Maximum Fun: Johannesburg

Do you know who Yoburgers are? These are residents of Johannesburg, one of the largest cities in Africa.

Johannesburg is currently perhaps the most underrated tourist city in South Africa. It is considered to be one of the most criminal in the world. It’s a diamond trading center. The city with its surroundings has about 8 million inhabitants. Thus, it’s the largest city in South Africa.

Video by Parallel Lenses

That’s where the famous Soweto is located, where all guidebooks forbid to go to, except with a group, and where, according to the inhabitants themselves, the white one is an ATM. The harder you hit, the more money you get.

 

By the way, some brave travelers decide to check it out. After visiting, they change their point of view: quite a normal area, not rich, yes, a lot of people begging for money, yes, they might have been the only whites on the whole street, but they can walk there quite nicely and have a very tasty dinner.

 

Things to do in Johannesburg

  • Plunge into the atmosphere of the gold rush, visit the city center. The center definitely deserves the nickname of African New York with its stylish high-rise buildings, parks, bridges. Montecasino is a vacation spot for wealthy citizens. It’s a whole town built by Italians with restaurants, casinos and other delights of life.
  • Visit Lesedi Cultural Village and learn a little about the life of the South African peoples.
  • Go to the Zoo and the Lion Park.  The Johannesburg Zoo is one of the oldest in South Africa (founded in 1904) and one of the most representative on the entire continent. About 2,000 individuals of 320 species live on an area of   200 acres. You can meet a rare breed of white lions, a polar bear, a leopard, African elephants, buffaloes, rhinos, hippos, large western gorillas, who are the pride of the zoo, and many other representatives of the animal world.
  • Descend to a depth of 200 m at the Crown Mines.
  • Visit the Apartheid Museum. This museum tells the story of 46 years of segregation based on color. Nelson Mandela, as the personification of the struggle and victory over apartheid, greets everyone at the entrance: "It is in your hands, to make a better world for all who live in it." Professional transformation instantly adapted this message to security issues. 

At the entrance, the museum invites everyone to experience what segregation is. Someone gets a “white” ticket, and someone “non-white”. The route is divided. Inside is the story of the rise, resistance, and fall of an extreme form of racism.

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At the exit, visitors are offered to choose one statement by Nelson Mandela that is closest to them in meaning and spirit. On the portraits of the leader, they are marked with different colors. Then, you need to remove the cane of your chosen color from the basket and place it in any of the special holders. People choose different colors and put them in different holders. But in the end, each holder ends up with approximately the same number of canes of different colors. Despite the differences between people, in the end we are all the same.

Spend time in Golden Reef City, an interesting theme park: an open-air museum, an amusement park, a walk through the mines where diamonds were mined, and a show - this is really cool, at least for half a day.

  • Find Soweto, Vilakazi Street, where Nelson Mandela's house is located and next to the pedestrian street and the Orlando Towers. It's a strange place that causes conflicting emotions, but it is worth a visit. Not everyone understands that having a roof over your head, food and education is already a greater good
  • See Sandton, Joburg's wealthiest area with Africa's largest shopping center.
  • Relax in the Botanical Gardens.
  • Visit Carlton Center with a viewing platform.
  • Take pictures at the James Hall Museum of Transport.

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There are many more interesting attractions around Johannesburg within a couple of hours.  Johannesburg, or, as the locals call it, Joburg, Josie, is a city of the times of the gold rush.  Johannesburg has remained as brilliant and attractive as ever.  The gold mines have become tourist attractions, where you can feel the excitement of the miners. Saloons and port restaurants are still filled with sailors and visitors. And in the Soweto area, there is a huge zoo, the best in South Africa.

 

Johannesburg is the diamond of South Africa, bright and multifaceted. This is real Africa, dangerous and alluring, saturated with soft Negro motifs, sun and freedom. The pulsation of the city of gold, its impudence and energy fascinate, forcing you to take a closer look at this city. To cut a long story short, Johannesburg is not at all scary, but very interesting. 

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