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Born and bred in The Rainbow Country. I am not going to give too much information as there are so many other sites on the WWW about South Africa. I will only touch on the basic and concentrate more one the trips I've done in this huge and beautiful country of mine.

South Africa is not a Dark Ages Country, we do have electricity - 220 V -, the roads are tarred but currently many of them have potholes in them! In Johannesburg - Egoli (place of gold) or Crime City, the roads are not paved with gold and lions nor elephants don't wander in our gardens!

South Africa is properly the best developed country on the African continent but alas, the influences of Dark Africa has made this country part of the Third World. The general service is not compatible with Europe or USA and people work on African-time; you have to be patient.

Cost of living is not to high but house bond's interest rates are very high, so are our Income Tax. You will find various products of high standard (mostly imported) in modern shopping malls but general food products are widely available like bread, milk et. There are various banks and Visa or Master Cards are excepted everywhere except maybe in very small dorpies ( 'dorpie' is the Afrikaans name for a very small countryside village which will have a Cafe, Police Station, Gas/Petrol Station, maybe a Post Office and a Hotel with an off-sale shop! A 'dorp' is slightly bigger which will then be classified to be close to the size of a town). Unfortunately you can not buy fuel (petrol, diesel or paraffin) with your credit card, you either pay cash or with a special PETROL card which is linked to your credit card or bank account.

In the "good old days" before credit cards, we used to tip the petrol attendants with a few coins, but since modern technology arrived in the form of plastic money, that old tradition disappeared. The only people you want to provide a tip for 'good service' may be for a waiter in a restaurant if you were happy with his or her service and also to the security guy at the parking areas at shopping malls to look after your car while you are shopping.

South Africa is as safe as any country in the world but with the weak police service and law enforcement, the crime is more violent and serious than in any other country. A tendency of "If I want something, I just take it, kill the owner just for the sport of it" is the motto among the criminals and the criminals are from a young age! Hopefully this will change in the future as the current Minister of Law and Order is also fed up with the crime situation. But wherever you go, you have to be alert and stay away from bad spots.

Much has be said about the crime in Johannesburg and much of it is true. Most of the big companies moved their headquarters to "safer" places like Cape Town, which caused more crime in Johannesburg's CBD. Basically there is nothing in Johannesburg CBD that is of any tourist value today. There are places around the CBD that is worthwhile to visit like Gold Reef City, an entertainment town of the good old mining days with buildings of that time when gold was mined in Johannesburg.

Johannesburg is like London UK, filled with various cultures and nationalities from around the globe but mainly from Africa. The streets are filthy, smelly and cramped with pavement hawkers which make walking on the pavements difficult and you become an easy target for bag snatchers. So, my advice, stay away from the CBD! It's a pity, in the good old days, my girl friend and I used to go to the movie houses, window shopping at night without any fear, but not today.

There are some good news. Since 11th April 2000, if you walk the streets of Johannesburg's CBD, you're been watched by twelve high-tech surveilance cameras placed at at crime troublespots. Intended to identify and lead to the swift arrest of criminals, the cameras represent a declaration of war against thugs who have made the city centre a notoriously unsafe place.When these cameras were installed in Cape Town and Durban, crime there was slashed close to 80%.

There are more to see than Johannesburg but travelers must remember, this country is big! Distances are great to travel and public transport does not really exist. Yes, there are private bus companies which service the main routes, hitch hiking during the day may be safe, not at night and if a black guy offer a lift, it's not for free, he will demand some form of payment. There are many, many black taxi operators with safe and very not so safe vehicles and whites and foreigners tend to make use of their services. You will find metered taxi operators, but they are few and very expensive.

Africa is hungry for foreign currencies and South Africa is not excluded. The people believe that all foreigners are wealthy as they come with Dollars, Ponds and whatever and charge them the earth. Be careful, talk to locals about fees and where to buy or where to book for resorts ect. and that includes tour operators.

That's enough of the 'negative' side of my country. It's very great and beautiful, scenic and filled with history and natural heritage. There are so much to see and to explore that you will find that you had set aside too little time to visit South Africa and that you will want to come again.
 

Too many people want to visit the Kruger National Park, then the Drakensberge, Cape Town and surroundings, the Garden Route and Durban in two weeks! Hey, that's a great deal of travelling!

Why, if you arrive at Johannesburg International Airport, Kruger Park is about 500 km from Johannesburg, then you want to visit the Drakensberg, but need to travel via Johannesburg or close to it (500 km) plus 500 -600 km to a resort in the Berg, which is normally halfway to Durban. Cape Town is a full 12-13 hours constant drive at legal speed of 120 km/hour without stopping from Johannesburg. There is so much to see in the Cape Peninsula, wine routes, museums, a full day outing to Table Mountain or Robben Island ( Nelson Mandela's formal home), the Garden Route to Port Elizabeth is close to a 1000 km as well. In other words, you need to plan properly what you want to see and set aside enough time for it.

South Africa also has 4 iindependent telvision stations. The Goverment station is the SABC with 3 stations and broadcast in several languages and is free to the public. Funding by annual licence fees, advertising and sponsorship. In the days of various homelands in South Africa, Bobphutuswana had its own TV station called BopTV which was an alternative to the SABC in the early days. The SABC prevented Bop's signal to the general public as BopTV was originally there for the Tswana populations, so very few people had BopTV reception. Around 1985 a new TV station started called M-NET and was the first and current pay tv station in South Africa. They have great channels and today it's part of Multichoice with several satelite stations. The newest tv station is called ETV with their headquaters in Cape Town. It's a free to air station with local and international news. So on a raining day there are several channels to watch a part from the rainbow radio channels.

There are so many WWW sites about South Africa which I will include some of my favorites under the LINKS icon for you which will provide you with more specific information. I rather tell you more about my holiday experiences to wonderful places, 'off the beaten track' adventures in South Africa and about my home town, Roodepoort.

My Home Town

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For more information contact: sdelange@mnet.co.za