Johannesburg

Public Transport

With a fleet of new double-decker buses, Metrobus (tel: 011 833 5538; website: www.mbus.co.za) offers a scheduled busservice covering over 100 routes within the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan area; the service runs 0600-1900. Most routes start and finish in Ghandi Square (formerly Vanderbijl Square) bus terminus, corner of Main and Rissik Streets, and cover six zones with zone one closest and zone six furthest. Ticket prices depend on how many zones are crossed. Books of pre-paid tickets can be bought from Computicket (tel: 011 340 8000 or 083 915 8000; website: www.computicket.com) kiosks in shopping malls, which work out cheaper than regular fares paid onboard the buses. 

Metrorail (tel: 011 773 7092 or 0800 127 070; website: www.sarcc.co.za) is the suburban train service providing daily links to many parts of greater Johannesburg (including Soweto). This service is generally not recommended to visitors because of the danger of theft.

Taxis

The quickest (but not necessarily safest) way to get around Johannesburg is in one of the minibus taxis (sometimes called Zola Budds after the famous South African runner), which depart when full, pick up anywhere and serve the main routes 0500-2100. The main minibus rank in the city centre is at the Metro Mall on Ntemi Piliso Street in Newtown. 

However, minibus taxis cannot really be recommended to visitors. Although they are getting more organised and newer vehicles are being introduced, they still have a bad reputation and safety record. Tourists who do choose to use this service should exercise caution and employ common sense at all times. Do not board an empty bus or travel alone, and avoid those that are in dreadful shape - with flat or smooth tyres, alarming dents or just a general state of disrepair. 

Metered taxis are infinitely more expensive but far safer and more convenient than minibuses. They cannot be hailed in the street but can be ordered at any time of day or night and can also be hired for day trips. Although the meters are generally accurate, visitors should ask the driver for an estimated price before setting out. Unlike locals, foreigners often tip, and, although it is not expected, a small tip is appreciated.

Rose Taxis (tel: 011 403 0000; website: www.rosetaxis.com) are well established and have a reputation for reliability. Maxi Taxi Cabs (tel: 011 648 1212) are also recommended.

Driving in the City

Johannesburg’s rise fairly closely parallels that of the automobile and this has allowed successive city planners to cater very well for the needs of private motorists. The network of roads and highways is excellent and well maintained and parking is more than adequate. Attractions and shopping malls have car parks and across the city are purpose-built multi-storey car parks. If parking on the street, it is customary to pay R2-5 to car guards for watching your car. These usually wear a badge or work vest and this system is well worth supporting as it provides thousands of jobs.

Traffic congestion is generally limited to the rush-hour periods of 0700-0900 and 1600-1800. At other times, most locations within the city can be reached in well under an hour. The main road hazards are poor driving (especially by minibus taxi drivers), a lack of visible traffic policing and the threat of attack by smash-and-grab thieves and armed hijackers. Visitors should never stop for hitchhikers or at accident scenes and always keep their doors locked and windows up. After dark, many motorists also (illegally) ignore red traffic lights (when in isolated or deserted areas, such as highway exits or intersections adjacent to parks), for safety reasons.

Car Hire

A hired car is the easiest way to get around Johannesburg, especially for excursions to outlying areas. Hotels can arrange car hire for their guests, while all major car hire companies have booths at the airport. These include Avis (tel: 0861 113 748; website: www.avis.co.za), Budget (tel: 0861 016 622; website: www.budget.co.za), Europcar (tel: 0860 011 344; website: www.europcar.co.za), Hertz (tel: 0861 600 136; website: www.hertz.co.za) and Tempest Sixt (tel: 0861 836 7378; website: www.tempestcarhire.co.za).

Third party insurance is included in the rates but comprehensive or full cover insurance is usually offered as an optional extra (some companies make this compulsory) and is highly recommended, particularly against theft. Drivers must be at least 23 years old and have a credit card and an International Driving Licence (unless the driver’s national licence is printed in English and bears a photograph of the holder).

Bicycle Hire

Johannesburg’s town planners have made absolutely no provision for bicycles in their grand schemes and consequently many motorists do not view cyclists as being legitimate users of the road. It therefore comes as no surprise that no one hires out bicycles in the city.

Introduction

Everywhere in Johannesburg small projects and artistic developments pop up to thrill and entertain everyone - you can find hilarious comedy acts, large-scale operas, art exhibitions, intimate theatre performance and poetry readings in a number of venues. Listings can be found by paging through the Tonight supplement to the city’s main daily newspaper, The Star (website: www.tonight.co.za).As well as the lively theatre scene, Johannesburg’s annual festivals, which cover nearly every artistic field, are an engrossing way to sample different aspects of the city’s cultural life. See also www.702.co.za for searchable daily listings of Johannesburg happenings and events. There is also a good online guide that lists art exhibitions in the city (website: www.artthrob.co.za).

Tickets to cultural events are available from Computicket (tel: 011 340 8000 or 083 915 8000; website: www.computicket.com), the national reservations system, which also has kiosks in the larger shopping malls.

Music: The lusty lyrics and irresistible dance beats of kwaito can be heard blasting out of taxis, clubs, shebeens and street parties throughout Johannesburg. The genre uses local languages and street slang in lyrics that reflect life in South Africa and employs a distinct South African style of dancing and dressing.You can listen to kwaito at the Horror Cafe, 15 Miriam Makeba Street (tel: 011 838 6735), andCarfax,39 Pim Street (tel: 011 834 9187; website: www.carfax.co.za), both in Newtown, or The Rock, 1987 Vundla Street (tel: 011 986 8182), in Soweto, among many other places. Jazz is also popular, the best venues being Newtown’s Kippies Jazz Club, at the Market Theatre, 121 Bree Street (tel: 011 836 1805; website: www.kippies.co.za) and The Bassline, 10 Henry Nxumalo Street (tel: 011 838 9145; website: www.bassline.co.za), and Sandton’s Blues Room, Village Walk (tel: 011 838 9145; website: www.bluesroom.co.za).

Theatre: Since 1976 and the days of protest theatre, the Market Theatre Company, 121 Bree Street, Newtown (tel: 011 832 1641; website: www.markettheatre.co.za), has gained a reputation for putting on productions that are socially relevant. The Civic Theatre Complex, Loveday Street, Braamfontein (tel: 011 877 6800; website: www.showbusiness.co.za), comprises the Nelson Mandela Theatre (formerly Civic Main), Tesson, Thabong and Pieter Roos theatres and an art gallery. Shows are mainly local productions, musicals, ballet, comedy and pantomime (when in season). The incredibly powerful 26-strong Soweto Gospel Choir (website: www.sowetogospelchoir.com) regularly plays there.Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre, Shop 65, Montecasino Boulevard, on the corner of William Nicol Drive and Witkoppen Road, Fourways (tel: 011 511 1818; website: www.montecasinotheatre.co.za), owned by the great impresario who gave it his name, gives both new and established artistes opportunities for new directions and growth.A new 1,900-seater theatre has recently been added to the complex, built especially to stage South Africa’s version of The Lion King (website: www.lionkingsa.co.za). Another well known theatre and cabaret figure, Richard Loring, runs a supper theatre, The Sound Stage, Old Pretoria Road, Midrand (tel: 011 315 5084; website: www.soundstage.co.za).

Dance: Dance Factory, President Street, Newtown Cultural Precinct (tel: 011 833 1347), hosts a huge range of international and local performers, often mixing classical and ethnic styles.

Film: Every major shopping centre has a cinema complex showing mainstream movies, either run by Ster-Kinekor(website: www.sterkinekor.com) or Nu-Metro(website: www.numetro.co.za), with advance booking through Computicket (tel: 011 340 8000 or 083 915 8000; website: www.computicket.com). Increasingly, the cinemas are installing swipe machines for credit cards to receive pre-booked tickets. On one day of the week, usually Tuesdays, tickets are half price. Cinema Nouveau, located at The Mall of Rosebank, 50 Bath Avenue, Rosebank (tel: 011 880 2866), shows art-house films and regularly hosts film festivals.

Some notable films set in Johannesburg include Mapantsula (1988), which tells of a petty hoodlum caught up in the events of the student riots in Soweto, The Foreigner (1994), which deals with the growing xenophobia aimed mostly at immigrant Africans in Johannesburg, and The Line (1996), which portrays ordinary South Africans caught up in the violent times of a fast changing society.To date the most famous South African-made movie is Tsotsi, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film at the 2005 Academy Awards. Entirely filmed in Soweto, and in the Tsotsi Taal language, it tells the moving story of a violent and murderous gangster who finds himself unwittingly looking after a baby he found on the back seat of a car he hijacked. Tsotsi Taal is mixture of Afrikaans, English and African words, which was developed to communicate across different languages in the townships and is commonly used in kwaito music - a sort of gangster rap.

Literary Notes: Johannesburg’s tumultuous past (and present) has provided fertile grounds for the growth of a rich literary tradition. An excellent source of books is the African Books Collective (website: www.africanbookscollective.com).Nadine Gordimer, who won the 1991 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born close to the city in 1923 and has lived in Parktown, Johannesburg since 1948. In The House Gun (1998), set in Johannesburg, she explores, through a murder trial, the problems of a violence-ridden post-apartheid society. In his writings about Johannesburg, Herman Charles Bosman (1910-1951) presents the soul of the city as reflecting the soul of Africa. To understand the background as to why Johannesburg has fascinated so many writers, Gandhi’s Johannesburg: Birthplace of Satyagraha (2000), by Eric Itzkin, and Johannesburg, One City, Colliding Worlds (2004), by Lindsey Bremner, are both a good initial read.

Although Nelson Mandela was not born in Johannesburg, he did have a law practice here in the 1950s and was arrested in the suburb of Rivonia, before being tried and convicted for treason in 1963. Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (1995) provides a remarkable insight into what Johannesburg in the 1940s and 50s was like for this extraordinary man.

Zakes Mda’s novel about Sophiatown, Heart of Redness (2001), explores the area during ’The golden 50s, the flowering of South African culture and the Sophiatown renaissance’. One of Johannesburg’s most famous theatrical sons is Pieter-Dirk Uys, possibly better known as his alter-ego Evita Bezuidenhout. Pieter-Dirk Uys started irritating South African politicians and censors with his plays from 1973 onwards. His better known or more notorious works include Adapt or Dye (1981), which parodied the white regime’s preoccupation with skin colour and, more recently, TruthOmissions (1996/1997), a somewhat acerbic comment on South Africa’s Truth Commission, a post-apartheid platform to facilitate reconciliation and reparation.

One of South Africa’s greatest living poets, Don Mattera, was born in Johannesburg’s Sophiatown in 1935. His grandparents sent him to a private Catholic boarding school, which he hated. Here he acquired little other than skills in English, boxing and codes of masculinity, which he turned to great advantage on his return to Sophiatown, where he became leader of one of the most notorious gangs, the Vultures. Then, slowly, along with the campaign against the apartheid removals (from Sophiatown), began the process of politicisation (membership of the ANC Youth League) and his transformation from gangland boss to political activist.

© Columbus Travel Media Ltd.