The lady and I have been on a bicycle tour in Alexandra last weekend. It was at the same time a fascinating and sobering experience. Check out some of our pictures below:
We found this tour in the highly recommendable book about Joburg called Joburg-Places 2.0 by Gerald Garner. We booked the tour (2hrs) for R300 via email and were picked up at the Marlboro Gautrain Station. This parking lot is quite expensive (R85) so next time we might ask them to pick us up somewhere else.
Jeffrey, our tour guide was born in Alex and started this successful business on his own three years ago. He currently has five employees. Jeff shared a lot of his experiences with us. The funny stuff (like how to greet someone properly) and the rest as well. He gave us a quick overview of the history of Alexandra, we stopped at Mandelas house and the heritage centre but we were interested in the day to day living as well. He tried to answer every question and invited us to his and his mothers home to see how they live.
Before the tour I was a bit excited because of the crime and all the
stories that we had heard about Alex but after a while that went away. Everyone we met was very friendly and even though a lot of people stared at us, most of them smiled and waved. We had a beer at one of the informal pubs after the tour and even though I would not want to go to Alex without a guide or at night, we actually felt quite safe the whole time.
Overall it was an experience for us that we will probably never forget. Here are the links to Jeffs webpage and his facebook profile.
http://www.alexandratours.co.za/
http://www.facebook.com/AlexandraBicycleTour
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