So… my trip to Johannesburg, South Africa did not go exactly as I envisioned it. In fact, it was a bi tof a disaster all round.
So on Friday after classes, four friends and I hopped onto a combie looking forward to our great adventure. By the way, a combie is like a minibus/ van and they don’t leave until they are all the way full. Basically, I spent the six hours to Joburg sitting on the edge of my seat as the two ladies next to m managed to take up 2 ½ seats instead of their allotted one. And the girls and I kinda got lost for ten mins at the South African boarder, but besides that the ride wasn’t too bad.
The trouble started when we arrived.
Our combie driver was very sweet and found us a taxi to take us to our hostel right away. He even took down the guy’s license number and warned him that we were American girls and that he expected the taxi driver to take really good care of us. And he did take care of us, but it took us over half an hour to find the hostel since NO ONE knew where it was. I mean we had the address (which turned out to be wrong) but no one the taxi driver asked had even heard of the place. We eventually found it (we were worried for a bit that the place was a fake) and ran into our next big road bump.
The manager had booked us rooms but then given them to other people…
So we were in the middle of Joburg at ten at night with no place to stay. Our taxi driver sat with us for an entire HOUR while we waited for the lady to either give us rooms or get us another place to stay. While this was nice of him, his original fare of R250 went up to R430 (around 60USD). Eventually the manager got us a dorm style room at another hostel called the Rosebed Backpackers (or something like that) We were so tired, we went to bed right away.
The next morning we got up and went to the Diamond Diggers Backpackers. It was MUCH better than the one the night before. It was quiet (unlike the last one), had a GREAT view of the Joburg city, and had a pool. (Though we didn’t make use of it) We spent the first half of the day settling in and going to a mall for lunch. Seriously, a mall. In the afternoon, we went to the Apartheid Museum, which is what one of the girls wanted to do most while in Joburg. It cost another R80 each to get there and R40 to get in, but the museum WAS fascinating. I really didn’t know much about what had happened before I went, but the museum was really nice.
After the museum closed, it was dark and so we headed back to our backpackers to eat and chill. (Joburg is not really a safe city for a group of girls to hang around in at night)
The next morning, we had wanted to go see the caves at the Cradle of Humankind Heritage Site, but the other girls decided it was too expensive and so we didn’t go. Instead, we headed to another mall and went to a sushi buffet (who ever said there was no sushi in Africa!) That was pretty much the highlight of the trip: the all you can eat sushi… which is kind of sad if you ask me!
Then we took the combie back to Gabarone… At least I was MUCH more comfortable this time as this combie had bigger seats and I sat with my friends instead of two old ladies. Basically, all we did this trip was go to a museum and I spent over P1000 (about 200USD) on transportation and lodging…sigh.
Ah well, you win some, you lose some. Better luck next time, ne?
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