First stop of our journey: the Lesedi Cultural Village

Today we finally leave by our car, Dr. Livingstone, for our journey; the first stop is short, just an hour away, but the important thing is to leave: we are too happy!

Also today we follow the directions of Google Maps and Maps.me that easily lead us to our destination, the Lesedi Cultural Village, near Lanseria.

We arrive around 11.00 am, we left deliberately early from Johannesburg, to have the whole day to enjoy the place, for a tour and even for shopping.

In theory the check-in is at 2:00 pm but our room is ready, so we bring all our things inside; much better this way!

The Lesedi Cultural Village is a structure that you can visit in a day, even from Johannesburg, or you can also stay overnight; we have chosen to sleep here because we want to experience it to the full.

Here five villages of five different tribes were reconstructed: the Ndebele, the Zulus, the Xhosa, the Sotho and the Ledi; the villages serve to show visitors the traditional life of these populations, their habits and their culture, but some huts are as well the rooms where the guests stay.

So you can experience what it means to sleep in a Zulu hut with a large rounded roof made of straw and wood or in white houses with colored Ndebele decorations or in the conical huts of the Basotho, or of the Ledi or the Xhosa; obviously inside the rooms are equipped with all the comforts, but when you go out you are in a traditional village.

We are in the Zulu village and, when we arrive, we are welcomed by some Zulus who seem to live here, while instead they are there for guests to explain and to answer questions about the traditional life of this population.

We leave the suitcases in the room and immediately go for a tour, of course we start from our Zulu village; they did it really well, it is not even clear that some huts are rooms for guests, if there were not the numbers on the doors you would not be able to distinguish them from the other huts.

Later we will take a tour with a guide who will explain us many interesting things, so now we just look around and take some pictures, as there is a good light.

At 1:00 pm we go to lunch, there is no one, initially we think either we are alone or the other guests have already had lunch, but shortly after arrive those who have made the cultural visit this morning.

The restaurant is very special, the inside walls are all decorated with images of tribes and animals; also the food is great!

After lunch we take a tour of the souvenir shops looking for something nice to buy.

There are many souvenirs that can be found everywhere and then there are some more special items such as the Zulu headdress.

We buy the headdress of married women, it is very beautiful and particular, a sort of big round and flat hat at the top; we also buy some items to gift as there are more beautiful items than elsewhere.

We sit at the Shebeen Bar that has the tables and chairs made with recycled objects, for the chairs we are in doubt if they are made with fuel tanks or tubs; the result is, however, that they are very comfortable.

At 4:30 pm our cultural visit begins, honestly we do not know what to expect, if something too touristic or culturally interesting, but we also came here to discover this aspect.

First they accompany us to a theater where they have recreated distinctive elements of the villages of the five tribes; our guide tells us some interesting information and then they show us a few minutes video that illustrates the history of South Africa seen from the perspective of these populations.

Once the video is finished, we go out and start our tour.

The first village we visit is the Zulu, who originate from the area where the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal is now located; in this village is our hut-room.

Our guide shows us the shape of the village, the various clothes, all beautiful and special, that are worn by men, single women and married women; he shows us the structure of the different huts and their respective uses and also a series of commonly used objects.

The second village is that of the Basotho who are originally from South Africa and who later gathered in today's Lesotho.

They wear cone-shaped straw hats, reminiscent of the shape of the mountains of their lands, and have also adopted, as part of their traditional costume, the rubber boots they wore when working in the mines.

Then we go to the village of the Xhosa, this is the tribe to which Nelson Mandela belonged; they do not seem to have traditional clothes but the guide shows us a curiosity: both men and women smoke a pipe, but the pipe used by women is much longer and the reason is simple and practical, in fact it is not to poison the child behind the back, it's really ingenious.

It’s then the turn of the Ledi, tribe that we had never heard of until now; they have a curious peculiarity: men wear kilts like the Scots!

The reason? It is the custom of the Ledi, as for other tribes, not to attack or kill women in war; the English army, when had to face them, knowing of this custom, sent forward the Scottish soldiers who wore the kilt, the Ledi, until then they had seen only the British who wore the pants, so they believed that the Scots were women and they did not attack them, but this caused them to suffer a heavy defeat.

From that moment the Ledi wore the kilt so as not to forget what happened and not to be attacked.

A woman offers us what for them is a delicacy: grilled caterpillars, it seems bad to refuse but the appearance is not the most inviting ... in fact they are not very good, indeed ...

Finally we go to visit the village of Ndebele, this population, native of Zimbabwe and the North-Eastern part of South Africa, has a particularity that makes them unmistakable: they paint their houses with geometric drawings; they are the women who make these paintings and use bright or dark colors according to their mood.

Another peculiarity of the Ndebele is their jewelry and clothing, women are very beautiful; statues that portray them are often found in the shops, like the one we bought at the Rosebank Art & Craft Market in Johannesburg.

After the tour of the villages we sit around the fire for about a quarter of an hour with the other guests and we take the opportunity to exchange a few words and get to know each other: a couple arrives from Pretoria, practically playing at home, the others are Americans.

Soon they call us in the theater; they have prepared a tribal dance show of the five tribes, even if the Zulus are the ones who eventually seem to have more rituals and ceremonies.

At the end of the show our cultural visit is over; it was very interesting, even if the villages were rebuilt for the occasion; we have indeed discovered many interesting aspects of these populations.

We have dinner in the same restaurant where we had lunch and then we seat around the fire for a while ... this is one of the most cherished moments of a trip to Africa: in the heat of fire, the wood logs that, little by little, start to be licked by the flames and then become incandescent, the crackling and the sparks that flow from it; the starry sky above us and the silence all around ... a spectacle impossible to describe!

After a while we go to our Zulu hut, it's beautiful inside and we really like being here!

Good night!!!