#Africa

This week, the last week of October, is peak jacaranda week in Joburg. The trees are laden with flowers and each breeze brings a shower of purple blossoms raining down onto the street. But the Pretoria jacarandas peaked about two weeks ago, and I was lucky enough to catch them during an epic photowalk hosted by Johannesburg In Your Pocket and the Joburg Photowalkers.

It’s that time of year again: October in Joburg. Jacaranda trees all over Joburg (and Pretoria, too – more on that in a future post) are exploding with purple blossoms and everything wrong with the world feels right again (mostly). To make matters better, Joburg’s hospitality industry actively promotes jacaranda season and there are some really cool promotions on, like the jacaranda-themed “Bubbles & Sweets” menu at the Four Seasons Hotel in Westcliff.

I recently connected with Fabian and Lavinia Otto during a Johannesburg Heritage Foundation tour of Coronationville and Bosmont. Fabian and Lavinia were our guides for the Coronationville/Bosmont tour but they actually live in Noordgesig, a historically coloured township on the northeastern edge of Soweto.

I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for weeks but I kept getting distracted by other adventures: a dazzling community light festival, a 2-billion-year-old meteorite crater, and a Heritage Month tour of churches. Now I’m back on track and ready to tell you about my food explorations in Rivonia.