Dangerous … or safe enough?

Bad reputation … a reality or perception?

Err on the side of caution … or curiosity?

Plotting a trip to the crown jewel of South Africa last winter — summer in Cape Town — I had questions like those swirling in my head about my flight’s connecting city, Johannesburg. The latter options got the best of me. For the flight back home from Cape Town, I opted for a full-day layover in Joburg, the country’s largest city and one of multiple tales.

For some peace of mind on horror stories about pressure to tip, home robberies, and worse, I got a local to show me and my fellow Californian friend around. Thabo Malo, owner of Travel LAB South Africa, which offers adventure, culture and lifestyle tours, greeted us at O.R. Tambo International Airport and took us for a ride.

Malo grew up in the Eastern Cape, a province in the country’s southeastern coast, and also lived in Cape Town.

“I belong to Joburg now,” he said. “I got robbed in Cape Town. Never in Joburg. Here, I’ve never felt threatened by anybody.”

Tale of multiple cities

Malo’s words were a bit hard for me to believe as we drove by the Alexandra township. “Alex” was established in 1912 and was one of the few places in South Africa where black people could own land through freehold titles. The township’s brick homes and shacks were patched with wood and metal pieces, parts of the fence were broken or topped with barbed wire, and clotheslines hung by the sidewalk.

Alex was home for political activists including Nelson Mandela, who fought against South Africa’s institutionalized racial segregation of apartheid and became the country’s first black president. The township often still lacks electricity and running water, Malo said, and some housing projects have turned out subpar.

“It’s very saddening to see. But this is a side of South Africa you can’t run away from, that you can’t shy away from. To try and hide that away, I think it takes a bit out of the country,” he said. “We can’t help it it’s happened — it’s happened. I guess now we just have to progress beyond.”

White people lived closer to the economic center of Joburg and blacks farther away, yet adjacent to Alex sits Sandton, the “richest square mile in Africa.” In the years leading up to apartheid’s formal end in 1994, whites fearing heightened crime rates in Joburg’s commercial business district, moved away.

“Sandton is a product of that,” Malo said as we passed modern, glistening skyscrapers. “People always say it’s like a mini New York in the making.”

Cultural hub

When we arrived at the Joburg suburb of Braamfontein, it was time to get out of the car. Going on a graffiti walking tour wasn’t scary, but quite the opposite. The streets of the young, hip suburb felt perfectly safe as our guide Bongani Mathbula of Jozy Triangel Tours told us the story and history behind the graffiti art at every corner. Mathbula admitted that was not always the case.

“Joburg was a red tape city,” he said. “A lot of people were afraid to walk here 10 years back, 15 years back, everyone walking very fast pace thinking, ‘I’m gonna get mugged, I’m gonna get mugged.’”

But Joburg is now walkable, Mathbula said, and the key is “you need to have a relationship with the city.”

The most widely known mural in the area is by Shepard Fairey, who painted the red, beige and blue Barack Obama “Hope” poster that became an iconic image for his 2008 presidential campaign. Fairey’s sequel to that, so to speak, is the Nelson Mandela mural on Juta Street with the words “The Purple Shall Govern,” paying tribute to the activist and his anti-apartheid Purple Rain Protest.

Besides murals, Braamfontein is a hub for fashion. That includes making an old car or clothes vintage.

“People are dressed to kill. ‘I’m broke, but I’m here.’ Confidence,” Mathbula explained, adding that countless cultures from all over Africa converge in Joburg.

“It’s a melting pot, literally,” he said. “At the end of the day, you come here and you have the best time of your life. You can break boundaries. There is existing culture but you can add your own.”

Gentrification

Now that we two women from California were comfortable walking in Joburg, Malo transported us to the inner city precinct of Maboneng, which was once one of the most dangerous places to traverse for pedestrians.

The transformation began around 2010, according to Ayanda Mnyandu, a tour guide with City Skate Tour. On that Sunday, like every Sunday, street venders set up booths and sold their native art. The Arts on Main warehouse bubbled with locals and visitors enjoying a multitude of fresh flavors at the food market inside.

The Maboneng precinct is shifting the narrative of inner city Joburg as an area for low-income people to a place that is more diverse than the city’s richest areas, Mnyandu said.

“People say it’s gentrified. My answer to that is the city cannot only belong to one demographic. This provides for mid- to high-income earners,” Mnyandu said. “Every single person is able to walk up and down this street.”

‘Struggle for Freedom’

Our final stop was Soweto, another township where many political activists lived. Soweto, short for southwestern township, was the “heart of change,” Malo said as he drove us there. Uprisings from Soweto sparked a serious movement of people trying to rise against the injustices of the government. Whites now represent less than 10 percent but still hold the majority of South Africa’s wealth, he said.

“We have political freedom but economically we still enslaved. So people make comments we are free, but we are not free,” Malo said. “We’ll get there one day.”

We arrived at Mandela’s home, which the political leader returned to after he was released from Robben Island prison in 1990. The red brick house was modest, divided into a living room, kitchen and bedrooms.

“They used to call it the matchbox because it was very tiny,” Mandela House tour guide Neliswa Abashe said.

We saw a photo of Mandela back from prison at the age of 71, a pair of his old shoes, and a wall that was erected to protect the family from bullets.

Written on one of the glass windows: “‘No serious or responsible leader, gathering or organisation of the African people has ever accepted segregation, separation, or the partition of this country in any shape or form.’ Nelson Mandela, 1959.”

Time had flown during our full-day layover, and it felt all too short. As Malo drove us back to the airport, I asked him what is considered the most beloved part of Joburg.

“For other people into lifestyle, Maboneng because of the vibe,” he said.

But for Malo, it was “definitely Soweto.”

“Because it’s very emotional,” he said, “The struggle for freedom.”

If you go

Mandela House: 8115 Orlando West, Soweto, 1804, Johannesburg; +27 011 936 7754; info@mandelahouse.com; www.mandelahouse.com

Travel LAB South Africa: Tour company offering experiences inspired by adventure, culture and lifestyle in Southern Africa. +27 079 341 2744; thabo@travellab.africa; www.travellab.africa

Jozy Triangel Tours: Art, music, literary and walking tours of Johannesburg; +27 67 279 3288; www.jozytriangel.co.za

City Skate Tours: Guided walking or skateboarding tours of inner city Johannesburg; +27 79 839 8833; cityskatetours@gmail.com