We're in Johannesburg finally after about 30 hours of travel (who says getting there is half the fun?) and have spent the last couple of days getting adjusted to the new time zone (we slept for 15 hours last night!). So far the city isn't as horrible and terrifying as one might have thought, given the amount of bad press it receives.
On the contrary, the area we're staying in, Melville, is really lovely and safe to wander around both day and night. It's an integrated community, which probably helps a lot. Though the preponderance of high walls, razor wire and electric fences, doesn't do too much for our confidence in the city as a whole.
We're staying in a lovely (read pricey) bed and breakfast called Sunbury House. It's an old house that's been converted. It has 12 foot ceilings and our room is painted a calming shade of blue.
We've found the "tourist infrastructure" rather lacking so far. We can't get hold of a decent map, the buses seem non-existent, the taxis are incredibly expensive, and our Lonely Planet has, so far, proven wrong on every count. I guess if we were staying in the wealthy (read white) northern suburbs where most of the cheaper backpacker places are we'd have more information at our finger tips and probably more people trying to sell us tours of every kind. I'm not sure if I'd prefer that to our situation (a total dearth of information of any kind, but staying in a far more interesting area).
I guess the fact that today is a public holiday (Heritage Day) doesn't help much. Perhaps tomorrow, when things come back to life a little, we'll get more of an idea of how things work around here.
Tomorrow the work begins in earnest, with C meeting some contact or other in Pretoria (the country's capital - about an hour or so north of here).
We've taken a few photos, but the dial up connection in our guest house doesn't want to upload them. I'll get them up when I find a better connection.
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