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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

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

It’s not exactly an African experience in the sense that tourists so often expect (no bare-breasted dancing women, for example), but The Observatory is a pretty special dinner venue. And if you’re from the northern hemisphere it offers something you won’t get at home.

The restaurant is connected to an honest-to-God observatory with a 62cm (or 25 inch) telescope, a Newtonian/Cassegrain Bradford made by the Rand Corporation. It is apparently the biggest pro scope in private hands in this half of the world, and how exactly the restaurant came to own it has not been explained entirely to our satisfaction. Even if it did fall off the back of a truck, it’s a wicked-cool piece of equipment, and you don’t need to be an astronomy buff to appreciate it.

In fact, you don’t need to know anything about astronomy whatsoever. Between courses the resident astronomer will walk you through everything from the basic composition of the Milky Way to the nature of stellar nurseries. All you need to do is climb up the ladder and look through the eyepiece and see the pretty lights.

It’s not great for children under ten or so, and in mid-winter you’d better bundle up real good, but otherwise there just isn’t a downside. The limited menu offers great food at startlingly low prices, the venue is personal and the star gazing is unmatched. The restaurant is a little way outside of Johannesburg (but 45 minutes will still put you back at your city hotel) and is part of the Cradle of Humankind area, so it makes a nice end to a day outing.

If you like astronomy, use the opportunity to see the southern hemisphere skies. If you don’t normally look at the skies, consider it an educational opportunity. Just pick a cloudless night.

The Observatory
Aloe Ridge Hotel and Game Reserve
Zwartkop Gorge
Zwartkops
Tel: 011 957 2070
www.aloeridgehotel.com