A weekend in Jo'burg

Saturday
 
The Math lecture is finally over ! (I mean, still an exam to prepare and grade, plus a project that the students are working on now !). This means a little bit of rest for the weekend, starting Saturday afternoon - yes, I was teaching the last lecture on Saturday.

First I went to the Origins Center, located on the campus of the University of the Witwatersrand (a.k.a. "Wits"). The museum is mainly on rock art and the origins of mankind. In the museum, you see how "modern" mankind can be understood from its origins. The history of mankind is traced through the perspective of art, and more precisely rock art. It has some very interesting cave paintings (some are reproductions) dating back to tens of thousands years ago. Lascaux (which is still briefly mentioned !) looks quite young next to these. The oldest piece of man artwork has been discovered in South Africa : it is a very simple piece of rock with straight lines, and if I remember correctly it is 75000 years old. The point is that it means that at that time, those that we can now already call humans (homo sapiens) could store information out of their brain. There is also a nice section about the languages and the ethnic groups.
Overall, it is a nice museum, the visit is not very long and it is very central in Jo'burg, so, an easy thing to do ! Besides, the museum shop is really nice.

After the museum, I went to what seems to be the preferred weekend destination of the people here : a shopping mall. There are a lot of shopping malls in Jo'burg, they are huge. Personally, I go there mainly to buy food, and to walk around, but I'm not really fond on shopping anyway. So, I bought some food, especially a boerewors, the local sausage (very good, but I'm sure the one I buy at the supermarket is not the best one !!).

Sunday

Again a very nice winter day: sunny and warm during the day (freezing at night). The cold wind that was blowing on Friday and Saturday is not there anymore, so, time to go out ! I decide to go to the Johannesburg Zoo.
At a bus station on 7th street (close to Rosebank), I saw this mysterious writing :

I am really not sure what is meant by "France is bacon", I understand it's a reference to a famous pun "Knowledge is power, France is bacon" (where one should read Francis Bacon). But in the context of abortion, talking about bacon is interesting :-)

Then I headed to the zoo. At first, I just wanted to go walking at the Zoo Lake park, but then I thought I may just as well go the the zoo :
- positive points: it's a nice place, nice park, a lot of families go there, you can bring your pic-nic, you can see some animals (it's a zoo, after all)
- negative points: it's a zoo
I don't really like zoo's, especially in a country where all these animals (well, not all) live next door in the National Parks. But if you are in Jo'burg for a few days and don't have time to go to the Kruger, then the zoo can be an interesting alternative. Note that for the Rhino (see picture below), it is one that was hunted, it received 6 bullets and got its horn cut, but survived. The zoo is for this one a safe place, in a way.

So, I won't show too many pictures of these animals "in prison", because if you think of it, it's just like what you would see in any zoo in the world, and it's a bit sad. But I can't wait to go and see the National Parks !

African elephant

Rhino

Hippo

The lions sleep today

This one just woke up: I like the hair style (do I look the same ? :-)

Giraffe

I finished the day by a quick look at the African Craft Market (in Rosebank), not to buy, but to see what kind of stuff they have. It's a market with "traditional" stuff, clearly oriented for tourists and people looking for "authentic" souvenirs, and they have nice stuff. I understood that these are not only things from South Africa, but from the whole continent.

Under African Skies (II)

Yesterday night we had the chance to see an exceptionally long total lunar eclipse. It was really an impressive moment, as the moon really completely disappeared, and only a pale red light moon was visible. At the same time, the whole sky became full of stars that one usually doesn't see during full moon. So, it was quite nice !

Unfortunately, I don't have a tripod, so the photos are not very good when the moon was really in the Earth shadow. I needed to increase the sensitivity of the sensor, and the photos are quite noisy.

Anyway, here are a few shots, and "compilations" of pictures throughout the eclipse.

Red moon - actually the less noisy picture I could make ...

The moon disappearing (look at the picture starting on the bottom-right)

The sky on a long exposure time (30 seconds, I think) ...

Almost full moon after the eclipse

Under African Skies

I have been 4 weeks "Under African Skies" ...

Joseph's face was black as night 

The Southern Cross.

The pale yellow moon shone in his eyes 

 

His path was marked

By the stars in the southern hemisphere 

 

And he walked his days 

 

Under african skies  

 

Sunday morning visitors

This morning I found a half mouse in the garden. Yes, a half mouse - I won't show pictures, but I guess the cat I saw on Friday had a nice Sunday brunch.
I also had the visit of one of these birds with  long beak.

Common - but wrong - beliefs : act 1

"Oh, you're going to live in South Africa ? It's gonna be very warm, there !"
I have heard that several times before leaving. In most people's mind, "Africa" is closely linked to "heat", "sun", even "desert". I guess if you go to Mali or Sudan, it's not completely wrong. But in this particular case, the word "South" in front of "Africa", seems to make quite a big difference. For Europeans (or people from the north hemisphere in general), going south is a synonym of looking for warmth ! But of course, in the south hemisphere, it just means going away from it.

All I want to say here, is that I'm freezing ...

Trying to watch TV. The small heater is now my best friend ... And I will not cut my hair.

It looks exaggerated, doen't it ? Now look at this graph, showing the temperature since I arrived ...

Temperature trend in Jo'burg, from May 15th to June 4th [source : http://www.wunderground.com]

It was OK at the beginning : 16 degrees by day, 12 by night, not too bad, even with the very, very bad thermal isolation here. But look at the night of Just 1st, and you'll understand that I was really freezing. Because -3 degrees, when all you have between yourself and the outside, is a window (and OK, 7 blankets), the least cm2 of your body that's out of the blankets freezes ! And I mean, this is real, the grass is frosted in the garden every morning !
On the positive side, the trend seems to be an increase of the temperature after a cold front ... ;-) And it's good because it's more and more difficult to start my wreck in the morning !

The immediate consequence is on the food. The salad, tomatoes, etc., that I bought because my body internal clock was still in summer, are still in the fridge ... And I cook winter stuff, lentils, soups, etc. !!

Lentejas con chorizo.

Judias blancas con chorizo y morcilla.

Unfortunately, I will soon run out of good Spanish products !

OK now, some facts about Jo'burg ...
Johannesburg is on the 26th parallel (south), a sub-tropical zone. But it is in altitude (~1800m above sea level), therefore the weather is rather temperate. Summers (December, January) are warm but not too hot (about 25 degrees Celsius), usually sunny with heavy showers and thunderstorms(*) in the evening. Winters are mild, but with a dry and clear weather, very sunny. Temperatures in winter can drop to a few degrees during the day, especially during "cold fronts", i.e. when the wind comes from the Drakensberg mountains (Lesotho) and bring the cold. This is the general picture.
From my humble experience, so far, it's a fairly good picture. When I came in February, it was very warm, rather sunny, and every afternoon there was a heavy rain lasting no more than 1 hour. This cools down the temperature, and with the clouds you can see wonderful sunsets. For the winter weather, I think this year is particularly cold (at least, it's what people tell me), but usually when there is a cold front, it is only a few days and then it's much better. I hope so !
I should mention also that South Africa has a quite large variety of climates. If you go north, it becomes warmer, even in winter -- also because you get lower in altitude. If you go south-east, towards Durban, it is more tropical : humid and warm all year (and rather hot in summer). South and south-west, towards the Cape, it is usually very humid (rain) in summer, and cold in winter. West and north-west seems warmer.
Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to check all this by myself, but I'll try to ;-)




(*) Johannesburg is the city in the world that is most often hit by lightnings ...