Art And Culture in South Africa

South Africa's cultural side opens with a conversation about the recent past. A township tour in Cape Town — through the districts Black residents were forcibly moved into under apartheid — runs four and a half hours for 61 dollars; a guided walk through the city centre costs 91. Both routes are built around how the city works today and why.

The second layer is antiquity and craft. Outside Johannesburg lies the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage site where remains of early hominids were found: the trip takes five hours. The same length covers a visit to the Lesedi cultural village, with the traditional dances and daily life of the country's peoples, 325 dollars. The Cullinan mine, source of the largest gem diamond ever found, is shown over seven hours for 315 dollars.

Administrative Pretoria is covered in four hours on a run out from Johannesburg. A category of its own is an hour with a professional photographer in Cape Town or Johannesburg. GetExperience lists 9 cultural programmes in South Africa, from 61 to 414 dollars and one to eight hours long; pages state the guide's language and what the price covers.