So the rest of our time in Durban was great. Watching the Brazil-Ivory Coast game at Soccer City was awesome. So far, staying with some dudes in Pretoria is fantastic. Getting to and from each of these destinations has been...weird.
After our flight got delayed, we were in a hurry as we came into Joburg ahead of the Brazil-Cote D'Ivoire match, but we decided to take a risk. The risk came in the brand-new shining package of Johannesburg's Gautrain -- a high-speed train that will service Joburg, Pretoria, and the major international airport in the area. Because it opened the day before the tournament, there were hardly any riders, the attendants dutifully showed every tourist how to operate the ticketing machines, and as soon as we were in the train, it quickly sped up to 100 miles per hour.
Half an hour later (the journey into town usually takes over an hour with traffic), we were on the doorstep of our hostel, begging them to find us a taxi to Soccer City. Great, right? Wrong. When the cab driver showed up, he offered us the World Cup Gameday Special: double the usual price. After a lot of snorting, haggling, walking away, and calling of bosses, we got the World Cup Gameday Special, Student Edition: 50% more than the usual price.
The next day, we got jammed by a tour bus operator in Soweto -- Johannesburg's famous township suburb, which was originally created to keep non-whites out of the city, but close enough to work for white urbanites -- to the tune of 40 dollars per person. We made up for it by having a fantastic day -- a family had us over to their house. We ate their food, talked soccer, and ended up playing a pickup game with the neighborhood kids.
After all these trains, taxicabs, and tour buses, we decided to find a different way of traveling around the city. We found it in South Africa's unique system of minibus taxis. Rather than expansive bus or subway systems, black people in South Africa have traditionally relied on private car companies who make their money jamming as many people as they can into a vehicle, and making the price per person more affordable. Most of these buses offer rides for under a dollar, which is pretty great, considering Johannesburg is about the size of Los Angeles.
The tricky part is this: minibuses have asserted a virtual monopoly over affordable transportation throughout South Africa. So much have these companies taken over the transit industry that, when Johannesburg began instituting a large, low-cost, government-run bus system, city officials began to receive threats against the safety of themselves, their drivers, and their vehicles. The plan was quickly scaled back. In Cape Town, minibus taxi hit men were notorious a few years back for straight up murdering the competition. In addition, most locals say the drivers make the roads dangerous to other drivers, and their own passengers.
It was with this knowledge that Alexis and I decided to board our new, cheap, exciting option for door-to-door person delivery. Over the years, the minibus system has become a massive web of vehicles that can take you nearly anywhere you need to go -- if you know the system. Alexis and I found out which hand signal to use ("wave a 5. If he's waving a 1, don't get in."), and we were on our way throughout the city. By the end of the day, we were so impressed with ourselves that we decided to use minibuses to take us to Pretoria, an hour away. Rather than a $100 cab ride, or a $50 bus ride, Alexis and I are sitting pretty after having spent three dollars and fifty cents each. We are now free to spend our money on face paint for tomorrow's do-or-die game against Algeria tomorrow.
All this, plus the fact that we're couchsurfing with some lovely Afrikaner dudes named Cobus and Handre. Stay tuned to see how that works out.
