As mentioned previously, I spent 72 hours in Soweto as part of a campaign promoting the Soweto Wine Festival. It was an epic journey.
Before this trip I thought I knew Soweto, kind of. I’d been there a lot, doing a lot of different things. But #72HrsSoweto held many surprises. Almost everything we did over the course of the weekend was new (or at least partially new) to me.
This past Saturday, I was invited along with a few other bloggers and Instagrammers to spend the day having fun around Joburg. The day was sponsored by the Entertainer, and the idea was that we would go around town taking advantage of various special offers through the Entertainer app.
From the Melville Cat:
Heather asked me to write a blog post this weekend. Apparently my fans have been asking her about my wellbeing. She says they want to hear the full story of our move from my perspective.
It was the first night of the #72hrsSoweto campaign, the day before the start of the Soweto Wine Festival. It was freezing cold, raining, and I was ridiculously underdressed.
We had just finished a home-cooked meal – lamb stew, pap, spicy chakalaka, steak, and vegetarian curry – at the legendary Lebo’s Soweto Backpackers, followed by live music and poetry around the fire. Our group was preparing to leave. I shivered, thinking about burrowing under the covers back in my room at the Soweto Hotel.
Like many newcomers, Vilakazi Street in Soweto was the first real tourist attraction I visited upon moving to Joburg. Here is the blog post I wrote about that visit, just a week after I arrived. (I’m a little embarrassed by the pictures and the words – I’ve come a long way since then.)
Today I took my American friend Bob, who is in Joburg this week for work, to the Maboneng Precinct. Bob passed through Joburg a few times before, back in 2010 and 2011. But this is the first time I’ve had the chance to properly show him around the city, and the first time he’s been to Maboneng.