Many tourists never visit Soweto unless it’s a quick foray to the Apartheid museum, a tour on an air-conditioned bus or perhaps a game at the stadium – and so it remains unknown to many.
But this is steadily changing as innovative entrepreneurs find ways to open up the neighbourhoods and engage with the people and places hidden within.
And no one is doing it in a more daring way than Kgomotso Pooe’s Soweto Outdoor Adventures, a small company offering guided tours of Soweto that take participants through informal settlements, shebeens, historical sites and grassy residential verges… on quad bikes.
Not for the faint-hearted, it’s either muddy or dusty depending on the season, the terrain is rough and rocky, chickens dodge your path and your nether regions are sure to hurt for a day or two, but it’s all worth the extra two kilograms you weigh after eating an entire kota – a quarter (hence the name) loaf of bread filled with every imaginable health hazard from greasy mayonnaise and atchar via penny polony and yellow cheese to fat fried chips – at lunchtime.
The ride is anything but boring. Driving down narrow alleyways, through Freedom Park with its countless children running behind, across quiet residential areas and expansive veld and over a river, it’s best to keep focused– which has made it a great team-building experience for corporates, Pooe tells me.
Pooe stops opposite a friendly football match so we can have a drink – it’s hot and we’re parched. Across the road is the set of SABC1’s Zone 14 series, but we don’t spot any celebs.
Pooe says he takes up to 10 bikes out and people along the route are beginning to recognise him and his operation, which means we get lots of friendly waves.
He sometimes asks groups to club together and buy the children drinks or doughnuts at the spaza – a little bit of giving back since we are speeding over, under and around residential activities.
By the time we stop at The Shack to share a pot of local beer, there are several men gathered around and they welcome us warmly. We attract a crowd of onlookers who all have advice to offer on the best local attractions. I think they’re on the payroll.
Halfway along a narrow winding backstreet I manage to get a puncture and cant over to the left.
Pooe stares at me: “How did you do that? We’ve never had a puncture before.”
How do you fix a puncture in the middle of nowhere? You drive until you hit a truckstop, your guide stops the traffic so you can cross the road (you start to feel like a useless tourist) and you arrive at a huge pile of used tyres. Then you negotiate… and voila… back on the road. I promise you, it’s far harder on Beyers Naude Drive.
Soon it’s back on board and we’re heading past the Hector Pieterson memorial, over the sluit and en route home to Orlando Towers.
Pooe stops on a bare brown football field that overlooks Soweto with the Orlando Stadium in the background.
His transition from “entertaining guide” to “impassioned entrepreneur” is total: “So few people ever come to a place like this… yet you can see everything from here. We have these sites all over Soweto, special gathering places that we should be building, utilising, growing. We have everything right here and it’s time we recognised the opportunities.”
How does it work?
At Orlando Towers you have about 15 minutes training and practice on the quad bikes, ensuring everyone is schooled in the basics, before heading out on the trail. The first part of the ride is around the side of the dam through high grass and is very pretty.
At the end of the trail, there’s pap and braai waiting and more people – always more people. This is a place of people who just love the fact that you’re there; that you’re doing something fun in this small part of the world and that they can share their last beer with you.
Forget sitting in the back of a bus and staring out at people – get on a quad and discover the real Soweto.
l For bookings and enquiries, contact Kgomotso on 072 692 8159 or e-mail: [email protected]. - Saturday Star