Living in Jozi

We so often hear of people leaving the shores of South Africa for a myriad of reasons which I am not going to get into here. What I do find fascinating is the ever-increasing number of South Africans who end up back in South Africa after a stint in another country.

The stories of these folk are very interesting and I am thrilled that my good friend Mike has set up a blog detailing his return to our shores and his experience of living and working in Johannesburg. He has already had run-ins with bureaucracy and has a story to tell about the Joburg traffic department! However his overall experience has been a positive one and I invite you to click through to his blog and read all about it for yourself.

Click here - Living in Jozi

Let's Drink Some Wine In Soweto

13 years into a democratic South Africa there are still many white South Africans who have not ventured into a township. They don't know what they are missing! There is a vibe, a truly South African essence, that is not found in the suburbs. Many tourists have found this to be so and have found much joy at being able to interact with township residents.

Living in Johannesburg for the past 10 years has given me opportunity to visit Soweto on several occassions. Interestingly Soweto is the largest township in South Africa with a population of 1.5 million mainly black residents - 40% of Gauteng's population. It is a vibrant metropolitan area and is known for setting trends in fashion, politics, language, dance and music. Like every other urban area it has its problem areas and yet, from a safety perspective, I often feel safer in Soweto than in Sandton! It is far removed from the images of the 1980's that we saw on the SABC as the residents protested the apartheid regime - it is truly a great place to visit!

Various initiatives have been in place for several years now to entice more South Africans to come into Soweto. One of these is the Soweto Wine Festival which began in 2005. This year the festival has Standard Bank has its headline sponsor and will showcase over 800 wines from 125 wineries.

The festival will be held at the Main Hall, Soweto Campus at the University of Johannesburg on Old Potch Rd, Soweto on 7 & 8 September and is being hailed as the most exciting Soweto-based initiative in years.

To assist those not wishing to travel into Soweto in their own vehicles on the two evenings Jo’burg Tourism is providing branded buses from the Cape Wine Academy offices, Conference Centre, 114 Grayston Drive, Sandown, Sandton

Transport Times:
Friday 7th September – 3:30pm & 6pm & 7pm
Saturday 8th September – 4:30pm & 6pm & 7pm

These busses will be available to return from the festival as well. There will be a special combi that will take back those that need to leave the festival earlier.

This is a great initiative that is helping to make Soweto a preferred destination for Johannesburg tourists and locals alike. I do hope that if you are in the Joburg/Pretoria region you will consider coming along for two wonderful evenings.

New Blog Of The Week - #5 - Escape Gauteng

Following on from my post about the Pilanesberg Game Reserve, I have decided to award this week's "New Blog Of The Week" to Scapeout. The intention of this blog is to give those of us who live in Gauteng information about breaks away from the city which will refresh and recharge.

The writing style is informal and makes for easy reading. The personal anecdotes from each place remind the reader that these are personal recommendations not just a list from a tour guide.

There are plenty of pictures to give the reader a sense of the place reviewed. A very helpful feature is the box giving travel directions to the attraction.

I would love to see this idea being expanded into other cities around South Africa. Any takers?...

Audio Tour Guides For Cape Town

Whenever I have travelled to a foreign city for longer than one day, I have always taken along a guide book such as the Eyewitness Travel Guide I used in London. This has entailed packing yet another item into an already full backpack. Now things are changing ... Just pack your iPod or other MP3 player into your kit with previously downloaded audio tours already installed.

This way you can listen to a friendly voice guide you around the city at your own pace. These audio tours can be downloaded from a variety of sources. I happened to come across a company that has tours for Cape Town in their inventory. The tours cost about R70 to download and range from 22-49 minutes in length. There is also a free introductory tour available as soon as you register - no cost for registration either.

This is a marvelous resource even for those who live in Cape Town. It is a city so full of interesting things to see that even the locals can miss out if not guided. An added bonus is a map which becomes available for you to download and print once you have downloaded your mp3 file.

Tour guides from a particular city are able to sign up with Tourcaster and produce their own tours in their areas of expertise. At present the only South African city represented on Tourcaster is Cape Town. I am sure there are plenty of tour guides in our other cities to produce some outstanding audio tours - come on guys....

Just so that those up north don't feel neglected, I also managed to find this iPod guide to Johannesburg!

Now if only I could find my car keys . . .

Live Earth Concert - why?

There is no doubt that our planet is in crisis. We know that each one of us can play some part, however small in averting a planetary collapse (I know that sounds dramatic, but that's just how it is!).

A live concert on all seven continents is scheduled for July 7. The concerts will also be streamed online courtesy of MSN. These concerts will feature some of music's biggest names and has the purpose of creating awareness of the earth's plight among concert-goers.

Now forgive me for being sceptical here but I doubt whether anyone attending these concerts will do so because they lose sleep over the hole in the ozone layer. I am pretty certain that they will attend because it is going to be a great party with great music performed by their favourite stars.

To stage concerts of this magnitude takes enormous amounts of human resources and capital. Surely this could be put to better use - like providing entrepreneurs with venture capital for water sanitation projects or clean energy provision. Perhaps some of these resources could be put into education projects amongst the children and youth of all socio-economic brackets.

All the concerts are taking place in cities where, I would hazard a guess, most of the population is aware that we have an increasing problem with the health of the earth - we can thank Al Gore for that. I'm not convinced that the populations of these cities need a music concert to mobilise them into action.

I hope that I am wrong - I hope that these concerts will mobilise a huge wave of awareness and practical steps so that we can begin to put an end to our current global crisis. I do need to ask though - what benefits have we seen since Live 8? Are the wheels turning faster to bring an end to global poverty?

The South African event will take place at the Coca-Cola Dome in Northgate - tickets available from Computicket.