howzzzt.co.za

Maropeng is a miniature theme park disguised as a museum of  anthropology. Human remains are the centrepiece, but this is not a bizarre as it may sound. If fossils are your thing, you definitely need to get there, but even if you are just vaguely interested in the history of the world, and your own (ancient) heritage, it is worth the trip of about 40 kilometers from downtown Johannesburg.

Maropeng means “returning to the place of origin” in Setswana, and that is more than just marketing hyperbole. Remember, the region it is in, the Cradle of Humankind, has a pretty solid claim to be where modern mankind first emerged. Which is why it has the not inconsiderable status of being a World Heritage Site.

Any half-decent tourist map will list it, and any half-decent tourist establishment will be able to arrange transport there. If you have a 4×4 vehicle handy, you can get there via more scenic dirt roads, but the cheapest hire car will also do. You won’t have much trouble finding the entrance; it is guarded by seven monoliths that will just about make you hear the sound of drums and the opening to ‘Thus spake Zarathustra’.

The building that houses the entrance and some other stuff (most of the complex is underground) is similarly appropriate, if just a little creepy. Calling it a giant burial mound would be fair, but it is more appropriately referred to as a tumulus. That’s the kind of thing you’ll learn on one of the guided tours, which is worth hooking up with for a little while before you peel off to wander about on your own.

There is a theme to the whole place, and there are replicas of the famous Mrs Ples and Little Foot fossils found at the Sterkfontein Caves. But that’s not the good part. The good part starts with the boat ride (light splashing allowed), and the vortex thingey. Like a ride at any good amusement park – or a walk-through, as in this case – a strong stomach is required. If you have a problem with vertigo, do the smart thing and use the cowardly escape route.

Having braved the waters and the tunnel, you arrive at the display halls with their made-for-kids interactive exhibits. There are great big buttons for you to press and lots of moving parts and, if you insist, a vast amount of information to be had from videos and graphics. The choice is yours: light entertainment or serious education, or maybe something in between.

Ironically, the fossils seem to be the least interesting of all the exhibitions. Dry bones just aren’t that exciting, no matter how you display them. But whatever you do, don’t leave without talking to the Dodo.

You can do the whole Maropeng thing in about three or four hours, including driving time, but if you have a whole day available it’s worth buying a package entry and also going to the nearby Sterkfontein caves.

The Maropeng Visitor Centre is open to the public from 09h00 to 17h00 every day.

Standard entry fee:

Adults: R105
Children (4-14 years): R60
Pensioners/Students: R75 (on production of a valid pensioner/student card)

The combination Maropeng/Sterkfontein tickets are only available until 1pm, so don’t leave it too late if you want to do both.

The price of these are:
Adults: R175
Children (4-14 years): R102

Maropeng
Tel: +27 (0) 14 577 9000
http://www.maropeng.co.za/
GPS co-ordinates: 25°40′39.07”S, 27°55′32.01”E

Back-to-back with the Johannesburg Zoo and smack in the middle of some of the trendiest suburbs is the South African National Museum of Military History. It has a particularly unimposing entrance and driving around it makes it seem unimpressively small. Once inside you’ll realise that this is because, respectively, the curators don’t spend money on anything other than their exhibits, and those exhibits cram an astonishing variety of artefacts into an improbably small footprint.

This isn’t a rah-rah exhibit of South African military prowess, as you could be excused for expecting from an African nation. Even though we’ve built some pretty impressive weapons at various times in our history. Nor is it limited to South African wars and warfare, although numerically the Soviet tanks deployed in Angola outnumber the South American edged weapons. It’s just a great collection of weapons, machines, implements and accessories related to the wholesale slaughter of humans. And a small sideline on patching them up to send them back into battle, spying on them in order to kill them more efficiently and suchlike.

The absolute highlight of the museum is the working tanks you can clamber onto and into, just like the real fighter jet cockpit in which you can sit while making silly sounds involving machine gun fire and rocket explosions. Sadly none of the buttons activates any ordinance, but it’s still as close to Top Gun as you are likely to ever get.

If you have any interest in the Anglo-Boer or Anglo-Zulu wars, then don’t go off to the battlefields before visiting this museum. If you are interested in South Africa’s involvement in and the Second World War (and our near siding with Germany in it), ditto. If you are generally voracious for information, then take a guided tour. But we recommend a leisurely half-day wander about the place with no set mission or objective. Just nose around until you run out of things to see.

Kids love it, naturally, and are well catered for. Some of the tank and airplane exhibits are outdoors, so pick a nice day. Admission is R22, an amount that doesn’t translate into any meaningful fraction of a currency like the euro or dollar. As for finding it, any Jo’burger should be able to direct you easily.

South African National Museum of Military History
Tel: +27 11 646 5513
20 Erlswold Way
Saxonwold

There are a couple of animals you are unlikely to ever see in the wild, no matter how hot-shot your safari guide is. Close to the top of the list are wild dogs and cheetahs, both of which are fascinating in quite different ways. But just about an hour from either Johannesburg or Pretoria you can get the next best thing: a close encounter with each of these species, albeit in captivity.

De Wildt is a private research and breeding centre with, as the name would suggest, a strong focus on the fastest mammal. It also has a large number of wild dogs and assorted other strays, including a couple of cute honey badgers and some African wild cats. The latter aren’t in need of increased numbers, but there are concerns about maintaining the purity of the bloodline thanks to cross-breeding with feral domestic cats.

You won’t see a cheetah running at full tilt at De Wildt, but that’s what nature documentaries on television are for. You will get the chance to get really, really close to one of the trained “ambassador” cheetahs the centre keeps as part of its outreach. Close enough to hear it purr like the biggest kitty cat you’ve ever seen, close enough to feel its rough skin, and close enough to get a really awesome picture taken with it. The best of the ambassadors are even trained to smile for the camera. You won’t be able to buy a better souvenir anywhere, and you’ll be supporting a good cause at the same time.

Besides the close encounter session you’ll also get to take your ease on the back of the tourist snack cart (as we call the open-sided and soft-roofed vehicles used for safari tours, because of the easy access for determined predators) while seeing the rest of the inmates. The exceedingly rare king cheetah alone is worth the trip, but be sure to ask about the Anatolian guard dogs.

The whole thing, including travel from Joburg or Pretoria, will take around five hours. Just keep in mind that booking is essential because group size is strictly controlled.

De Wildt Cheetah Project
Tel: +27 12 504 1921
Cel: +27 83 675 5668
cheetah@dewildt.org.za
The centre is just outside the town of Brits, on the far side of the Hartebeespoort dam. It’s well sign-posted.
GPS co-ordinates: 25°40′39.07”S, 27°55′32.01”E

It’s as fake as a very fake thing indeed, but that is the perverse charm of the Mama Tembos restaurant – and the whole reason why we point photo-hungry tourists there.

See, not everybody is cut out for a real township tour. And that’s okay, really. Most of us don’t go to Europe and then seek out the poor and dirty neighbourhoods either. Many of us don’t even visit the site of a former Nazi concentration camp, because on some holidays you don’t want to be weighed down with the miseries of the past. You just want Disney World: sanitised, mindless, and ever-so-superficially happy.

That just about sums up Mama Tembos. It’s right in the heart of Linden, an upper middle-class suburb where the cars are shiny and the gardens filled with trees. It’s actually right across the road from a small television production facility. But it pretends really hard to be straight from the township, at least in terms of decor.

The decor is, of course, fake. So is the the menu, which features items with names that reference popular soccer teams and not-so-popular politicians, except the average township tavern has never heard of prawns (and doesn’t sell a lot of premium steak either).

All of which is just perfect. There isn’t a single thing on the menu that is even exotic, never mind gross. The service is good, and in English, and the kitchen is free of gut-rotting bacteria and the stench of the final bowel movements of freshly slaughtered animals. The bathrooms have running water. And you know what? Your friends back home will never be able to spot the fake decor in the background to your awesome pictures. To all intents and purposes you’d have been on that mandatory township tour, at least as far as any of them will ever know. It can be our little secret, promise.

Think of it this way: when you go to the medieval-themed castle in Disney World you don’t have skewered heads on display or diseased men pissing in the corners. Sometimes sanitised is good.

Mama Tembos
Cnr 4th avenue and 7th street, Linden
Johannesburg
Tel: 011 912 7770
www.mamatembo.co.za