindsey Fillingham more local ones, such as Rent-a-Cheapie. All, that is, except for Budget, the company I'd booked with. I walked through the car park twice and there was no sign that Budget had survived the apocalypse that had left cars as the only life-form in Johannesburg.
Eventually I spotted a solitary human survivor lurking in the shadows with a broom. He informed me that Budget was on a whole other level. I could have walked for hours and not found a single sign pointing to them. Once I had found a way downstairs and walked through another ocean of automobiles, I spoke to the trainee on the counter who obviously hadn't done the rental process very many times. Eventually we muddled through and I was asked which car I wanted. I have never taken an interest in cars - I can't even identify which logo belongs to which brand. I was now presented, in broken English, with a list of five cars of different makes and models - none of which I had ever heard of and asked to choose. Seeing my dumbfounded expression the clerk made an executive decision to choose the newest one. Given that our purpose was
Witkoppen Road
Credit: Lindsey Fillingham to drive through Swaziland, a very underdeveloped country, this may not have been best for his company. It's always fun to drive a new car though so I had no complaints. I think in the end it was some kind of Toyota I ended up with, with only 500 km on the clock. It made me pause for a second to sign up to a £1200 liability in case of damage... but I thought, "What is the worst that could happen?"
After a long period during which Lindsey had received and eaten her food I went back upstairs to join her. I wolfed down the food and then took Lindsey to see the gleaming white car we would be calling our own for a couple of weeks. We drove away from the airport. In less than a minute we were in a four-lane highway, surrounded by frantically moving traffic and with little idea of where we were going. We muddled through whilst on the highways but then turned off into a completely unlit suburb. Johannesburg has a reputation for carjackings at traffic lights so this seemed to me to be a foolish oversight on the part of the city
Extent of the Disturbance
Credit: Lindsey Fillingham planners. Now we only had a few turns left but could only actually see streets after we had passed them. I've never had a problem with three-point turns but the pressure of doing them in a place where someone could hold me up at gun-point for the car was an incentive to do them both well and rapidly. When the directions took us into the township of Kya Sands we realised we must have missed a turn and back-tracked hastily. Eventually we got to Lindsey's Uncle David's house and were met by 5 huge dogs running towards the car.
We greeted David and his wife Beatrix, exchanged pleasantries and then all went to bed as we each had a reason to be up early in the morning. I woke at 4am to hear the sound of singing from Kya Sands. At the time I thought it was interesting but insignificant.
We set off from David's around 7am and immediately knew something was wrong. Down the street from the house was a crowd of men and boys. Crowd may be better described as "angry mob". We took a wrong turn and realised we were heading towards a roadblock composed
Witkoppen Road
Credit: Lindsey Fillingham of rocks and a burning tyre. On the line was another group of people. I have never turned so urgently. As I did so, one of the men behind us raised a large stick and aimed it like a gun at us. I needed no further encouragement and sped off as fast as the traffic would allow. As we got further down the road we found the traffic got heavier but the sounds and sights of the disturbance receded. We assumed it was a local fracas and set about worrying how to find a new route.
It turned out our assumption was wrong, very wrong. What we thought was the whole disturbance was actually a small outpost of a much larger mob rampaging through that part of the city. As we turned onto the main road, Witkoppen Road, we discovered our mistake. The whole road was strewn with small rocks and broken glass. In front I could see the burnt-down sign for a strip-club and to my right lay the smashed remains of a concrete bin. At regular intervals, casting a pall of smoke over the whole surreal scene, lay more burnt tyres. A policeman screeched to a halt with sirens blaring. He got out and started half-heartedly kicking away the rocks. The car in front suddenly pulled off to the side, a rock stuck under the tyre. I gingerly picked my way through the detritus and fortunately suffered no such fate. At the next set of lights we could see the scale of the devastation in four directions. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a lump of rock arc gracefully though the air, fortunately flying parallel to our course.
We turned the radio on and found out that we were witnessing a 'dispute' between the residents of Kya Sands and the city of Johannesburg about housing. The radio was warning that the rioting was spreading out to the surrounding districts and the police were worried about it spreading further.
Fortunately, by the next set of lights the debris had lightened and we could turn left into roads clear of shrapnel but with queuing traffic. We gratefully joined the other drivers and slowly made our way from the scene of our ordeal. As we did so the radio announced that the police had closed Witkoppen. I realised that if we had left any earlier we would have been in the midst of the chaos but any later and our only exit would have been closed to us.
The traffic thinned as we left the city. We were a little shaken but safe and ready for our road-trip through Gaugeng, Mpumalanga and into Swaziland.
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