A Traveller’s Perspective: South Africa — Part 1
The pandemic was a difficult time for a lot of people, but those who suffered the most, aside from the elderly and immunocompromised of course, were the travellers. I’m not talking about the vacationers, those who look forward to using their allotted 2 weeks off to fly to Mexico or Hawaii and relax at an all-inclusive resort, I’m talking about those for whom being somewhere else is their “raison de vivre”; those who, if they’re not currently away from home, are busy planning their next trip. People like me.
April is usually the time I begin mapping out my yearly summer trip, typically to Germany to visit family. By that time in 2020, however, Vancouver was in the midst of an unprecedented shut down of normal life. Forget travelling out of the country, the majority of the population weren’t even leaving their homes! While I bent the rules and rebelliously roamed the empty streets alone, I was going stir-crazy knowing that international travel was out of the question for the foreseeable future.
I began bingeing travel documentaries and planning fictitious trips, desperate to get my fix, but when I looked out my window, reality came crashing back down on me: I was stuck in Vancouver.
It went on like this for weeks, until one day I stumbled upon an app that would end up having a greater impact on my life than I ever imagined possible. Enter, TuneIn Radio…
For those who don’t know, TuneIn Radio is an app that, through the magic of the internet, allows users to listen to radio stations from anywhere in the world in real time. I first used it to tune in to my favourite station in Germany, HR4. The sounds emanating from my headphones transported me directly to Oma’s house in Eschbach near Frankfurt; I could almost smell the bratwurst and hand-picked Kohlräbchen bubbling away in the kitchen.
It soon became clear that German radio stations would evoke too many memories and only serve as a reminder that I would not be going there that year; no, I needed something new, something fresh. I pulled out some materials that I’d snagged from the UBC travel agency before school was cancelled for the year, and came across a brochure about South Africa. Intriguing…
In 2015, I (temporarily) quit my job to travel for the fall, with the intention of visiting as many places as I could. At that time, I had family, Matt and his wife Allison, in South Africa. When they invited me to come visit them in Johannesburg, I immediately booked a flight, but right before I left Vancouver, I cancelled the trip, letting media reports of crime and violence convince me it wasn’t worth the risk. Instead, I played it safe and stayed within North America and Europe.
For the next few years every time I spoke with Matt he would jokingly remind me of my decision, and not going became one of my biggest regrets. He and Allison eventually moved back to Canada, bringing with them any chance I thought I had of ever visiting South Africa.
Remembering how I had let fear get the best of me all those years ago, I felt it was my duty to find out what the country was really like outside the often exaggerated western media reports. So, I opened the TuneIn Radio app, typed Johannesburg, and clicked on the first result that popped up. It was a station called GrootFM.
Following a 30 second ad, my ears were filled with sounds that were foreign yet familiar. The language being sung was distinctly European, but the beat had an African flare to it. I Shazamed the song, and was introduced to Juanita du Plessis. With that, the doors to the world of Afrikaans music were opened wide.
I began listening to GrootFM every night before going to bed, tuning in to the station’s morning show, and downloading nearly every song they played. Before long, my newly-created South Africa playlist was filling up with songs from Afrikaner artists such as Kurt Darren, Bok van Blerk, and Francois van Coke.
One night, while listening to GrootFM, they played an English song I was not a fan of, and I figured I’d check out another station until it was over. I went through the list of Johannesburg-based broadcasters, and clicked on one that looked interesting. It was called CliffCentral.
I’ve been listening to talk radio for as long as I can remember. There’s just something about tuning in to hear people express their views, debate one another, or tell stories that’s always appealed to me. So when the ad finished and the first words I heard were “Why can’t this government do anything right?,” I was hooked.
There were three people on the show, Gareth, Phumi, and a guest, each respectfully letting the other talk before proceeding to tear their argument apart. At the end of the hour, the station went to break, and I learned that the segment, called “The Burning Platform,” was a weekly feature of a longer daily program called the Gareth Cliff Show.
The following night, I tuned in an hour earlier on YouTube, and caught the beginning of the show. It soon became a routine, and if I missed it at night, I’d listen to the podcast version the following morning.
It didn’t take long before I got to know the crew and their personalities. Every day aside from Thursday’s Burning Platform segment, Gareth was joined by two or three co-hosts, Mbulelo, Siya, and Leigh-Ann, each of whom brought something different to the program.
Mbulelo was direct, unapologetic, and had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of any topic the team discussed, Siya was young and full of energy, giving his older co-hosts a glimpse into the life of a Gen Z-er, and Leigh-Ann was always up to date on the latest TikTok trends and pop culture gossip.
Gareth? Well, he was the face of the show and the glue that held the team together. He had an opinion everything and an unmatched ability to keep the conversation entertaining and informative. Better yet, he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind no matter who it offended. Their chemistry was unmatched, and each episode was better than the one the day before.
Every so often, especially on Fridays, one of the regulars would be replaced by a special guest for part of the show. Among them were Gord, a hilarious writer and avid roller skater, and Ben, a fitness junkie.
Experts were also frequently brought on to discuss everything from mental health to collectibles, and a number of national celebrities also made appearances, showcasing just how tight-knit the community was down there.
I listened to Cliffcentral religiously. It helped scratch the pandemic-induced travel itch that had been plaguing me since March 2020, and for two hours each day I was, for all intents and purposes, somewhere else.
The show was obviously meant for those living in South Africa, and on numerous occasions I found myself googling names, events, places, and other references to things I’d never heard of. Day by day, I was immersing myself further into their reality, not the one portrayed by western media. I felt like I was becoming a local in a place I’d never even set foot in, and it was incredible.
I wrote in to the show frequently during their Youtube livestream, and they often replied. I initially hid the fact that I lived in Canada in an attempt to blend in, but couldn’t hold it back when, during their winter in July, they started complaining about temperatures dipping to 10 degrees. I became a regular in the comments section, and soon, certain members of the crew recognized me by name.
One day, I tuned in to a livestream hosted by Mbulelo on Instagram. He was ranting about a recent sporting event. I typed in the chat box “Greetings from Canada!”
“Hey Jarryd,” he said into the camera. “Are you South African?”
“Half German, half Canadian,” I replied in the chat.
He told a quick story about having worked in Whistler, then went back to his rant. The following day, I added him as a friend on Facebook, and to my surprise he accepted.
In 2021, I wrote a post celebrating Cliffcentral’s seventh anniversary, and explained how even though I’d only been listening for a year, I felt like I was part of the community. Mbulelo saw it and sent me a message saying if I was ever in South Africa, he’d show me around Johannesburg. Not only that, he said he’d listened to my podcasts and enjoyed them, which was quite the compliment.
Siya left the team that year, and Mbulelo eventually moved on to focus on his own sports show. While Gareth has continued to fill the airwaves with entertaining, dynamic personalities every day since, there was something special about those first couple years.
Listening to Cliffcentral exposed me to more of South Africa than any documentary or guidebook could ever have, but I soon realised that while my knowledge of day to day life was extensive, I knew very little about the country as a travel destination. For example, I could tell you which grocery store chain to go to, but not what Johannesburg’s #1 attraction was.
Eager to change that, I began bingeing YouTube videos by local creators, using the knowledge I obtained by listening to the podcast to sift through the thousands of clips to find the ones worth watching. I also consumed Netflix’s entire South African catalogue, and any other pirated movies I could find online.
In addition to the time I spent tuning in to Cliffcentral and watching videos every day, I frequently invested countless hours scanning through Google Maps while listening to South African music. Before long my map of the country was covered in a forest of pins, and my playlist was filled with not only Afrikaans hits, but dozens in English and Zulu as well.
During my last semester at UBC, I also enrolled in a course on South African history. If I was gonna spend all this time studying I might as well get credits for it, too, right?
Vancouver and Cape Town have very similar geography: city, mountains, ocean. The more time I spent mentally in South Africa, the more physical places around Vancouver transformed into their equivalents 10,000 miles away. The British Properties in West Van? That was Camps Bay. Lynn Valley? Newlands. Lonsdale Quay? The V&A Waterfront. I’d go grocery shopping while listening to Cliffcentral and have to remind myself sometimes that I was at Save-on-Foods, not Checkers, Whole Foods, not Woolies. I prefer not to go to Nofrills, so I never confused it with Pick n’ Pay…
I knew if I didn’t visit soon, I’d go crazy.
My girlfriend, Niloo, was supportive of my obsession, but although she enjoyed the music and occasionally sat in on the podcast, she made it clear the country was not number one on her list of post-pandemic destinations.
I accepted that fact as a challenge, and slowly chipped away at her scepticism by showing her Instagram reels highlighting the things I knew she would enjoy: safaris, beaches, food, and picturesque road trips.
It took months, but eventually she begrudgingly admitted that I’d succeeded in infecting her with the South Africa travel bug, and we began planning a trip together. I had originally wanted to go in July 2022, but was convinced by Mbulelo to hold off and come during their summer instead.
Niloo and I ended up spending our summer in Europe, and after extensive deliberation, we booked our flights to Johannesburg while sitting in my Oma’s kitchen. T-6 months ’til departure.
To be continued…
