From hope springs life

Soweto became famous for all the wrong reasons, but since the end of Apartheid, the South African town has grown in leaps and bounds.

Tour guide Bongani Radebe is early to collect us from our hotel in the heart of Johannesburg's swanky suburb of Rosebank. He's not fussed that the four Australians embarking on a tour of Soweto are running late. He is a man who is early as a matter of course. Waiting comes with the territory.

Rather than sink into one of the couches in the lobby, he chooses to stand near the door to greet his charges with a broad smile and a traditional three-step African handshake. Palms together, thumbs raised and locked, palms together.

Soweto, 20 kilometres south west of Johannesburg, has become one of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the region. Official tours began in 1994, the year the African National Congress swept to power with more than 60 per cent of the vote in the country's first democratic elections.

That same year Soweto - unimaginatively named after its geographical location, South West Township - also got its first bank branch. Since then, the 20 or so townships that make up Soweto have thrived.

While gritty, it's fascinating to the traveller seeking something more.

The new entrepreneurs are capitalising on the curiosity outsiders have of a place that became world famous for all the wrong reasons.

"Soweto is one of the largest towns on the African continent," Bongani says as we leave Johannesburg's vertical skyline behind and head for the horizontal sprawl of the townships.

I have a preconceived idea of what Soweto will be like. My mind's eye has a vision of hillsides smothered in shacks. A monotonous vista of weathered, corrugated iron roofs and grey breeze-block walls. Fences made from scavenged materials. I see dusty narrow streets with little greenery but lots of barking dogs. A place where a coathanger aerial on a car is a sign of affluence.

But as we pull off the main road and drive into the township, I start to wonder if I might be wrong.

"Make way for the BMW," Bongani jokes. The German car is the one most aspired to in Soweto, he explains. "It stands for 'Be My Wife', or 'Black Man's Wish'," Bongani says, his smile getting broader.

Everything is relative in South Africa, however, and it is now a country of economic rather than racial contrasts. Back in wealthy Rosebank, locals joke that BMW stands for "Break My Windows".

Bongani hails from one of the oldest suburbs in Soweto, Orlando East. Most of the houses there started out as three-room homes in the 1930s, but they have since been generously extended. Some have up to 10 rooms and are a sign of the area's increasing wealth.

The streets are surprisingly clean, the fences less intrusive than in Rosebank and the children kicking a soccer ball across the hardened clay by the side of the road are oblivious to the cruising traffic.

We pull up at the Soweto taxi rank, the heart of the township. From here, thousands of workers who have not yet bought their own BMW catch buses and taxis to and from work in Johannesburg. The taxis in South Africa rule the tarmac. Never pick a fight with one. They are battle-weary mini-vans meant to seat about a dozen. But as every passenger is money in the till, most cram in up to 20 people and drivers have been known to remove the steering wheel and drive with a monkey wrench to make more space. A ticket to Johannesburg costs as little as 80 cents.

The dusty taxi rank is buzzing, though it's way after peak hour. There are almost 2000 licensed traders in the area, selling everything from hair combs and gel to pens, batteries and lighters. "The rest of the traders in the area are illegal," Bongani explains. "But informal business makes up a large part of Soweto's economy."

It's a place where the cobbler can double as the hairdresser. Morning commuters are more likely to grab a bowl of tripe to go rather than a decaf latte. We pass on the offer of some offal, which a young man wearing bright orange overalls is chopping up on a chipboard bench. There is such a thing as too much local colour.

Plastic milk crates are the seats of choice among the stallholders and the tarpaulin roofs of their makeshift stalls offer little shelter from the sting in the sun and the dust in the air. A traditional healer hawks his wares on a metal sign on the ground. The sign once advertised one-hour photos but it now promotes plant roots, dried herbs and specimen jars containing squelch that looks like it could only be identified through some meticulous DNA testing.

There is something for almost every ailment here - lethargy, diabetes, bad breath, you name it. There are also potions to chase away spirits or help you talk to your ancestors. The healer continues to do well selling traditional remedies or "muti", despite the fact that the world's largest hospital is across the road.

The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, established in 1942 as a tuberculosis hospital, is spread out over 172 hectares. Its $A167 million annual budget is used to deliver 28,000 babies, conduct 72,000 blood transfusions and 47,000 operations a year - and that's not to mention the 2000 daily X-rays.

Its presence is up there with owning a BMW, something that the locals are proud of. Bongani walks us up to the crest of the cement pedestrian overpass - lined with yet more traders - to view the hospital from its most impressive angle. Like Soweto, the hospital was known around the world for all the wrong reasons during the apartheid regime. It treated burns, firearm and stabbing victims at a frantic pace and overseas doctors looking for emergency experience would queue to get an internship.

But there is more to Soweto, with its population of almost 3 million, than its sprawling taxi rank and hospital. The township has changed since opening up to tourists. There are a number of bed and breakfasts dotted among the houses, and the rowdy shebeens, which serve up local dishes at all hours, are thriving. While the offerings are not as colourful as that available at the taxi rank, it is still an authentic taste of African cuisine.

One shebeen, Wandie's Place, delivers buffet-style lunches straight out of the potjie pot - a bulbous, heavy-duty cast-iron pot ideal for slow-cooked curried chicken and lamb dishes. Boerewors, a mouthwatering spiced sausage, is served alongside other Soweto staples, including creamed spinach and mealie meal - corn ground with such determination that it looks like pale cous cous.

There is also the sobering Hector Pieterson Museum, located near the site of the June 16, 1976, uprising. It is named after a 12-year-old boy who was among the first shot and killed by police who had fired into a crowd of demonstrating students.

Footage of the riot reached world television and newspapers, putting South Africa in the headlines and triggering a chain reaction of violence across the country. Further international sanctions were imposed and pressure mounted on the National Party to end apartheid. One black-and-white photograph printed around the world showed a man running, carrying Pieterson's body. Pieterson's 17-year-old sister, Antoinette, was running with him, her arms raised in distress. She knew Pieterson was dead. A reproduction of the photograph stands larger than life outside the museum.

Another of Soweto's claims to fame is that it is the only town in the world to have produced two Nobel Peace Prize laureates from the same street. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela both lived on Vilakazi Street, Orlando. Mandela was there from 1960 until he went into hiding in 1961 and his four-room brick house is open for inspection. The modest corner house, which survived being petrol bombed in the 1980s, has a low corrugated iron roof and compact rooms with a shrine-like feel to them. Each is filled with gifts bestowed upon Mandela as president and activist.

Tutu now lives in Orlando West, an affluent part of Soweto, as does Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and drive-bys of their grand homes (notable for their high walls, security cameras and bullet-proof windows) are on most tours. Other locals include about 20 white families and as many as 25 millionaires and their German-made cars.

But it is not just the presence of millionaires cruising the tarred streets that indicate this is now a place of opportunity. Soweto boasts 120 soccer fields - the largest stadium outdoes the MCG, seating 120,000 - as well as 12 police stations, five shopping centres and an Alliance Francaise centre. All this signifies that Soweto has grown up to become more of a town than a township.

Bridie Smith travelled to South Africa as a guest of South African Tourism.

Johannesburg

Post-apartheid South Africa has had a significant impact on the tourist trail in Johannesburg. The impressive architect-designed Apartheid Museum, left, six kilometres from the city, is a stand-out and demands a day to itself.

The museum, which opened in 2001, offers both a sobering and an uplifting journey through the country's past, a warts-and-all display that begins with visitors receiving a card that puts them in a racial group and determines which entrance they use to enter the museum. The narrow entrance has two corridors, one for white and one for non-white cardholders. It is lined with identity cards and signs from railway stations and office buildings that enforced segregation. Using contemporary radio and TV interviews, news clippings and photographs, the museum gives you an idea of what it was like to live in a country so harshly divided by race. The museum has 22 exhibition areas, so its size can be daunting, but it's nothing that a short break in the grounds overlooking the Johannesburg skyline won't fix.

The Apartheid Museum shares its entry with Gold Reef City, Johannesburg's answer to Sovereign Hill, if you overlook the fact that it also has a casino and that the emphasis is more on being a fun park than a living museum. Gold, which was discovered by Australian prospector George Harrison in 1886, played a significant role in Johannesburg's history. It saw the small settlement mature to become the country's commercial capital. Johannesburg is still Africa's second-largest city after Cairo.

Constitution Hill, the new home of the Constitutional Court, is also worth a visit. The court is on the site of Johannesburg's notorious Old Fort prison complex, known as Number Four. There, thousands of ordinary people were detained and punished. Among the better-known inmates were Mahatma Gandhi (1906-1913), Nelson Mandela (1956) and Winston Churchill, who was held at the Old Fort briefly during the Anglo-Boer War, when he was a war correspondent.

On safari

If you think camping out in a tent in the middle of nowhere means roughing it, then think again. Sure, the accommodation at CC Africa's Ngala tent camp has a touch of canvas about it - the tents' walls and pitched ceilings are bush-green canvas, as are the front and back verandas - but that's about where the similarities end.

The six tents at the luxurious camp on the fringe of Kruger National Park are each the size of a modest hotel suite - two thirds of the floor is timber while the rest is polished concrete. The timber decking at the front comes with two oversized cane chairs and a table, while at back the decking leads to a shower where you can wash under the broad African sky.

The floor-to-ceiling windows have timber frames but no glass, just mosquito netting and roman blinds made of the same mossy green canvas. The windows frame the bush setting where baboons, wart-hogs, buffalo, vervet monkeys and elephants are regular visitors. Cheetahs are rarer. In fact, it's something of a trophy sighting if you're lucky enough to spot one, even when you're on a game spotting tour. We got excited after discovering a couple of tracks - that was as far as we got.

As for the rest, animal visitors to the camp are so common that guests are not allowed to walk around without security after dark. There is a whistle in each room, which guests use to call their chaperone when they are ready to walk the gravel path to the dining room and lounge. These communal areas have yet more decking overlooking the dry Timbavati river, as well as an elongated dining room with a fireplace at one end.

All the materials - timber, stone and canvas - are in keeping with the bush setting, so for guests overlooking the riverbed, there is a feeling of being in one of the most up-market hides in the world. And it probably is.

The emphasis here is on luxury. You are sleeping under canvas, but there is air-conditioning and a ceiling fan for the summer months, and electric blankets for the winter. But it's also what is not in the room that makes this a relaxing getaway. There is no phone, internet access, radio or television. And, even better, mobile reception is scratchy.

Game drives start at 5.30am after staff wake guests, bringing guava juice and a crunchie biscuit to make the morning rises a little more palatable. When you are feeling weary from the game spotting, the generous lunch and reading by the pool, dinner will do the trick.

South Africa is known the world over for its wildlife. But what you don't know until you get there is that it's delicious. Kudu sausages, ostrich capaccio, impala bolognaise, guineafowl drumsticks - these are signature dishes of both the private game parks and the national parks network. I'm told with a wry smile that impala are the McDonald's of the food chain in the African bush.

Rates at Ngala's tent camp are from $1076 per night.

For information about Conservation Corporation Africa (CC Africa), visit http://www.ccafrica.com; for the Ngala tent camp, http://www.ngala.co.za.

'It was amazing'

Former AFL star Jason McCartney is one of the growing number of visitors fascinated by Soweto.Earlier this year the ex-North Melbourne footballer visited the township. "I never imagined I'd ever go to South Africa but it was amazing," he says. "The thing that really took hold of me in Soweto was how proud they are of what they have got - it was quite outstanding, given that some people really don't have a lot."

McCartney, 32, toured the sprawling township in February as part of a two-week AFL Indigenous Youth Tour of South Africa with 24 under-17 indigenous players.

The group of about 40 - players, coaches and officials - visited Soweto's Regina Mundi church where, during the apartheid era, Archbishop Desmond Tutu famously continued preaching despite being prodded by a rifle held by a member of the security forces. They also went to Nelson Mandela's house in Orlando and to the Hector Pieterson Museum, located on the site where a riot occurred between police and school students on June 16, 1976. Pieterson, aged 12, was killed in the riot, and a photo of him being carried away became an iconic image of the Soweto uprising.

"I, like many of the guys that went away, didn't really understand what happened in June 1976," he recalls. "It had a profound impact on the guys because they related to Hector Pieterson's age, but also because they are young indigenous men it reminded them of some of the conditions and struggles that their grandparents may have grown up with in Australia, albeit on a smaller scale."

McCartney's role in South Africa was assistant coach with the local team. "That gave me an even greater appreciation of some of the difficulties they go through there. It was a very enriching and amazing experience," he says.

"I'd love to do more of the game parks, Kruger would be one. And since I have been back I also signed on to sponsor a seven-year-old boy from Swaziland, so one day I might go back and meet him and see his community."

If you go

- Relying on taxis and public transport is not recommended. A guided tour costs about $A60 for four hours or $A120 for seven hours, plus lunch.

- Qantas and South African Airlines operate a codeshare service, with direct flights to Johannesburg departing from Sydney and Perth. Airfares (excluding taxes) to Johannesburg are $2131 from Sydney and $1904 from Perth. Prices are seasonal.

- Visit South African Tourism on http://www.southafrica.net or call 1800 238 643.