After a long, but super comfortable flight we arrived early morning in Johannesburg- South Africa’s largest city, also known as Africa’s leading business metropolis.

To start with good things, Jo’burg has a really nice climate with mostly sunny days throughout the year. With an elevation of 1.700m it can be quite chilly though, hence we wrapped all our clothes around us to resist this cold, but beautiful autumn day in the city.

Joburg’s reputation is probably worse than reality, still, we see buildings with big fences and barbed wire and surveillance cameras everywhere- worse than Sao Paulo! As the only mean of transport is basically a car, we had to hire a super expensive taxi (well, especially after Thailand) to drive us around the city. We got to know the richie rich white northern suburbs in contrast to Joburg’s black downtown which is quite rundown, as many people basically fled to the surrounding new neighbourhoods. Only now it seems that there is a come-back in areas as Newtown, where old industrial buidlings are refurbished for the creative scene with lots of theatres and performance venues. There, we also got a good feeling of the city’s layout at ‘Top of Africa’, an observation deck at the top of the once famous Carlton centre. All in all, we not directly fell in love with Joburg and feel one day was enough, but still it is always great to get a rough idea and image of a city..

As Florian’s brother spent quite some time in Joburg the last years, we met his big buddy Carsten for a very nice dinner and talk in town. The food was fabulous..we had beef steak and slow-cooked lamb tangine, after not having eaten any meat back in Yogi Thailand.. (-: Thanks!!