Take the M1 freeway south, past the spas and high-end restaurants of Melrose Arch, through the leafy suburb of Houghton and past the nearby clubs and galleries of Melville. Go past all that, and past downtown's concrete towers and the booming Newtown cultural district, and get off at Rissik Street. Just a block away, in the shadow of the elevated freeway's pillars, there awaits the finest selection of porcupine skin and baboon entrails in all Africa.
And you thought there was no reason to come to Johannesburg.
Actually, most people think there is little reason to come to Johannesburg. South Africa seems to pack more exotic beauty per square kilometer than any other place on earth, from Cape Town's gasp-inducing mountains to the Karoo's desert vistas to the pristine beaches just about everywhere. Johannesburg, on the other hand, is set on a featureless plain 1.7km above sea level ?the famous Highveld. Downtown is best described as faceless, its sprawl and traffic reminiscent of Los Angeles. Its defining feature is the huge yellow hillocks of toxic gold tailings that pock the landscape below downtown. Its selling point is the weather: cloudless 23oC days punctuated by brief, titanic thunderstorms on summer afternoons.
Yet many South Africans insist that it is the one city that no visitor should miss. At more than 6 million people, it is the biggest city in Africa and the most transformed. Twenty years ago, much of Johannesburg was the preserve of South Africa's white minority. Today, it is a stewpot of colors and languages, the fruit not only of liberation but also of a huge influx of immigrants and refugees. Johannesburg is a place where purveyors of muti ?the porcupine skins, ground herbs and baboon entrails touted as cure-alls for everything from flatulence to flagging love affairs ?hawk their wares a few blocks from skyscrapers.
Still greater transformations are imminent. As the principal host for the 2010 World Cup, Johannesburg is embarking on a binge of reconstruction and civic boosterism, hoping to erase the urban-jungle image of the 1990s, when crime skyrocketed and the center city became all but a ghost town. Among other investments, leaders plan a US$3 billion high-speed train to link Johannesburg and Pretoria; a refurbished sports stadium; and a US$400 million public square.
Johannesburg is ?he heart and soul of the country,?said Thabo Molubi, an information-technology executive by day and a sangoma, or traditional healer, in the off hours. ?obody is from Johannesburg, except those of us who are young and were born here. But it's where our roots are.?P>
It's where everyone's roots are. In the city's western exurbs, the national government is busily building a major tourist attraction around a warren of caves where archaeologists have found fossils of some of man's earliest known ancestors. The Cradle of Humankind, www.cradleofhumankind.co.za, a UN World Heritage Site, is being outfitted with an interpretation center, restaurants and a conference center.
By comparison, the rest of Johannesburg seems impermanent, mostly because it is. Little but tallgrass and trees existed here before 1886, when an Australian prospector named George Harrison struck gold on a farm about 8km west of today's downtown. He had found the Witwatersrand (or white water reef) gold field, the richest in history. Within weeks, thousands of prospectors' tents carpeted the area. Oppression followed greed as the government forced blacks into what were essentially labor camps. Near Harrison's strike rose Sophiatown, a center of black art and literature; the apartheid government razed it in the 1950s. Nearby, Soweto ?short for ?outh West Townships??began as a shantytown for black migrant labor.
RSS