Cycling Soweto’s history
SUNDAY afternoon in Orlando. Face-brick houses fringe the western ridge where the schoolchildren of June 16, 1976 gathered for a bird’s-eye view of the police. Whitney Houston warbles her iconic songs from someone’s house. Kids play soccer in the street. We catch a faint whiff of shisanyama (braaied meat) as we cycle quietly past, thankful for the breeze on this blistering hot day.
We’re on a three-hour Soweto bicycle tour organised by Dzedze Travel and Tours, a tourism outfit launched five months ago by three entrepreneurial young Sowetans – Siboniso Dhlamini, Mlungisi Shabalana and Mxolisi Twana.
It starts at the famous Hector Pieterson Museum and meanders down Vilikazi Street, taking in Soweto’s historic sites including Mandela House, Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s old home and the vibrant eatery-cum-street market hub.
A seasoned Joburger, I’ve been in Soweto often, but always in a car or coach, and always headed to a single venue like the Soweto Theatre.
Once bleak and unattended, this part of Orlando is now a thriving tourist hub, and I’ve often strolled around here, and had a bite at the popular Sakhumzi restaurant. But I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never really ventured further, into suburbia.
Yet it’s the ordinary street life – people washing their cars, neat pavement gardens created by somebody with green fingers only metres away from an ugly dumping site, an old guy in a fold-out chair drinking a beer on his stoep, the solitary drunk weaving down the road back home – that makes this old township so textured and interesting. So a bicycle tour like this is ideal, offering more of a traveller’s experience than a tourist visit.
We’re a party of 12, including our three young guides in their branded T-shirts, cool shades and beaded necklaces, and for the tour, they’ve put together a motley array of bicycles, some of them hired for the afternoon.
Far from being seamless and organised, in the way European bicycle tours are, the Dzedze bicycle tour unfolds more like a journey should – a bit haphazard, with one or two of us finding trouble shifting gears and using brakes, a few near collisions, lots of laughter and an openness to the organic ways of Soweto life.
Siboniso, Mlungisi and Mxolisi shout back and forth in Xhosa, and effusively greet residents and passers-by, which gives us leave to chat loudly among ourselves too, getting to know each other.
It’s liberating, and uniquely South African, but probably not suitable for your more austere European or American tourist.
From the Hector Pieterson Museum, which disgracefully has been left for months with an out-oforder water feature signifying the tears cried for the Soweto pupils killed in the 1976 uprising, we head past Orlando West High School – the epicentre of the uprising – to the exact spot where Pieterson was shot.
Here we are given an animated history of the event by a man dressed in traditional skins, after which we take a group photo with props including Xhosa headdresses and traditional weapons.
Then we mount our bikes again and cycle past the former home of Mbuyisa Makhubo, the 18-year-old boy who was photographed carrying the lifeless body of Pieterson, and stop to say hello to Mbuyisa’s sister, Ntsiki Makhubo.
A pleasant downhill ride from there, and we’re on a dirt track on the koppie overlooking the iconic Orlando water towers. We park the bikes and walk a little way up to savour the panorama, while our guides take the opportunity to tell us more about Orlando and its history.
These sites are a must on any tour of Soweto, especially for locals who need to brush up on their history. But one also needs respite from them, and on the Dzedze bicycle tour it comes in the form of a nice long stop at the Ubuntu Kraal, a complex of thatched lapas, swimming pool and a brewery.
Baking and very thirsty, we make good use of the bar to slake our thirst with Soweto Gold beers and Cokes, while one of our party sneaks a dip in the pool.
Then we head back towards Vilikazi Street, which takes rather more effort as much of the route is a gentle uphill. We ride past the late Walter Sisulu’s home, then make a stop at Archbishop Tutu’s home next to the Vilikazi Street market, which really pumps on a Sunday. Siboniso gives us a short patter about the place, and we are entertained by a group of gumboot dancers.
The ice-cream vendor is chanting about his wares in a rhythmic rap tune, and at this point I’d happily splash out for a bite at one of the pavement restaurants, but our tour guides have set up lunch elsewhere.
So we cruise further up Vilikazi Street, turn right and find ourselves at the modest Soweto home of a chap called Pule. Lunch is served in his front garden – burgers and chips, which comes in polystyrene containers from a takeaway joint.
I have to confess, this is a little disappointing. Agreed, for R270 per person for the tour, one can’t expect haute cuisine, but I think an authentic township meal of shisanyama and pap would be a far better choice, and within budget too.
The tour ends at this point, and by now we’ve gotten to know each other and some of us have shared contact numbers.
In my suggestions to our three charming guides, I have written that perhaps they could carry some bottled water along with their firstaid kit. And to advise cyclists to bring hats and sunscreen, as I am now tomato red.
But other than that, I think they’ve done a great job of providing an interesting Sunday afternoon, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes cycling, prefers a happygo-lucky sort of tour, and is interested in getting a close and personal feel of Soweto and its denizens. Dzedze Travel and Tours: Visit dztours.co.za or call Siboniso on 078 953 9400.