Nelson Mandela vs. Pauly Shore

I'm now in a guest house near the airport in Johannesburg, or "Jo'burg", as it's affectionately called around here. Rightly or wrongly, Jo'burg has a bad reputation, though, for primarily serving as a transit point for tourists due to a combination of limited tourist activities and one of the world's highest crime rates. As with Cape Town, one cannot help but notice the way barb wire and razor wire fencing ubiqitiously covers walls, driveways, flower beds, etc. Interestingly, the main tourist attraction seems to be visiting Soweto, "an infamous ghetto of 3.5 million people". Although I can see how it sounds interesting and althuogh i am usually pretty receptive to taking on some fun travel risks, it is perhaps somewhat telling that this is the primary tourist "attraction". And although the Lonely Planet encourages tourists to give "Jo'burg" a chance (further making the not-to-convincing case that "if all of these precautions are taken, most tourists are not victims of violent crime"), I think i will instead head out tomorrow morning for the white sand beaches of Zanzibar (in Tanzania). Besides, it's been almost a full week in South Africa and my restless feet yearn to step down in another country...

That said, my experience in South Africa has been fantastic. Cape Town is a haven for backpackers, with a conveniently concentrated backpacker area around "Long Street" which includes the ubiqitiuos internet cafes, youth hostels, restaurants and bars and late-night humus and kebab spots. It was easy to meet people from all over the world in Cape Town, people who share an underlying commonality -- possession of a Lonely Planet guidebook. I met two other Americans (Eric and Angela), amazingly, who were also originally from the Portland area.

I kept quite busy while in Cape Town; i dove with Great White Sharks, did wine tours and tastings, mountain biked around the Cape of Good Hope and went to the top of "Table Mountain" overlooking Cape Town. However, these events were more focused on "fun" and did not really feel like they provided me with a good cultural or educational South African experience. So, I considered two options to quench my thirst for this cultural education...

The first option was to visit Robben Island, the place in which Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were held during years of apartied... However, i ended up opting for a second, more intriguing, option, the "Pauly Shore - Live" stand-up comedy event. In case you were wondering, no, the purpose and timing of my visit to Cape Town was not actually driven to see Pauly Shore, the briefly popular, annoying and now generally forgotten comedian. Eric, Angela and I were at first surprised and then gradually intrigued by the hundreds of posters all of town advertising the big event. The intrigue could not be bottled up and we eventually went to see the show, which, given the cultural importance of Pauly Shore, was naturally at Cape Town's Opera House. If nothing else, the event apeased my previously non-existent curiousity of Pauly Shore's well-being and his connection to South Africa (uh, none, as it turns out). I have to admit though, that Mr. Shore's stand-up gig, with its generous portions of profanity and frequent references to "retards", probably loses the "cultural importance award" to the story of Nelson Mandela's historical struggles and imprisonment probably.

So, although excited to now move on and see East Africa (Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro, Seregeti, Uganda Mountain Gorillas to come!), I feel like my experiences here, which are basically limited to Cape Town, may be incomplete in terms of a good representation of South Africa and may warrant a need to return in the future (despite having the Pauly Shore event under my belt).