Port Elizabeth’s place in history

Port Elizabeth. It sounds old, like the kind of place you would go for a quiet time. It is part of the wider Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan area with nicknames like the friendly city, windy city or even Africa’s water sport capital; it is a fascinating destination in itself.
Forget the fast pace and clinical feel of Johannesburg, or the quietly posh look of South Africa’s other well-known city, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth has its own feel.
Landing here was not quite in the traditional way. Docking early in the morning by ship eager to get to shore and explore, or something pretty close, sounds almost like the characters from Robert Luis Stevenson’s book Treasure Island. Only there were no pirates here, just chaps eager to set foot on solid ground after a couple of days out at sea. Read more

Proud pulse of Jo'burg

Sawubona. At first I thought this was just the name of the South African Airways in-flight magazine, but a discreet check on the Internet a few hours after landing in Johannesburg, South Africa, told me it was a greeting. Sawubona (hello)! 

To be frank, I have covered, some might say extensively, the Kenyan tourism market, but the South African tourism market and the country'€™s tourism marketing body, South African Tourism, have always found a way to give the Kenya Tourist Board a run for their money. The image of jostling siblings comes to mind.

Touch down at Johannesburg and the OR Tambo Airport tells you this is a new kettle of fish altogether. Neat, spacious and fast. Suddenly, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport looks like a poor upcountry cousin. Read more

DaVinci Hotel, Johannesburg

It was summer down south and the thoroughfares looked bare, at least compared to Nairobi. No, this is not the first stanza of a jumbled up poem, this is Johannesburg in South Africa. Checking into the Davinci Hotel, you would have been forgiven for thinking you were in some Western capital. More here

Of school watchmen and laptop thieves

If only I had a laptop in Standard One; or my first year of university for that matter — or the last…. A good number of the Generation Y upstarts possess a couple of certificates. Some call them ‘computer application certificates’. What few say, however, is that the only applications these certificates might give you a license to is Microsoft Office.
It’s interesting how a good number of these proud owners of ‘computer application certificates’, yours truly included, had to endure a couple of weeks going to a ‘college’ behind some alley. That or at a corridor on the third floor of dusty building to learn that a mouse has nothing to do with animals and booting has nothing to do with your legs. More here

Sucasa

The housing market has been characterised by concerns of the lack of focus of other cadres of housing, choosing to concentrate on the higher end of the market.
Enter Sucasa. Located in Mlolongo, off Mombasa Road, this is a project of the Suraya Property Group, exploring new horizons in the industry. The project is expected to change the face of this area with the developers eager to set a trend around which the rest of the place can develop.
Sucasa comprises of bedsitters, studio apartments, and one and two bedroom units, and is aptly called ‘the starter home’.
While bedsitters, and even single rental rooms, have been in the market for a long time, this is the first time to have a project of this size dedicated to this kind of units. More here

Magnificent Cape Town

Stepping into the South African city of Cape Town, you are hit with the overwhelming feeling of being in some pristine holiday resort.
It is a far cry from what you would expect of South Africa’s second most populous city behind Johannesburg, and the seat of the Western Cape.
The clean streets and the muted feeling of a light hearted heady feel that seems to come over me whenever I am in a coastal city almost caught me on the back foot.

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