In February, winter arrived. Bishkek was buried in snow and frozen by the cold. It was night. The streets, illuminated by the dim light of scattered street lamps, were deserted. The world was under the rule of a financial crisis. In Kyrgyzstan, the crisis felt uncomfortable due to the lack of finances. There was unrest in our hearts, but we still went. We went because we had long dreamed of South Africa.
Visas, program adjustments, plane tickets... - how much effort! How much money has already been spent. So, as they say, there is no turning back.
After five hours of flying, our first stop was in Istanbul. The next leg to Johannesburg was ten hours. We were flying strictly south, with night outside the window.
We were lucky with the airplane. It was a large and comfortable latest model Boeing. So we flew comfortably and on schedule.
We were greeted by a bright warm morning. And a huge black man in a hat holding a sign that read DUDASVILI. The man's name was Greg. He was the bus driver and also our guide, at least for today.
On the way, he told us what a wonderful country South Africa is and what an amazing person Nelson Mandela was.
Our destination today is the guesthouse Nice by Natur ("The Charms of Nature") in the suburbs of Johannesburg. Its owners, Shelly and Charlie, are hereditary Afrikaners, whose ancestors settled in this area in the early 18th century. Around us were the charms of nature: flowers, ostriches, cacti, pools... Chocolate girls... A thought crossed my mind: why go anywhere? Such beauty surrounds us. And it was also Valentine's Day on the calendar.
However, paradise becomes mundane after a couple of hours. We convinced Greg to take us to Pretoria, even though visiting this city was not part of the program.
Pretoria is 60 kilometers away. The city is small, cozy, and very beautiful. I would also add that it is a very important city. Here are located the palace and residence of the president, foreign embassies, banks, offices of international missions, the largest university in Africa, and the largest administrative building in the world, the Union Buildings, where the government of South Africa is located.
The city owes its origin to Andries Pretorius, the commander of the Boer settlers' forces. In 1837, he built a farm here, naming it "Grootplaats" ("Wide Courtyard") and lived there for a long time. The settlement grew, and from 1855, after Pretorius's death, his son Martines founded the city, which was named Pretoria.
Starting from 1860, Pretoria served as the capital of the Republic of Transvaal, established by the Boers. After the Boers were defeated in the war with England from 1899 to 1902, Transvaal came under British protectorate. After independence was proclaimed in 1961, Pretoria essentially became the political capital of the Republic of South Africa.
Tourists arriving in the city are greeted by the monument to the "Great Trek," erected in honor of the Boers who came here from the Cape Province. At the same time, it serves as a necropolis for the Boers who died in battles with local Zulu tribes. Among other architectural landmarks are Church Square and the Palace of Justice. There are many museums and theaters.
The road to Pretoria passes through the Wine Valley, where the famous Transvaal vineyards grow.
Tired but satisfied with the first day, we returned to the paradise of Shelly and Charlie. I must say that my impressions of this part of Africa turned out to be misleading. Instead of jungles, I saw the landscapes of plateaus, well-kept fields, vineyards, good roads, shops, and markets, villas, churches. It felt like being somewhere in Yorkshire or Wales.
At night, there was a fierce thunderstorm. Deafening rolls of thunder cracked, shaking the ground. Blinding flashes of curved arcs raced across the sky, scattering fiery ash. It felt like being in July 1943, in the heart of the Battle of Kursk.
In the morning, we headed to Sun City — the City of the Sun, an entertainment center, a kind of African Las Vegas, located two hundred kilometers from Johannesburg.
On an area of one hundred and fifty square kilometers sprawls a man-made fairy-tale city-oasis in the center of an extinct volcano, where the efforts of the best artists, architects, designers, and builders have created a world of rest and entertainment.
- It's hard to imagine, - our guide Anna tells us, - that back in 1977, there was only a barren plain here, covered with sparse thorny bushes. The wealth of imagination of Sol Kerzner, the CEO of Sun International, combined with his income, allowed him to turn the idea into reality.
According to an existing legend, long before the invasion of Western civilization on the continent, a tribe that appeared from the north found refuge near the extinct volcano. This brave and hardworking people created a rich and prosperous kingdom, where living was like being in paradise. A king ruled this wonderful land, and one can assume he ruled very skillfully if he could afford a palace of unimaginable beauty, surrounded by pools and gardens. The entrance to this fairy-tale kingdom was guarded by a herd of elephants. Everything was going wonderfully until a terrible earthquake wiped the city off the face of the Earth.
The creation of a unique entertainment center began with the construction and opening in December 1979 of the luxurious Sun City hotel. Following that, in 1980, the Cabana hotel was built. Tireless Kerzner managed to discover what remained of the destroyed city, and he wanted to restore, or rather, recreate the City of the Sun of the former kingdom. Thus, in 1992, the entertainment center Lost City was born.
The Lost City, both lost and found, consists of several components — the "Palace Hotel," built in Eastern style, with a swimming pool and other charms of civilization; the Garden of Dreams, spread over twenty-five hectares, where one and a half million plants of 3,200 species, brought here from all over the world, found their desired refuge. This includes ten thousand orchids, creating an unprecedented beauty spectacle. On the territory of the garden are several lakes, twenty waterfalls, and a cascade of shimmering pools.
Looking at all these man-made wonders, I remembered my native Kyrgyzstan. A few years ago, with a group of tourists, I visited the "Rukh Ordo" complex (Garden of Religions) on the northern shore of Issyk-Kul. I was impressed by the concept of the project: miniature temples, chapels, mosques, metal trees that chime with leaves in the wind, arches, a theater, fountains.... After some time, while driving along the southern shore, I saw how several kilometers of the coastal strip of Issyk-Kul, offering stunning views of the lake and the Tian Shan mountains, became a construction site. And a year later, the area took on its first outlines. The place, as I was explained, is the center of the Universe. Huge pyramids and magical symbols, statues and drawings, arranged according to a special system, were distributed throughout the complex. Some of these structures were later moved to the slopes of the mountains. Stone staircases cascaded down to the shores of the lake. Countless immovable yurts were lined up along the southern borders of the complex. Flower beds and vases adorned the terraces cascading down to the waters of the lake of this alien city.
In all this grandeur, there was a sense of the presence of... money and a lack of a clear concept. What will ultimately become of this? The question is not just out of curiosity. After all, one of the most beautiful territories of Issyk-Kul has been allocated for this creation.
I would like to see something similar to the South African City of the Sun in our country. By the way, there are many examples of similar projects in the world. There is the Sigalia Park in Japan, created as a fairy-tale world of recreation with an artificial climate, landscapes, and infrastructure for relaxation, designed for ten thousand tourists; the world-famous Disneyland amusement park in the USA; Las Vegas — a city of entertainment in the USA and several others.
Yes, but let's return to the City of the Sun in southern Africa. The huge aquacomplex "Valley of Waves" is one of the most attractive creations of Sun City. This is an artificial lagoon where real ocean waves are born. Every ninety seconds, an artificial wave about two meters high, traveling at thirty-five kilometers per hour, picks up hundreds of swimmers and throws them onto the shore, covered with quartz sand. A wide Bridge of Time, guarded by life-sized elephant figures, leads to this lagoon of fantastic beauty. By the way, these are the same elephants that guarded the entrance to the fairy-tale kingdom.
Every hour, an earthquake occurs here... Smoke rises from the earth's depths through cracks, and sounds of underground elements are heard. Such is the attraction.
The scale of the Sun City park continues to amaze with the scale of imagination and investments. A 750-meter lake with water sports, golf courses, bowling, the dizzying attraction "Descent from the Temple of Courage," and much more.
The "Palace Hotel" in the center of the Lost City is recognized as a true architectural wonder. This is a fairy-tale palace with towers made of elephant tusks, built in Eastern style and stunning with its handcrafted interior finishes.
Today, the Sun City tourist complex can accommodate three thousand guests. You can enter the City of the Sun only through a checkpoint. Those who have booked a room in the hotels pass through for free.
You can talk about Sun City and be amazed endlessly. To truly understand the City of the Sun, you need to live in it for at least a week. Unfortunately, we do not have that much time or money (one day here costs almost a thousand dollars).
Adjacent to the Sun City complex is the Pilanesberg National Park, which is unique in that in 1979, a project began there to relocate wild animals from other parts of the country. More than six thousand wild animals were brought to Pilanesberg, including the "Big Five" - elephant, lion, rhinoceros, buffalo, and leopard.
The park sprawls across the territory of a long-extinct volcano. For more than three hours, we roamed the narrow paths in an open jeep. Our guide Nelson showed us the most secret places, stopping at points of relief from where the surroundings could be seen. We observed herds of peacefully grazing elephants, zebras, giraffes, and antelopes. The beautiful nature and diversity of animals create the impression that you yourself become a participant in what is happening. Our guide Alla also made an effort, who, besides detailed information about the Lost City and Pilanesberg Park, shared with us an adventurous tale of how she ended up in South Africa and found her second homeland here. Perhaps someday I will write a separate book about this.
The day turned out to be very eventful. So many events, impressions, and interesting facts that, upon returning to the hotel, the only thing I wanted was to quickly get to bed.
Johannesburg is the largest city in the Republic of South Africa. Its history begins in 1886 when Australian gold seeker George Harrison found gold on the territory of the Langlaagte estate. A stream of adventurers and fortune seekers followed him there. Soon, a city arose here, named Johannesburg in honor of the first architects — Johan Rissik and Johan Joubert. Numerous tailings — dumps left over from the "gold rush" — give the suburbs the appearance of a huge construction site. These anthropogenic hills have a golden color, although, of course, they no longer contain any precious metal.
Johannesburg is a huge city with a population of about four million people. It lacks a historical center and famous architectural monuments, although the districts of the metropolis, formed along national and racial lines, can be considered attractions. Sandton and Brixton are neighborhoods of wealthy whites, with the magnificent Sandton Sun shopping and entertainment hotel complex being their main center.
In Soweto, mostly black people live, but there are also cult places here. One of the most visited by tourists is the gold miners' settlement built during the "gold rush" near the Corona mine. Over almost a hundred years, more than 14 thousand tons of gold were extracted from it.
"Gold Reef City" — a city within a city — is a kind of historical attraction. Here, abandoned mines and stylized buildings are well preserved. The atmosphere of the "gold rush" is felt everywhere — in the "Joe's Digger" pub, at the Mint, and in a real mine, where work is underway at a depth of over 200 meters to smelt "yellow metal."
We also descended into the mine, walked through damp tunnels and steps, where we were shown the conditions in which the miners worked. Of course, all this is not free, but costs quite a bit. And there hasn't been any gold left here for a long time. However, there are still quite a few people willing to descend into the dark, wet underground. So the "Gold Reef City" mines continue to generate income now from tourism.
Another popular tourist attraction is the Apartheid Museum. I think it doesn't need any explanation. Collected into a single ensemble by architects, designers, and historians, the museum brings to life the state-sanctioned system based on racial discrimination. It all starts with the entrance to the museum. There is an entrance for whites and an entrance for blacks, and this is the starting point of a sad journey into the recent history of South Africa. The museum leads through different rooms, some of which are high and bright, while others are dark and gloomy. Sometimes you look at exhibits through bars and cages, and everywhere you are attacked by sounds and images of that terrible time. Finally, when you feel you can no longer bear it and see, everything suddenly ends, and you find yourself in a bright, quiet room where the main relic of the people of South Africa — the new democratic Constitution — is kept in a glass safe.
The theme of apartheid is inextricably linked to the name of Nelson Mandela, whose modest house is also located in the Soweto district. For organizing armed resistance to the authorities in 1964, Mandela was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. At the trial, he stated that he was being judged for striving to build a democratic society in South Africa, where all races and peoples would live in peace and harmony.
While in solitary confinement in Robben Island prison near the Cape of Good Hope, Mandela gained worldwide fame. The campaign for his defense reached unprecedented scales, turning into an international struggle for the abolition of apartheid and the change of the political system in South Africa. I also remember well those years when Mandela's name was constantly in the newspapers and on television screens.
In 1990, Mandela was released. And in 1993, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Thanks to him, South Africa avoided a deadly civil war, the conflict with the militant Zulus was resolved, and peace was achieved in Burundi. Now Nelson Mandela is 92 years old.
The rest of the day was spent in the guesthouse among the charms of nature. After the noisy streets of Johannesburg and the dark dungeons of the Apartheid Museum, Shelly and Charlie's estate seemed like the best place on Earth.
Dinner by candlelight, barbecue, and wonderful wine. Magical music... All of this became a wonderful conclusion to the program in Transvaal.