While there’s history to be imbibed, a tour of Soweto isn’t just memorials and museums on the long and winding road to freedom: there’s fun to be had, too. And, as Keith Bain discovers, far too much
to cram into two days.

You cannot call yourself a South African and not feel called to Soweto,’ says Tukwini Mandela. As I chat with Madiba’s granddaughter about her wine label, House of Mandela, she pauses to recall some very special Soweto memories. ‘There’s a vibe here – an energy – that makes you appreciate being South African.’

Even those who’ve upped and left after making their fortunes come back looking for the buzz of the taverns, and the spirit that unites Soweto’s 39 neighbourhoods. What started as a rural dumping ground for people forced out of Jo’burg is now a vast city-within-a-city, where 40% of Jo’burg’s population lives. That includes record producers and rap stars, bling-bling multimillionaires and shebeen queens, the unemployed, gangsters and entrepreneurs. It’s a vibrant mélange that some say represents the soul of the nation.
While Soweto long clung to the outskirts of Jo’burg, it’s now experiencing its own boom-town renaissance, shedding its shantytown skin. It’s not just malls and hotels going up, but innovative rejuvenation projects, improved transport, and hundreds of thousands of trees.

Day 1, 9am. From its ramparts you see Jo’burg’s skyline. Then a Gold Reef City rollercoaster sweeps into view. It’s a head-spinning geographic juxtaposition. From previous visits, I know the Apartheid Museum is emotionally gruelling. Soaring columns suggest the pillars of the Constitution, and a fortress-like austerity harks back to when this building was a prison, bearing first-hand witness to a brutal past. It’s our nation’s finest museum – and our most detailed survey of race-based segregation. Rows of hangman’s nooses stand in for those executed under apartheid, while the eerie solitary cells and colossal Casspir urban-assault tanks are real, in-your-face reminders.

Outrage, anger, deep hurt – the emotions are many. There’s catharsis too, as you read about the past, stare at breathtaking photographs, and watch videos, interviews and news reports that concertina our modern history into a few hours.

Noon. The map book isn’t helping and the GPS is too chatty. The first major landmark is Baragwanath. It always conjures sadness and the stats horrify. But the Bara Taxi Rank across the road has the opposite effect – it’s robust and lively, and the colours and smells life-affirming. The food stalls are a revelation. Cow’s cheeks are usually a delicacy; here they’re available at snack prices, along with difficult-to-find pumpkin flowers as pretty and bright as they are delicious, either fried or transformed into stew.

1pm. Rather than being driven like every other tourist, flex your muscles and feel the breeze in your hair on one of Lebo’s famous Soweto Bicycle Tours. No through-the-minibus-window photo op on this tour: you interact with real people, stopping along the way at places few tours bother with, tasting home-brewed beer at a former men’s hostel and hopping off at street markets to try local delicacies. The three-hour guided tour of the Kliptown, oldest and among the poorest parts of Soweto, dispels myths and opens eyes. In its informal settlement, life is as basic as depicted in the Oscar-winning film Tsotsi, much of which was filmed here. Having spent time getting to know its residents, you’ll leave with a lump in your throat.

4:30pm. Located in Kliptown’s spiritual heart, my hotel is another place to experience the side-by-side paradox of rich-and-poor Soweto. Built on the edge of a vast open-air monument known as the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication, where the Freedom Charter was signed in 1955, The Soweto Hotel offers the world’s first four-star township lodgings. Its cheerful lobby celebrates struggle-era South Africans with mosaic portraits, Alfred Khumalo photographs hang on the walls, and there’s a changing exhibition of local artworks. Celebrate your arrival with a ‘Kliptini’ cocktail from Rusty’s bar – a powerful composition of vodka and home-brewed ginger beer.

Once in your room, step out onto your balcony and survey the vast concourse on which the hotel is built. It’s unlike any scene you’ve ever witnessed from your hotel window, with a busy market literally beneath your feet, and traders waving up at you from their fruit and vegetable stalls.

5:30pm. I step outside just as a minibus filled with Dutch law students pulls up. With them is Bongani Ndlovu, destined to take us on an after-dark tour… How many taverns we hit will depend on our staying power.

6:30pm. No-one messes with sip-size drinks at Topsy’s Tavern; a handsome barman named Alfred is handing out quarts. Shebeen queen Topsy may be past retirement age, but she’s a smooth-talking princess, working hard to keep everyone happy. Her clientele are old school, mostly men chugging beers and knocking snooker balls.

8:15pm. Those quarts induce sizeable hunger. At Godfrey Mautloa’s snazzy Masakeng in Mofolo Central, a buffet of delicious food awaits. Godfrey is also responsible for the annual Soweto Beer Festival, luring thousands to sample loxion food and beers from around the world (including locally produced umqombothi).

10pm. Swinging into the parking lot of Dobsonville’s shopping centre, we see a crowd trickling out of Disoufeng, which is hosting an open-mic hip-hop evening. Inside is a funky crowd in slick threads, with their fingers on the social pulse. Chat to them and they’ll tell you outright that they’re too young to remember apartheid; their struggle is against conformity and blandness. We lose ourselves in the merrymaking, exchanging details with many young performers – DJs, rappers and vocal contortionists – urging us to catch their next show. When I ask for recommendations, there’s a flurry of breathless responses. ‘RockerFella in Molefo.’ ‘Pelican Club in Orlando.’ More hot spots where the best DJs and live musicians entertain savvy crowds. ‘Oh, and cuzzie,’ pipes up one guy who’s travelled from Pretoria, ‘don’t forget the Thesis Social Jam Sessions.’ He’s talking about a monthly event at Thesis Concept Store, a creative lifestyle hub where owners Mangaliso Mbitshana and Wandile Zondo throw the most wicked parties, with top-grade DJs, comedians, and a solidly aspirational crowd.

Day 2, 7am. Kliptown’s early dawn exerts a special calm – an agreeable time to vibe with the stall-keepers preparing for the day. Then a cheerful ‘township continental’ breakfast at the hotel. Along with cooked-to-order eggs, there’s umdoko (millet porridge), grilled chicken livers with steamed dombolo (dumplings), and cheese-topped magwinya fritters stuffed with caramelised onions.

8am. For Kliptown’s insider story, ask Emlyn Bul, the hotel’s manager, to put you in touch with ebullient David Blom, a.k.a. Oom Bolo, a local legend, minor film star and last surviving member of the Kliptown Snappers. David regularly hosts young artists in his DIY house museum-cum-café, where remnants of the past, from vintage photos to kitchen cabinets from the 50s and 60s. Between bites of David’s babalas-curing kota, a quarter-loaf of bread stuffed with sausage, atchar and chips, he works his storyteller’s tongue around a huge knowledge of Kliptown’s history.

11am. A vast concourse leads to the entrance of the red-brick Hector Pieterson Museum. Six hundred metres from the physical spot where teenaged Hector was shot by police during the student uprising of 1976, it pays homage to one of the key moments in struggle history. Many others died, too, and are all immortalised on granite slabs within the mausoleum-minimalist interior where the story unfolds through text panels and photographs. From the museum, a line of grass forms a symbolic path through the memorial concourse, pointing to the scene of Pieterson’s inadvertent martyrdom. Signposts unravel the tragic tale, so you can read your way through the history as you pad towards Soweto’s most famous road.

Noon. It’s life as usual on Vilakazi Street: youths huddled around their bikes, slippered housewives sauntering home with milk and bread, garage-based spaza shops and, between the foreigners with cameras poised, myriad ice-cream salesmen on motorcycles. As much as visitors want a Hollywood Homes-style tour of the street where both Mandela and Tutu lived, things are low-key, almost humdrum. Madiba’s former home is a tiny museum: too modest, you’ll think, for a demigod. Outside, I meet two young women who, although not twins, are called Chilli and Tsilli. ‘It’s Thirst-day!’ they tell me, and insist I join them at The Shack. Spitting distance from Mandela’s home, it’s a popular tavern, marked by a ‘No Gun’ sign and a Springbok flag.

Modern restaurants are on the rise here, too. Close to the tourist hotspots, Restaurant Vilakazi indulges international tastes with its democratic menu: oxtail, steak, trinchado, curry and rice. The big difference between this and your average city restaurant is the size of the portions. And the fact that you can sit at linen-covered tables, sipping Meerlust Rubicon wine while you order traditional mogodu (lamb tripe) or isibindi (liver) with samp, beans, pap, and chakalaka.

2:30pm. After lunch, I pass three more significant landmarks highlighting the future. A major milestone is Maponya Mall. Representing more than brain-numbing commerce, its name honours Richard Maponya, Soweto’s first millionaire and compatriot of Madiba. The mall bustles with a sense of can-do. And, alongside, the slick Virgin Active Soweto, launched mid-2011, is where well-off Sowetans burn the kilojoules that come with a more privileged life. Most eye-catching, though, is the semi-futuristic Nike Soweto Soccer Centre. Designed (by local firm Ruf Projects) to build a new generation of stars, it provides state-of-the-art soccer training as well as life skills and AIDS-awareness education. Architecturally astonishing, it symbolises hope for the future.

3pm. Bongani’s words reverberate in my ears: ‘Statistically, bungee jumping is safer than eating peanuts.’ This fails to quell my terror as I stare down from the top of the Orlando Towers, contemplating the 100-metre abyss. It’s probably South Africa’s most imaginative up-cycling project: a radical, world-first conversion of defunct cooling towers to adventure-sports centre. In their day, Soweto’s tallest structures serviced the southern hemisphere’s most advanced power-production facility. Now they support the first swing of its kind. Besides all the existing activity (including a swing jump into one of the towers), there are plans to use the towers for a museum, exhibition hall and concert space. And the adjacent power station will reboot as a shopping centre in November 2012.

Even the trip to the top is an adventure. The mechanics of the 26-passenger industrial lift are astonishing; as we climb up, up, up to the landing position, I go a bit weak at the knees. Then, of course, there’s the gut-wrenching sensation of staring down into the hollow, and the panic of walking the wonky, bouncing bridge suspended between the two towers. A smooth, perfect pendulum swing, I’m told. Mercifully, the day’s fierce wind prevents me from finding out.

4:30pm. Two days have flown by. With one night left and so much still to absorb, I see each social spot blurring into the next, starting with Chaf Pozi, a shisa nyama joint at the base of the towers that’s perfect for a post-jump aperitif. Then, with a level-headed driver at the ready, it’s time to tackle a pint or two of Peter Oshun’s traditional sorghum beer at One Nation Shebeen in Kliptown before launching into a crawl through more taverns and cocktail lounges. Bra Pat’s Place in Mofolo North is another authentic shebeen disguised as a spaza shop, selling bread, milk and other essentials. The wooden-plank seating setup is nicknamed ‘The Train’, and it’s perfect for sharing mellow, unpretentious moments over sour-tasting Jo’burg beer drunk from a carton.

Phiwe Zwane’s Sochila has the attention of the trendsetting black-diamond crowd. We find it somewhere in Diepkloof Extension, cars parked in a thick huddle. Everyone has pointed me to the place and I quickly see why. The name is township slang for ‘we’re hanging out,’ and in this buzzy lounge-cum-diner people do precisely that.

The Rock, Tebogo Motswai’s über-bling nightclub in Rockville, draws comparisons with up-market joints in Sandton. There’s even an ice bar. It’s special enough, in fact, that around half the patrons come from outside Soweto. On the roof is an open-air dance floor where, should the mood sustain itself, you can witness dawn breaking after a gloriously sleepless night in Soweto…

From there we jet off into our Escape Routes section. First up, Keith Bain gets far too little sleep in Soweto – he’s too busy trying to see it all, from heavy emotions at the Apartheid Museum to sipping sorghum beer in the back of a spaza shop. Next, Ingrid Jones journeys out to Samara in the heart of the Cambedoo, and finds much more than she expected, including visual inspiration, a lazy cheetah and a sea of blue cranes. From the scorched plains we head north, all the way to the plane-tree-lined canals of the Canal du Midi in southern France, where Amanda Loudon takes us through an enviable couple of days spent drifting, cycling and sampling way too much delicious French cuisine. Next, we’re back to Mzansi, if not exactly reality, with a whirlwind tour of the most ostentatious, hedonistic ways to spend a weekend in any of our four Mango cities, from blood-red swimming pools looking over Cape Town, to Argentinian tapas in Bloem, to partying the night away on the 22nd floor above Jo’burg.

After all that adventure, we take a more sober look at the history of Valentine’s Day, and how people across the world celebrate the day of love. Then we take a scalpel to the façade of Kim Kardashian, and meander through the coffee culture of Cape Town with camera in hand for our photo essay. That should work up quite the appetite, so we take a bite out of Emomyeni in Jo’burg, the wares of a Betty’s Bay chocolatier and everything that Madame Zingara has to offer.

Last but not least, check out our readers’ letters and snaps, the latest Mango news and our interview with ad guru Jerome Cohen. And don’t forget to enter the Juice’s Favourite awards!

With skins ranging from sunny yellow and fresh, crisp green to fiery red and a delectable, juicy orange fresh that bursts with sweet flavour, it’s hardly surprising that the exotic mango is known as the king of fruits.

An apt name given that mangoes are one of the oldest cultivated fruits in the world, their history spanning back some 6000 years. The fruit is believed to have originated in north eastern India – where it’s regarded as a sacred fruit – and north western Myanmar and Bangladesh. Buddhist monks were recorded as taking mango plants on voyages to eastern Asia as early as the 4th century, from where it spread across Asia. Persian traders were largely responsible for taking the fruit to the Middle East and Africa.

Mangoes have been cultivated in South Africa for the past 100 years, with in excess of 75 000 tons being harvested annually today. Interestingly, of this amount, South Africans consume 20 000 tons of fresh fruit; 20 000 tons of juice; 15 000 tons of atchar and 10 000 tons of dried fruit!

It’s clear we just can’t get enough of our luscious local mangoes! So make sure you stock up and get your share this season.

Mango recipe of the month:

Cinnamon French toast with ricotta cheese and grilled mango cheeks
Serves 4

Ingredients:
4 mango cheeks for serving
2 large eggs
4 tablespoon low fat smooth cream cheese
1 tablespoon castor sugar
a little butter
1 white loaf of bread, thickly sliced
150g ricotta cheese (can substitute low fat cream cheese)
cinnamon sugar

Preparation:
Grill or fry the mango wedges briefly on a hot griddle, set aside.
Beat the eggs, cream cheese and castor sugar to make a batter.
Heat a little butter in a frying pan until hot.
Dip the bread slices into the batter, turning them over to soak both sides.
Fry the slices in the hot butter until golden, turning to cook both sides.
Drain on paper towels and serve immediately with cinnamon sugar, a dollop of ricotta cheese and a wedge of mango.

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