How (not) to get to Soweto

By Zachariah.

"Did you guys hire a car? Oh, so you took an Uber? You walked?!" said every white person we met in Randburg. Which is probably why they didn't know about the bus strike.

We arrive at the bus stop to find the Sunday paper headline; "Bus Strike Set to Intensify." As we speculate on what this might mean for our transport plans a man in an SUV pulls up and calls out to us, "You do know there's a bus strike on, yeah?" There follows a short discussion of alternative transport options, which essentially are Uber or the local Kombi share taxi's. He strongly advises us to take an Uber as the Kombi's "are not exactly roadworthy." But we have no internet and most of the Kombi's don't look too bad. The main problem is they function more as a local mini bus service than a traditional taxi. Each one drives a set route (and can be fined heavily for deviating from it) and beeps it's horn at everyone it passes to see if they need a ride. There are a series of hand signals for indicating where you want to go. You signal your destination and the driver will either stop and pick you up or signal back the route they are driving. Once you're on board you just tell the driver when you want to get off so they stop frequently to pick up and drop off passengers. Very useful if you know where you're going and are happy to switch rides a few times.

Unfortunately, we only know the signs for Randburg (our current location) and local (used to hail any taxi to go a short way down their route). Our plan is to hand signal 'local' for any taxi's heading in what we assumed was the right direction, and go from there. We flag down the next mini van that drives past and jump in. Actually "jump" is probably the wrong word. We have our two backpacks and two day packs that we have to manoeuvre into the back row of a twelve seater van, which may contain anywhere between fourteen and twenty people at any given time. The first one was mercifully not that full and I ask the driver if he can take us to where we can get a taxi to Soweto. He seems to indicate in the affirmative and we head off. We follow our progress on Google Maps and seem to be headed in the right direction, until we take a sudden left hand turn instead of right and find ourselves in the city centre.

Next thing we are being ushered out of the kombi and the driver is speaking to another man in Zulu before getting back in his van and driving away. We are now standing on a street corner in a run down part of town, the only white people in sight, attracting a lot of looks. This is not the normal mode of transport for white people in South Africa. The mini buses and subsequent hand signals began during apartheid as unofficial cheap transport for black and coloured people. (If you're super interested here's a link to someone's thesis on South African taxi signals that I found by accident; https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/39673660.pdf ). We explain where we want to go to the new man, who seems to be in charge of the taxi rank. He takes us to another van and tells the driver to take us to "Orlando Power" and to get another taxi from there. Orlando is the area of Soweto we are staying in and Orlando Power is the old cooling towers that are now a bungee jumping site and tourist attraction so this seems promising. This time the seating arrangement has us in the front row with all four backpacks across both our laps and those of the other passengers. Elise is sitting right next to the door, which means she assumes the role of the kombi's door-(wo)man for the duration of our journey.

We get within a kilometre of the backpackers this time when the driver pulls over, motions us out, and leads us across the street (without waiting for the lights to change) and over to another van. There is another conversation in Zulu where we hear him say "Orlando Power" or "Parra" maybe, it's not as clear this time. We get in the third taxi which takes off in completely the wrong direction. We turn to watch out the rear window as the taxi we were in turns the other way. Towards our hostel. The way we needed to go. Elise still has faith the driver knows what is going on and will take us to the hostel. I have none. I pull the map out again and try to work out where we're going. Our confused looks and conversations draw the attention of some other passengers who ask us where we are going. A lovely lady and a man who both work as tour guides begin talking to the driver for us. Ten minutes later we get out in Orlando Bara Shopping Mall (not "Power" or "Parra", the old Chinese whispers in action).

The lady from the Kombi escorts us through some sort of local market in an undercover car park which doubles as a taxi hub. She speaks to two or three drivers before telling us to take this van back to Orlando West. As the van was pretty much full before we arrived, we are crammed into the back row, face against the window style. This time the driver seems to understand where we want to go, and after twenty minutes of convoluted navigation through Soweto's backstreets he drops us just round the corner from Lebo's Backpackers. We walk about five hundred metres, and the street turns into a lush green inner city oasis. When we arrive at the hostel the curious receptionist asks us how we managed to get here with the bus strike on.

Our half hour straight forward bus trip from Randburg turned into a two hour impromptu tour of downtown Joburg and greater Soweto, as well as a crash course in African local transport. The whole of which cost us seven dollars.