Day 2 in Joburg

Photo #1: Gated home in Melville
Photo #2: Melville home with buildings in central Joburg in the distance

Yesterday afternoon I started out for a brief jog, but then I got kind of scared and decided it probably wasn't the best idea (despite my entry into lack-of-exercise panic mode), so I turned back relatively quickly. Apparently, as I learned today, people in South Africa don't really go jogging because it's not safe, and they just go to the gym... I'm guessing if it's not safe for them to go jogging, it's definitely not safe for me to go frolicking around in shorts wearing my armband keys/money holder (thanks mom!) and listening to my ipod shuffle. So I'm glad I nixed that idea early on.

Then I went into town, wandered a bit, and ended up getting dinner at this place called "Ant Cafe"...despite its name, they served me a delicious ant-free pizza. Then I came back to the hotel and locked myself in my room (not so safe around here after dark).

This morning I slept through breakfast because of my jetlag, but, leading me to fall even more deeply in love with Christine (the woman who runs this place), I found that she had left out a little place setting for me in the dining room with fresh fruit and jam and toast and tea and some kind of juice made with a delicious fruit I have yet to identify. So I had some breakfast, and then traipsed around Melville for a while. I walked up to the Melville Koppies (which apparently means little hills) Nature Reserve, checked out some local art shops (I'm determined to come home with some sweet South African artwork) and took some pictures of the really cool (and heavily guarded) houses in the area. There's also a cool restaurant/cafe called the Lucky Bean, which I thought Kelly would really like.

Then I stopped into the Melville Welcome Center to see what kind of day trips were available. I ended up booking a day trip to this cultural village called "Lesadie" where I would get to watch and learn (hah!) traditional dancing, eat lunch and hang out with the villagers. Their driver was busy with other customers, so one of the women working at the place said she would take me herself. On the drive out to the village, I noticed that there would be huge expanses of land with nothing on them, and then clusters of houses that were pretty much built on top of one another. I asked my driver about it and she said that's because it takes builders/buyers about 6 years to get a permit to build anything on a plot of land, so when they get a permit they just build as many houses as they can on that one lot. She was also telling me all about how South African businesses won't actually be making any money on account of the World Cup, because since there's a higher demand for workers, workers are demanding higher salaries, so even though businesses can charge tourists higher prices, since they have to pay higher salaries to their workers they don't actually end up making any more money. Hmm.

To make a long story short, the trip to the cultural village was an EPIC FAILURE. The woman who was driving me got lost-- it was supposed to take a half hour to get there, and after 2 hours of driving, multiple pull-overs to put something else into the GPS, and about 6 million cell phone calls to her coworkers/boss, we still hadn't found the village. Since the dancing was supposed to start at 1, and it was already 1:15, there was no way I was going to be able to see the dancing, so instead of taking me to the village for just a little while to see what I could, she decided to just drive me back to my hotel. So four hours after I booked the tour (on my LAST day in Joburg), I'm back where I started. Sigh. The only silver lining is that since she didn't charge me for anything (rightly so), I saved money on what would have been a pretty expensive trip that I was sort of peer-pressured into agreeing to pay for.

Now I'm back at the guesthouse, waiting around for 2 hours until I get picked up to head to the airport at 5:00. Christine just came in wearing a large felt soccer-shaped hat, and when I said haha I like your hat, she said thank you Cary (pronounced CAD-y) in a dead serious tone. I love her. I'm also reading a copy of "Glamour South Africa," which I was impressed with until I noticed Jessica Simpson on the cover and that all the pictures in the magazine are of American famous people.

<3 Cary