| Unlike other South African cities (such as Cape Town, with its world-famous Table Mountain, and Durban, with its dramatic beachfront parade of towering hotels) Johannesburg has no obvious single feature to distinguish it from many other drab and sprawling inland cities. The 30-minute drive from the really quite impressive and efficiently managed Johannesburg International Airport serves as a good introduction to this city. From here, a six-lane highway (the R24 and N12) carves a path first through a high-tech industrial and commercial district, then through leafy, upper-income suburbia, passing between Eastgate Shopping Centre (arguably Africa’s largest) and Bruma Lake Market World (self-proclaimed ‘Africa’s Biggest’), before entering Hillbrow, a gangster and vagrant-riddled high-rise flatland, home to 42 different nationalities from Africa alone. |