Johannesburg - South Africa's Big City

Welcome to Africa! The thought of visiting the continent evokes stereotypical images of wildlife, beautiful scenery and warm people. South Africa also evokes thoughts of apartheid, corruption and crime. Part of the reason we wanted to do this trip was to start to understand the real story behind the world's 2nd largest continent through experiences in a handful of countries in Southern Africa.

For this two week trip first we are visiting Johannesburg, Kruger National Park and Cape Town in South Africa. Then we're flying up to Victoria Falls on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe where we'll visit Chobe National Park in Botswana as well. Finally, we'll visit Zambia's capital Lusaka.

First stop, Johannesburg... the commercial capital of South Africa and the city responsible for approximately 10% of the total GDP of subsaharan Africa. While we're in Johannesburg, we're staying with our friend Kalyan who lives in the leafy northern suburb of Sandton. Sandton is to Johannesburg as Buckhead is to Atlanta. There's lots of big commercial skyscrapers and glitzy shopping along with high end apartments and housing. The area popped up as a key commercial area of Johannesburg after the end of apartheid, for similar reasons that Buckhead did in Atlanta after the end of segregation in America.

View from Kalyan's apartment in Sandton. Very nice!

First thing's first, we need some South African wine!

The infrastructure in Johannesburg is pretty great. Similar to the USA.

On Sunday, Kalyan took us downtown for Market on Main, which is basically a Sunday food and crafts market. Afterward, he had to catch a flight, so we were on our own for the next few days until we meet back up in Cape Town. From Market on Main, Christina and David visited the Apartheid Museum while Paul quickly popped into Gold Reef City to ride Johannesburg's coasters.

Outside Market on Main.

Hipster coffee shop.

Market on Main, a Sunday market in downtown

View from the upper floor of the market.

Some people were truly frightened on the roller coasters at Gold Reef City. Check out those faces!

Anaconda was a great ride.

The Apartheid Museum is a must visit!

The museum included information on how the races were sorted and separated to keep power in white hands.

View from the apartheid museum: Johannesburg's CBD behind Gold Reef City coasters.

Walking around Johannesburg can be a challenge. Incomplete sidewalks and barbed wire fences are everywhere.

Tried a local beer! It was OK.

Sunday dinner at Craft in Parkhurst. David had ostrich!

Food in Johannesburg has been wonderful and cheap in American dollar terms!

On Monday we went to the city center to see the Origins Museum and Constitution Hill (the site of an Apartheid era prison). Afterwards we had lunch in Melville before heading downtown again to the Carlton Center, which is the tallest building in Africa. Finally we took a stroll around downtown Johannesburg, taking in the sights, smells and sounds of this bustling district.

On Wits University Campus. Is this really a sign-worthy issue? 

The Origins Museum had lots of exhibits on the San people of South Africa.

A gallery in the Origins Museum.

Witwatersrand University in Braamfontein neighborhood of Johannesburg.

An interesting sculpture in downtown.

Constitution Hill prison. Gandhi and Mandela were both held here. Conditions were awful.

Looking towards the CBD from Constitution Hill.

Constitution Hill.

Paul's Homemade Ice Cream in Melville! It was closed unfortunately.

Meat pie for lunch in Melville.

Johannesburg from above at the Top of Africa in the Carlton Center.

Neat zebra art in downtown.

After our walk around the CBD we took the Gautrain back to Sandton.

At Sandton City Center Paul got pumped up for the Rugby World Cup!

Johannesburg makes a big first impression, both positive and negative. While the roadway infrastructure is really excellent, walking can be challenging with sidewalks sometimes just disappearing. Safe transit isn't very prevalent in the city - there is the Gautrain, which is state of the art and relatively cheap, but mostly only connects the northern suburbs to downtown and nearby Pretoria. Our predominate mode of travel has been uber, believe it or not. Trips across town have all been only $5-$10.

The city is dotted with large glamorous shopping malls. These contrast sharply with other neighborhoods that are rundown, dirty and dangerous. The contrast between rich and poor is stark and largely follows racial lines, 20 years after the end of Apartheid.There is definitely a sense of worry over crime in this city. Countless websites and travel guides, as well as friends who have lived in Johannesburg have bombarded us with warnings about everything and everywhere. We were more anxious traveling around Joburg than any other place we've visited (Mexico City for example). Driving through the northern suburbs, where most of the wealthy people live, reveals street after street of walled compounds with electric fences and razor wire. Wealthy South Africans are terrified of the poor, and it shows, as we didn't see a single normal house facing the street in the entire city. The worry may not be unwarranted, as the crime rate is huge. Our friends have known several people who have been mugged or had their car windows smashed while they were stopped at a red light. The homicide rate is over 6 times higher than the US.

With the current record exchange rate, Johannesburg restaurants are very cheap when converted to American dollars...our excellent Sunday dinner in a trendy restaurant was R580 (or about $40) for three people, including alcohol, tax, and tip. The same meal in the States would have easily topped $100. The median income in Gauteng Province is around $3,000 per year...meaning our "cheap" dinner out represented the average household's weekly wage. In a country that is 80% black, it was amazing to us how often we found ourselves in places with only white people. Tourist sites, museums and well-reviewed restaurants were almost totally patronized by white people (some of which were tourists like us), while the staff was usually black. Segregation is still a fact in South Africa.

Some interesting graffiti in downtown.

Lots of South African pride around the city.

Johannesburg was an interesting introduction to South Africa. We enjoyed our experience, and learned a lot about the long history and culture of this part of the world. Next stop, Kruger National Park for some wildlife viewing.

Labor Day Coasters in New England

Over Labor Day weekend I (Paul) met up with my coaster buddy Kyle for a quick trip around New England. We traveled through 5 different states, visiting several parks and riding a few dozen coasters. The weather was perfect, we had some great food and beer, and rode a couple of the best steel coasters on earth. Of course, we also went to several kiddie parks. A credit is a credit. :)

We started on Friday evening at the Hartford airport, and made a quick stop at Six Flags New England before the long drive to northern New Hampshire.

First stop: Six Flags New England on a beautiful evening.

We took a quick spin on the new Wicked Cyclone - more on that later!

Had to take a ride on the amazing Bizarro/Superman, of course.

The view from the hotel the next morning. The mountains of New Hampshire!

Our first stop of the day, Santa's Village. It was a really good kiddie park. Lots of good theming and rides.

RUDY!

It's a nice family coaster.

Rudolph is on the front of the train.

The car ride was great. It even had this splashdown through a little pond. I've never seen that before.

There were these elf statues all over the park - one for each letter of the alphabet. Little kids carried cards around and got a stamp at each elf.

Of course there are reindeer at Santa's Village!

Lots of trees and nice buildings and rides all over the park. The park was packed on such a beautiful holiday weekend.

And a great log flume! The first of several we'd ride on this trip. I love it when the logs travel through concrete troughs in the ground.

Our next stop was a bit of a surprise. Formerly known as Six Gun City, this little park is now Fort Jefferson Fun Park. We knew it had a little coaster, but thought it wasn't operating any more. But as we drove past, we saw that it might be operating, so we pulled over.

And it was! Credit!

Wheee, kiddie coasters. This one was kinda big at least, and the only one remaining with this specific layout.

OK.

Kyle in the stocks. Overall this park was pretty run-down, and there were hardly any people there. I'd be surprised if it lasts much longer.

Nice scenery on the drive through the Presidential Mountains.

Heading up and over a pass.

Next stop: Story Land!

WHAT!?

Unfortunately Roar-o-Saurus, one of the highlights of the trip, was closed. We decided to skip the park all together.

Beer is a good substitute for closed coasters.

Our next stop was the alpine coaster at Attitash Mountain.

Alpine coaster selfie!

I love how most alpine coasters race down the mountain through the trees.

Next we took the chairlift up the mountain to ride the alpine slide. This is the first time I've seen two chairlifts cross over each other.

Awesome view from the chairlift.

You pass right over the top of the two alpine slide tracks.

Even though Kyle and I started at the same time, his side got all jammed up by a slow mover. One person braking too much creates a huge log jam. I was finished and off my cart long before this side made it down.

Our next stop was Mount Cranmore, another resort just down the road with another alpine coaster.

Alpine coaster selfie number 2!

After spending the night near Portland, our first park Sunday was Funtown Splashtown USA.

The big attraction is Excalibur. This woodie has a great first half, but loses a lot of energy and crawls through the second half. Still a fun ride.

Another fun log flume!

Funtown has quite a few rides.

Excalibur heads up the lift hill.

Palace Playland on the Atlantic Coast was our next park. The beach area was absolutely slammed, which made sense considering the lovely weather.

There's a kiddie coaster too.

Lots of people enjoying the beach on Labor Day weekend. We had a drink on the pier before moving along to our next park.

York's Wild Kingdom is mostly a zoo, but has a small ride section.

I assume this is official "An American Tale: Fievel Goes West" theming.

The park had a surprising number of walk-through attractions. None of them were very good, but the haunted house looked great from the outside.

Our final park on this busy day was Canobie Lake, a great little park not too far from Boston. Kyle had the heads-up idea to visit this park last so we could see it at night.

The star coaster attraction is the classic Yankee Cannonball.

They have two trains but only use one, so the line was a bit long. The park was pretty busy.

Untamed is their major steel coaster.

It looks good, but unfortunately is very rough to the point of not being enjoyable.

Canobie has some great theming on some of their rides. The whole area around Untamed was great.

Even the columns are painted to look like birch trees.

A nice area of Canobie.

Another log flume! I think this was my favorite of the trip. Two drops and a tunnel.

The old-school Canobie Corkscrew.

Yay for parks at night!

Our final stop of the trip, on labor day Monday, was Six Flags New England again. This is the crowd that greeted us at the entrance. We were quite worried.

Luckily, this was the hottest day of the trip, so most people went to the water park. We never waited longer that 30 minutes for anything, and we got to ride everything we wanted.

Wicked Cyclone and the giant New England Sky Screamer. Bonus guy pointing a finger.

This ride is awesome. A top ten steel coaster, and definitely my favorite coaster of the trip. It's loaded with airtime and interesting banking and twists. The first drop is amazing. It does slow down quite a bit in the final 1/3 of the ride, and the last few hills are noticeably slower. Otherwise, it would probably be a top five coaster. Still, if you love coasters, get to Six Flags and ride this thing now!

This element is so cool. In the back seat (the best seat on the ride) you get a hint of crazy tilted hang time before you're yanked out of the inversion and back down to the ground.

OK, Six Flags New England wasn't actually our final stop. We had an awesome dinner at Bear's Smokehouse near the airport. This place was legit!

I had a few surprises on this trip. Canobie Lake is a wonderful little park, Excalibur was better than I expected, Santa's Village was cute, and Wicked Cyclone lived up to high expectations. Overall a successful trip - I'll just have to return some day to ride Roar-O-Saurus!