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Published: February 1st 2009
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my first african sunrise!
see the glare on the windows? Rebecca asked why there were three suns! Hello from the southern hemisphere, the water really does go the other way!
Hey folks! I’m here! After 27 hours of tubes, trains, planes, airports and taxi’s we’ve got ourselves checked in at the Backpackers Ritz, a pretty cool little hostel in the northern suburbs of the city.
The journey here was pretty hard work, though not without its highlights! Firstly getting off the train at Heathrow and finding Pops waiting there for us was a fantastic surprise! I very nearly filled up!
Taking off from Athens airport at one in the morning the city looked amazing, as we flew over the Mediterranean coast the cities lights stretched right out into the mountains. Seemed a bit of a shame all I’d seen of the city was the inside of it’s airport! We never saw our bags in Greece, it was just a case of showing one guy our passports and waiting 3 hours for the connection. I did my best to get drunk enough to sleep on the flight to Jo’B.
No such luck though, not a wink between Athens and here, Becky kipped the whole way! I just couldn’t get comfy so i eventually gave up trying and watched the sisterhood of the travelling pants 2, 4 times in all! The last 2 times i didn’t even need the headphones plugged in! I wouldn’t recommend the film, not even once! The advantage of been awake all night was seeing my first African Sunrise from 12000km above the border between Uganda and The Democratic Republic of Congo. It was breathtaking. I waited and waited, peeking out the little window as the sky got redder and redder. The sun broke through the clouds just in front of us, I Managed to get a photo:
After this we crossed the equator and the sun was so bright you couldn’t see a thing for opening the shutters on the windows so it was back to the travelling pants....
We landed and customs was a breeze. I had been absolutely terrified that there would be some reason we couldn’t get our visas, but there were no problems at all, even our bags had managed to catch the right flight and were waiting for us! We jumped in a taxi to the hostel. After a day of travelling my sweat patches had just about met in the middle, my feet ached and i was absolutely knackered! We checked in and as soon as they had shown me my bed i was in it! By the time we had showered after a kip we had missed the lasagne at the hostel so went in search of food. We found an awesome Chinese restaurant and ate there. The whole walk the city was humming with the sound of the bugs in the plants that lined the pavements, it was pretty cool!
Saturday we woke pretty late and headed back to the mall where we had found the Chinese food for a wander. It would seem each district is built around a mall and that mall is pretty much the centre of the community, they are full of cafe’s and restaurants which all seem to be packed with locals.
Later in the afternoon we headed south into the rosebank suburb, about a half hour walk from where we’re staying. The mall there was open air and there was an African craft market which was amazing! Each little stall was stacked to the roof with carved wood and stone sculptures, jewellery and paintings. The carved Zulu masks and djembe’s were incredible.
The market was set out with each stall coming off of the main aisle, each with a path down the middle about 2 foot wide. The vendors sit on the edge of their stall and invite you in, once you’re in they follow you and there is no getting out! They will offer you everything at a ‘special’ price and instantly become your best friend, no matter what reasons you give for not wanting something they have a solution, getting out without buying something was pretty hard work! I loved checking out each little shop and hustling with the vendors, learning the stories of the masks and the meanings of the carvings. Rebecca wasn’t really a fan of the pushy sales technique, she hated getting dragged into the stalls and stuck to the central walkway like glue, refusing to engage anyone in conversation! Ha!
Every stall seemed to have these bracelets which the vendors claimed were elephant tail hair, they would tighten one around your wrist as you tried to get away, offering to light a strand so you could smell that it was genuine. Having never set an elephants tail on fire I really wouldn’t have had anything to compare the smell to! I swear they were plastic!!! I’m pretty sure they were an in-joke between the vendors, wearing one would signal to the rest you were an easy target!
I was a little temped by a mask carved from a tree native to the Kruger. I can’t remember its name, but it had that amazing back of the throat clicky sound in it. That alone kinda made me want it, though i don’t think i could have ever have said it’s name out loud. Certainly not convincingly anyways. Ha!
Saturday night we ate at the hostel, BBQ’d Chicken, or Chicken Braii, in Afrikaans! The guy soaked kindling in the same marinade as the chicken and threw that in with the coals to smoke the chicken. It was awesome! There was also some beef sausage thing the locals eat, it might have been called daal? I might have made that name up, but it was good!
Eating dinner we met one of the guys working at the hostel who talked us through every creepy crawly bug he could find, throwing the ones that scratch down my tee! We made friends with a rhino beetle that was huge!
We spent the evening chatting, when his shift finished we moved inside to the bar (Captain Morgans Spiced with Ginger Ale....wow!) We drank till the bar closed and then he drove us up to a club a little north of where we were. He tipped a waiter pretty generously on the first round and from then on the drinks never stopped coming! They don’t serve singles either! Rebecca seemed a little reluctant to relax, 3 jaggermeisters later we were all dancing away to karaoke! Genius night, really couldn’t have planned it any better!!!
First impressions of Jo’B are pretty good. I really didn’t know what to expect, Louis Theroux didn’t exactly paint the best picture, but then he is a bit of a tit. It’s a little scary, but so far its mainly its reputation at causes any unease. Having said that, a car pulling up on the pavement in front and the driver whipping out a HUGE gun as you stroll by was a little surreal. (Sorry i don’t know more about the gun Chris, but it was big!)
It’s all surprisingly familiar, i’ve been around Bose and Diesel shops, there’s Subway and KFC, Duffy and the Artic Monkeys are in the charts, the cinema is showing revolutionary road and Vicky.Christina.Barcelona, even Ice age 3! You can buy heat magazine and FHM.....
It’s a very green city though, looking across it from up here only a few buildings manage to peek above the trees. The wildlife is amazing too, i saw my first warbler bird today, its a bright yellow thing, pretty cool! There’s butterflies and little lizards all over the place too!
As I’m writing Rebecca is very hungover so we’ll be taking it easy today, maybe checking out one of the films.
It’s a million billion degrees, the sky goes on forever, this hostel has an amazing garden that overlooks the city, I think I’ll go find a cold drink and nap in the grass.
Have a 4 day safari in Kruger booked for Friday, Think we’re gonna check out a campsite a little closer to the city centre tomorrow and spent the rest of the week seeing what’s going on there! There’s a reggae club called cool runnings I’m looking forward to checking out, and the apartheid museum. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Loads of Love
x
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Tim Metcalfe
non-member comment
Yo Dude, Sounds like a fantastic place ! Glad you got there ok ! x